coffee shop

He's sitting at the coffee shop waiting.

He always sits alone, but this time he's waiting for some one. It's nearly seven in the afternoon and he's been awake for two days straight with not even a cat nap to keep him energized. All he has is coffee that's downed by sugar.

He takes small glances outside from the glass window he's sitting next to, and when he sees who he's been waiting for, he takes another sip from coffee. Widening his eyes so when she walks into the shop she thinks he actually slept. She crosses the street before walking into the building and in an instant, she's seated right across from him.

"Rory," he says slowly, keeping his fingers against the hot cup in front of him. She still looks tired.

Her gloved hands reach out to take her flash cards before she smiles warmly at him. "Hello."

"Did you sleep well?" He asks, though he doesn't really care for the answer.

Somehow she understands that. She shrugs and pulls another set of index cards from her jacket pocket. It's way smaller than the ones she uses to study off of and they shouldn't interest Harry as much as they do, but they do. "I um, I went back on some notes and did some research. I'm not going to lie, but I also went to a website that interprets dreams."

Those cards are what's wrong with him? He looks at them and they suddenly look bigger than when he first saw them. "Something's wrong with me."

"No," she shakes her head. It isn't reassuring. "No, nothing is wrong with you. But-"

"There's a but," he mumbles. Lifts the coffee to his lips to try to warm himself.

"Bad dreams are the child of interpersonal conflicts. They occur mostly for men and the most common theme is disaster or the pending feeling of it. Are you following?"

He nods remotely. So far things are making sense. He doesn't like that they are, but they are. "Yeah."

"Okay. So recurring nightmares means you've been through a traumatic event. And it must have been really traumatic if you're even scared to sleep at all. You've either been scarred, or you're going through some kind of withdrawal and your body is coping with the loss of the feeling. Have you ever had an issue with alcohol or drugs or-"

"Traumatic event," he interrupts her. Time is being wasted and it's unnecessary.

"Great, because things are a lot harder if it's withdrawal. There were more notes on that than traumatic events."

She takes her gloves off and looks at him again.

"Do you know what the event is?" It doesn't sound like she's judging him.

"I think so," he lies anyway.

"So you know it has something to do with your girlfriend."

His leg starts shaking under the table. It brushes hers for a second, but he pulls away before she notices how consistently it's happening. "Yeah," he croaks out. "Yeah, I guess."

"And you said you haven't been sleeping well, which means you have artificial insomnia. If you keep training your body to stay up, it'll keep working and you won't be able to sleep when you actually want to. There were treatments for nightmares like the ones you have, but I need to know more before we try to do anything to take care of it. You need to address the problem head- on. Tell me whatever you can about what happened and if you ever feel uncomfortable, I'll go on with what I know and choose something."

"You want- You want me to tell you- now?" He asks. Everything is slowing around him. The air is feeling tight again but now it's different. Now he genuinely doesn't want her to give up on him if she's this close. All he has to do is tell her what happened and then tell her how he used to be. How Penelope used to be. But the pending fear that she'll leave before he can be fixed is more crushing than the thought of her not being able to find out what's wrong with him.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Not here. I don't want-"

"We'll go anywhere you want."

He wants to stall. Can't really find his way out until he looks over at her flash cards again. "Do you need help studying again?"

With another warm smile and soft glint of her eyes, she says, "No, not really."

• • •

She's just looking at him.

They're sitting on his living room floor and he has yet to say anything. He's looking at the polished floorboards but he feels her eyes on him. The fallen cardboard box labeled KITCHEN is relatively close, the scattered knives on the floor are only at arm's length.

He wants them next to him when he tells her why it's so important to keep her around.

"Ready when you are," she says slowly, pulling in his attention. She looks unsure now. He can see it in the way she's fidgeting with her fingers. The way her eyes are glued to him. Like maybe she's scared. Maybe she has him pegged down already as he is.

He's smart, but not people smart. Rory is people smart and maybe she's known what he is the whole time. And he's not ready. Not for something like this.

He sits back slightly and shifts his hands. Doesn't feel the sting on his hand until he looks at Rory. She's pointing at the space right next to him and when he turns to look, he sees that one of the knives has torn him. There's a thin line of scarlet and he uninterestedly shrugs before seeing her get to her feet. All it does is sting. "Where's your first aid?"

He drops his head back and gazes at the white ceiling. "Bathroom." He's calm for a moment. Tired, but he knows he won't be sleeping any time soon.

"Harry." His name sounds foreign coming from her. "Get up."

"I thought we were going to talk."

Her hands find their way under his arms and she signals for help. When he's at his feet, he looks at her hair that's tied behind her head. For some reason he wants to let it come undone. Pull at the ribbon until there's nothing it can keep up. "Talk to me then."

He's seated on the bathroom's toilet's closed lid and he can see her freaking out over all of the blood. It's dripping over his arms and staining his jeans, falling onto the floor and cascading down her own hand as she steadies him. He's seen more blood than this.

The faucet turns on.

"I don't know where to start," he says. The whisper isn't as quiet as it should be, bouncing off the tiled walls and echoing in the small space. She's too close to him.

There's so much red.

But he's seen more blood than this.

"Your girlfriend," she says, running his hand under the cold water from the faucet. The blood lightens in color as it mixes and then pools down the drain. He doesn't know how so much of it can pass through such a thin wound. "Tell me about the first person you ever loved."

With a tired drop of his head from the excessive blood loss, he separates his dry lips, forgetting why he's been so scared. Words are just words, he reasons. His head is light now and maybe he's tired because he hasn't slept in days, or maybe he's tired because the coffee has left his system. Maybe he's tired because he's losing so much blood.

So much blood, but he's seen so much more.

And still, he finds a way to speak the truth that's been bothering him. "I killed her."