THE PROLOGUE

"Come on, Del. You have to come, it's tradition."
Delilah shook her head at her best friend's pleads, knowing that she was just going to get drunk.

"Jordan, I'm not trying to get drunk tonight, okay?" Delilah stated, closing her laptop to put an end to her endless homework pile.

They sat in the conjoined dorm room living room area, the rest of the dorms were empty—mostly all were at the bars out in town.

It was a Friday night—the end of exam week.

It was tradition to go to the bars on the last day of exams, and get extremely wasted.

Jordan sat on the couch across from her, putting her finger to her lips as if she were pondering a thought.

"Okay, how about this? You go, and just have a couple shots!" Jordan quickly said the rest of her sentence after hearing Delilah sigh with annoyance.

Delilah threw her head back to lean on the couch, contemplating her friend's offer.

She didn't want Jordan to go to the bars alone with no one to give her a ride home, and she didn't trust people.

She decided to bite the bullet.

"Fine. I'll go." Delilah began to say, seeing Jordan already fist-bumping the air.
"But I'm not drinking, I don't give a fuck about tradition."
Delilah finished with a huff, putting her laptop on the coffee table in front of her.

The homework of staring for hours at the anatomy of the human body would have to wait.

Jordan made a sarcastic smile, "Not making any promises."

~

Jordan was true to her word, because once they arrived at the busy bar, the first thing Jordan did was order two sets of shots for her and Delilah.

Delilah looked around her, feeling the constant brush of a person trying to get through to the drinks or hearing the obnoxious chattering of the people around her.

The dimly lit bar was loud, hot, and overcrowded with drunk people and sorority groups—this was all definitely not Delilah's scene.

But even so, she sat next to her friend at the bar while she watched Jordan bottom tequila shots like they were water. Jordan would be drunk within the next 30 minutes, Delilah decided.

Delilah took this time to observe the people at the bar, many of them were definitely familiar.
Most of them went to her college, and some were even from her dorm complex.

The bar had many different types of people, all of them drinking and conversing while shaded by the building's dim light that providing a humming yellow glow to everyone's face.

The energy of the bar was energetic and overwhelming all at once, and Delilah didn't like it at all.

She shouldn't be here. This isn't what she liked to do at all.

Why had she allowed Jordan to talk her into this?

Before she could finish her silent contemplation to leave, she felt a harsh nudge that almost sent her soda flying into her lap, but strangely, it didn't.

"Oh, damn it. That was on me."
An accented voice apologized from behind her, prompting her to turn around in her bar stool.

Her eyes met the piercing gaze of a young man who had an apologetic yet smug look on his face.
Delilah felt her breath hitch at the pure attractiveness of the man—from his stubble to his wavy hair, to his cross necklace that sat upon his tattooed chest that peeked from the undone buttons of his dress shirt.

He was a new face. He was a new change of scenery.

He didn't go to her college, she definitely would've remembered his face.

He was flawless. He was devilishly handsome.

She saw his lips slowly curl into a smile at her frozen stance, giving her the same look over.

Delilah could feel his eyes trailing from her low-cut shirt that Jordan had made her wear, to her skinny jeans that were loosely cuffed around her boots.

Her body tensed when his emerald green eyes met hers again. His eyes seemed to be the most passionate shade of green there could be.

"It's uh..it's not a big deal." Delilah stuttered, trying to keep her composure as she turned around in her bar stool again.

Her eyes widened once she faced away from the man, feeling Jordan's drunken gaze on her.

She made quick eye contact with her, seeing her mouth the words, "Live a little!"

Delilah knew Jordan was drunk, but once she felt the presence of the man now sitting beside her, her eyes widened once again. 

"Perhaps I can buy you a drink to make up for it." The man offered in attractive accent, prompting Delilah to swerve her stool to look at him again.

He was persistent, she'll give him that.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Make up for what?" Delilah didn't see anything needing to be made up for.
She wasn't one for small talk at bars.
Actually, she wasn't one for bars, at all.

The man smirked once again, "For spilling your drink, of course." He gestured to Delilah's soda which was now sideways, the small amount of content now spilling onto the counter.

"What the hell..?" She muttered, picking up the cup to try to stall the spillage. Her cup wasn't spilt just a minute ago, she was sure of it.

The man held up his hand to the bartender, gesturing that he needed to clean up something.

When the bartender came down with brown napkins, the man cleaned up the mess for Delilah. She was too confused to even understand how the cup spilled in the first place.

"There," The man finished cleaning up the soda which was now sure to leave a sticky residue. "Now, how about that drink?" He leaned on his arms on he counter, smirking at Delilah.

She felt a rough jab in her arm, knowing it was Jordan who did that. She rolled her eyes, shrugging her shoulders.

It was only a drink, right? What harm could one drink really do?

"Sure." She smiled softly seeing the reaction of the man's curling smirk.

God, he's hot.

The man motioned to the bartender, holding up two fingers to symbolize two shots for him and Delilah.

It was then that Delilah realized she didn't even know the name of the man, yet here he was, buying her a drink.

"I never got your name." She smiled, seeing the man lower his head with a chuckle—his hair fell over his shoulders to fall around his face.

"Well, that's because I never gave it to you, darling." He smirked, peeking over at Delilah as he took a drink from his shot glass.

Delilah bit her lip between her teeth, deciding that he was one of those guys. She turned to face the bartender as he prepped her drink, placing it on the counter before her.

She let the fact that she had been shot down for the first time, set in.

"Harry." She heard the accented voice state next to her. "The name's Harry. And yours?"

"Delilah." She smiled softly as she turned to face Harry once again, and he nodded with a smirk.
"That's a beautiful name."

"There you go, girl. There you go." Delilah could hear Jordan say through a chuckle as she patted her shoulder before walking away to other friends to give Delilah some privacy with Harry.

Not that she needed it.

The two spoke on and on about random things, including how Delilah was in college studying medicine, and how her friend Jordan made her come to this bar.

She was a talkative drunk, she would find out.

She watched in awe as Harry downed all his shots. He had an insane alcohol tolerance, one that almost seemed inhuman. He drank at least 30 straight shots, and he didn't seem to be buzzed or fazed at all.

It was incredible.

She found that Harry was very attentive, and a good listener. He seemed genuine.
  She liked him.

"You're planning on becoming a doctor? That's a very attractive profession." Harry smirked as he peered over the rim of his shot glass at Delilah, blushing.

"Yeah, I am." She was proud of herself and her newfound confidence.

Delilah watched as Harry smirked while he traced his ringed fingers around the rim of his now empty shot glass. "Are you free after this?"

Delilah almost choked at his question. "What?"

"I said, are you doing anything after this? Maybe we could head back to my place." He continued, his devilishly handsome smirk grew to be a smug one—as if he knew her answer would be yes.

It was here that Delilah saw his ulterior motives of this entire night.

Delilah couldn't help but feel offended and disappointed that he had been talking to her all night just to ask to have sex with her in the end.

She should've known. She should've known that a guy as attractive and flirtatious at Harry wouldn't purposefully hold an entire conversation with a college girl just for fun.

He just wanted sex.

"Are you serious?" She scoffed, shaking her head. "No."

Harry was taken aback, and furrowed his eyebrows at her answer. "What?"

The hanging bar light above them began to flicker, but not enough to be noticeable. He didn't mean to do that, he was just confused.

Usually, when he came to bars to do this, girls would leap at the chance to come home with him. He usually came to these bars to have flings whenever he got bored or was looking for some action, and he was always successful.

It was easy.

But not her. Why not Delilah?

"I said no. Thanks for the drinks, but fuck off."
She repeated, turning her bar stool to face the drink counter, staring at the infinite number of liquor bottles and glasses.

She was irritated, and didn't want to see his charming face again.

Harry watched with somewhat of a satisfaction as she took another swig of her shot.

This one is different, he thought to himself.

"My apologies. That was..ungentlemanly of me, forgive me." He never apologizes to women like this, and he couldn't believe he was doing so right now.

Delilah rolled her eyes with a sarcastic smile, reaching into her pocket for what Harry assumed to be her phone so that she could give him her number.

But instead, she pulled out her wallet to place a tip to cover her shots, and slammed it on the bar counter. "Goodnight, Harry."

She didn't care that she might be drunk, she just wanted to go home.

She stood from the bar stool, grabbing her phone and taking out her car keys before beginning to walk away from Harry, leaving him utterly confused.

Yet, strangely attracted to the rebellious charisma that Delilah depicted. He smirked to himself while he took a drink, watching her walk outside.
He'd be sure to keep an eye on her, surely..after a few more drinks, of course.

Delilah called an Uber to pick up Jordan in about an hour, that way she had time to hang out a little more. She drove away from the bar alone in her own car, her breath smelling of alcohol.

She hated men. She hated that she was so easily charmed by Harry, and didn't even see it coming.

She must've been so deep in thought and intoxicated that she didn't even see the stop sign she zoomed past through an intersection.

It all happened so fast. There was a big truck that was coming from the opposite road—her blind side. In a second's time, the massive truck plowed into Delilah's side of her car, sending her car rolling over and over again.

With each roll of her car, the windows shattered, the car door bent inward, her air bags went off. Shards of glass pricked every park of her skin, and her head hit the steering wheel many times.

When the car finally came to a rolling, tumbling stop, all she could hear was the sound of screeching and car honks. Her ears were ringing, and her head throbbed horribly. She landed right side up, and the jolt of the car balancing worsened her injuries.

She felt something like water dripping from her head, and she limply reached her hand to realize that it was blood. She couldn't breathe, and every single inch of her body hurt like hell.

She trying calling for help, but her pleas came out husky and quiet. Her vision grew full and dark, not able to see anything anymore but blurred figures. She could hear the sound of sirens from police cars and ambulances.

She found it harder to breath, it felt like she was suffocating.

She knew she was dying.

And in nothing more than a second, her vision went black.
She did not think that she would open them to see the world again.

But then, Delilah did open her eyes.

She opened her eyes to see that she was standing in the street of her crash, but instead of being inside the car, she was looking at herself.

She looked down at her hands and body, to see that she didn't have a scratch—as if she never got in the crash.

But when she looked up again, she saw herself in the car in front of her.

It was like an out of body experience.

She stared at her bloodied body, not breathing and horribly injured.
  She saw the medical help walk around and through her seemingly invisible body to carefully extract her physical body from her totaled car, and put her on a stretcher.

"What the hell..?"
Delilah felt herself panicking, not knowing how or why she was able to see this.

She just died, right? She's dead?

"It's weird, I know." A familiar, accented voice called out behind her. Delilah froze stiff more than she already was.

She turned around cautiously to see the familiar, roughly handsome face of the man she left at the bar. Same button up dress shirt that wasn't buttoned, same tattoos, same ripped jeans, same black boots.

"You.." Delilah muttered, her words as confused and vulnerable as she felt.

Harry.

Harry seemed to be just as surprised that it was Delilah that he was now supposed to escort.
His eyes widened at her reveal of her no doubt, beautiful face.

He smirked. "Delilah. Lovely to see you, again."

Delilah put her hands stressfully to her head, looking around—frazzled.

No. No, this makes no sense at all.

"What the hell is happening?" She asked frantically, confused as to how Harry could see her in the first place, coincidently after her crash.

Harry chuckled as he took his hands out of his jean pockets. "Funny you should mention hell, because that's exactly why I'm here." He ominously stated, taking a few steps closer to Delilah.

She stood uneasily as he approached, unsure as to why she didn't just run. But then again, where would she run to?

Harry extended a ringed hand to offer her to take, and Delilah's eyes met his.

"Come on. Hell is this way, sweetheart."

Author's Note :

welcome to the prologue!

i'm so excited to keep writing for this story, so stay tuned, & feel free to drop a comment & vote!

thank you so much!

word count: 2573

2.23.2020