It is midnight and I am lying here crying about nothing, but at the same time it is everything.

Nothing is wrong, but nothing is right, either - unknown

***

It was quiet. It was dark.

The middle of the night had always been my least favourite time of the day. It was the perfect time to think, since you could not sleep and there was not really anything else to do.

The middle of the night had always scared me. When I was younger I was afraid that there might be monster underneath my bed. My beloved father did not understand that, he always promised me that if I would not shut up, he would make me realise that monsters were not underneath my bed, but right in front of me. It was just another way of father to make clear to me that he wanted me to be strong. That he wanted me to be brave.

But then again, I was just six years old. I did not know anything about the world. I did not know what was coming. Maybe I would have appreciated my life back then more, maybe I would have been thankful for the carefree nights, in which monsters were the only thing I feared. 

My childhood was, to say at least, complicated. It could be one of the many reason why I was inside this place. With a father who could not love anything else but himself and a mother that loved everything too much except for herself I always felt alone.

The middle of the night was also the time for them to fight. My mother had always thought that I did not know about their fights. That is why they happened in the middle of the night. She would scream to my father, my father would beat her up, she would cry. And I would listen. That changed me as well. The first time I had heard my father had beaten my beloved mother I was scared, angry, sad. I vividly remember hearing her scream, hearing her cry. It was just one slap on her left cheek. Just one. But it changed everything.

I do not think that they every really loved each after that moment. If I would not speak, no one would. If I would not give them a hug, no one would. If I would not make them smile, nothing would. We had a huge house made for a big, happy family. But in reality we could not live up to those standerds. Not even a bit.

All of that happened at midnight. Midnight was the time I would cry until my eyes could not handle it anymore and I would fall asleep for a few hours. Midnight was the time my mother used to cry, it was the time my father used to lose his temper. It was the time I wished I was dead the most.

The silence in the room was broken with a short, unsteady sob. I frowned, realising that this sob had not left my lips but Harry's. My body tensed up, not knowing what else to do. Soon after this one silent sob many more followed. It took me a minute to realise that Harry was indeed crying in the middle of the night, as I had done many times before him.

Some part of me wanted to close my eyes and ignore his heart-breaking sobs. But there was a part of me who forbid me that. I could not let him suffer like that, not after what he had done for me. I had to collect all my courage for a moment, not really sure how he would react. Harry was like a ticking time-bomb. If you hit the wrong wire he would explode, but it you hit the right one he would stop ticking. The only thing I could do was hope that whatever wire I would hit, that it would be the right one.

'Harry?' I whispered really softly. For a moment I thought he had not heard me. His sobs stopped, and the room felt silent again. 'Harry, are you okay?'

Of course he was not. Why would he otherwise be crying? You do not cry if you are okay, unless it are happy tears but since we were not really in a place were anyone felt happy that could not be possible.

'Harry,' I said again, 'it is okay, you do not have to feel embarrassed. I will not laugh at you or make fun of you for crying.'

I tried to sound as kind and polite as I could, not wanting to hurt the poor boy even more. I had no idea why he was crying and since it was hard for me to imagine myself standing in another persons shoes I knew that I had to be as careful as I possibly could. However, at that moment all I wanted was for him to feel better, something that resulted in me trying to comfort him. 'P-Promise?' he whispered after a short silence. I nodded, only to realise a few seconds later that he could not see me. 'Yeah, I promise.'

'I am s-sorry for w-waking you up,' he cried silently. This made me feel incredibly bad about myself. He was the one crying, I needed to apologize to him even though I knew that I had probably nothing to do with the sadness he felt, he did not have to say sorry at all.  'You have nothing to be sorry about,' I said with a friendly voice. 'I want to help you, just like you did for me.'

'You mean be-before you snapped at m-me?'

I felt even more guilty, if that was even possible for what I had done. Was he crying because of me? Was I really that much of a bad person?

'I am so sorry for that,' I said with a cracked voice. 'I tend to hurt the people who try to help me. Maybe because I am too afraid of letting anyone in.'

'I f-feel you,' Harry reacted. 'Some p-people have w-walls around them. M-Mine are m-made of fucking s-steel.'

A small laugh escaped my lips hearing him swear. He made even the swear words sound incredibly adorable.

'Well I feel you as well,' I spoke softly. A comfortable silence fell upon us, one that I broke after a few minutes. 'So, do you want to talk about it? I will not tell anyone, not that there really is anyone to tell it to. But you know, you can talk to me.'

Accepting help was awfully hard for me, but offering it was not exactly easy either.

'No, not really,' Harry said, 'or maybe I do, but I am just too afraid.'

'Where are you afraid of?'

A small laugh escaped Harry's lips. 'You sound just like dr. Dolan.'

'O dear God no,' I cried out. 'I do not want to look like her. My hair would be ruined forever.'

Harry laughed again. His beautiful laugh filled the room. At that moment I decided that I wanted to hear his laugh many, many more times. I felt the urge to make him happy, to make him laugh. Which was odd since I never seemed to care about anyone else's well being.

'If you do not feel ready to talk to me just yet, that is fine. I get that. As long as you make a promise to me that I will hear that beautiful laugh a little more.'

A short silence fell and I directly started to wonder if I had said anything wrong. Maybe I asked too much, maybe I went too fast. It was hard for the both of us to forget about our history together, at that point all I could do was hoping he did not still feel any form of hate towards me.

'Alright,' Harry eventually said, 'I promise, if you promise me not to take your anger out on the wall anymore. The poor thing did nothing wrong to you.'

Now it was my turn to laugh as a feeling of relief floated through my veins knowing that he was not upset with me. 'Alright,' I said after him, 'I promise that as well.'

Maybe, just maybe, midnight was not the worst time of the day for me any longer after that night.