LUNES
9:11 PM

Dahlia Gray

I cough into the sleeve of my baby blue sweatshirt, the smoke from my father's cigarette clogging the access to my lungs and I could barely breathe. This time was worse than before. This time, he didn't care enough to move away from his daughter.

We still haven't talked since that day.

Harlow spots me from a distance and his stoic features lit up, his eyes growing bright. A small smile curves the corner of his lips and his face glows against the night—like a star among the sky. Like he's alive.

That's something I've noticed from him. Harlow may share many similarities to my father that even I can't ignore, but he also has differences. That's important. He doesn't view the world as something meaningless, a means to survive, or sees them through an ambitionless lens—he has something more.

Something more than before.

I settle into the seat beside him, just as he drops the half-finished cigarette to the ground. It crushes beneath his shoes, but extinguished with a lingering fume—a fume I couldn't bear to ignore.

Another fit of coughs thrown into the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and I forced myself to look away, not wanting Harlow to see me in my condition. My health is slightly deteriorating, and this time, I had to pull out my inhaler to clear my chest.

"Hey," Harlow said, concern dripping from his voice as I feel his hand on my lower back. "Are you okay?"

I open my mouth but it was to pump the canister a second time, coughing out into the open. My throat burns, and I shake my head, trying to tell him that it's fine—but he received the wrong message. He stands from his seat and I feel the weight of his side lighten. Harlow stops in front of me, crouching on the ground. "Dahlia."

I take in a gasp of air, "I'm okay," I choke, trying to regulate my oxygen. "I just—the smoke." I point to the floor, where the remnant of the cigarette remains. My eyes trail down to the dirt, noticing a couple more discarded ones left over the past couple of months and I scrunch my nose in disgust, before a sad smile forms on my lips and an emptiness builds against my heart.

"What?" His eyes follow my gaze, looking to the ground. "Oh."

I swallow, "it wasn't here before." I mumble quietly, low enough that even Harlow couldn't hear. Or so, I hoped. He turns back to me, delicacy flashes through his blue irises, and a soft expression overtakes his features, his eyes searching for mine.

"Dahlia..."

"No, it's okay," I hesitate, the lie tasting bitter on the tip of my tongue. I begin to shake my head slowly. "No. No, it's not."

Harlow found my gaze, his blue eyes staring back at me and awaiting every word I ever wanted to say. I swallow a gulp, my heart drumming in my chest, and my eyes soften at him. Only him. "I'm sorry."

Harlow cups my cheek, the warmth of his hand acts as a blanket of comfort that I yearn for. "You don't have to fucking apologize to me."

"I know," I said, drawing a long breath. The tingling sensation of cigarette smoke tickles my throat, but I held it in. "I just—you—I," I clear my throat, shaking off all the nicotine. "You smoke."

He nods once.

I point to myself. "And I...hate smoking."

Harlow looks at me like he knows the direction this conversation is heading, but he doesn't stop me. He doesn't try to reprimand how smoking helps him or alleviates his stress, or is his act of comfort. He doesn't try to explain himself. He allows me to talk.

That's something different from my father.

"And I know," I suck in a breath of fresh air, my lungs inflating, "I know, I can't just ask you to stop smoking for me. I know we stopped our lessons so there's no point in changing. And I know, you're trying your best to keep your smoking away from me—but it's not working anymore."

It's more than that. He means more than he did before.

Harlow parts his lips, his wide eyes searching mine, trying to read my thoughts before they become spoken. He looks scared, actually—slightly petrified at what's about to come. I don't know why exactly.

"You shouldn't change for me," I begin, reminding him that his actions are his own—before anyone else. "But I, I just don't like smoking. There's no benefits. There's absolutely nothing. It's hurting you and you're killing yourself slowly and I...need you here."

Every cigarette you have ever touched should've been my lips.

The words caught him by surprise and he drew back his hand. I stop breathing, afraid of overstepping the invisible line but more afraid of holding back. I needed him to know. I've been afraid of many things in my life—afraid of speaking my truth and holding down emotions just to preserve the majority party—but this is different. He's different. He's my person and I don't want to lose him.

"I don't trust easily. I barely talk to my friends. I don't have a clue on who I want to be or where I want to go—but I need you. I know that. I need you here, and I need you to stay alive for me." The words shattering my heart worse than any heartbreak can. I cup his cheek in my hand, the same way he did for me. "I care about you. If you live or die today, you will never be nameless to me."

I'm not trying to say this so the gap between my father and Harlow could widen—Clayton Gray is the last thing on my mind right now—I'm saying this, because I need him.

Just as a friend, or more.

His eyes search my face, vulnerable and starry-eyed. I barely get to see him like this—and when I do, I feel like I have to take in the moment. Reid Harlow has more meaning to me than anything else in my life, and I need him to stay alive. If not for himself, for me.

If there's any time I ever wanted to be selfish, this is it.

"Dahlia," he whispers softly, like the wind in a field of meadows. "I'm not...I'm not the person you need. We're barely—fuck, we're barely anything. We don't have a title."

And I know. I know he doesn't want to label us, or even give a title that clings to the impression of who we are to each other. I understood that the day I agreed to get close to him—and this is not about that. The title, the brand, who we are to each other—that can wait.

I need him to live now.

"When I was contemplating suicide, there was no reason for me to live," I whisper, the remnants of the story still burns a hole through my heart. "I had no reason to. I didn't see anything for myself, I didn't want anything good to happen to me, I just wanted to end the pain and that was the quickest way for me. I could be happy then."

Harlow pulls himself from the ground and my hand slips from his cheek, brazing my palm against his warmth. He reclaims the seat beside me, and not once has his eyes lost contact with mine.

"But, then I realize—sometimes, you don't have to live for yourself. Sometimes, it's the little things. It's the hallaca my mom cooks on Christmas mornings, it's the stars I study at night, it's the mangos I'll never get to taste again, it's the new music I have yet to experience, and it's my mom." I pause, allowing him to take in all my words. My voice cracks at the next sentence. "It's my mom. Sometimes, you need to live for other things."

I feel breathless, like the wind was knocked out of me, but my words needed to be heard. Especially for him. "I'm not saying we need to talk about our relationship, and I'm not saying we need to brand it—I'm saying: cigarettes kill you. Tobacco kills you. All these things you're doing—to spite your brother, to live in the moment, all for a temporary bliss—is going to hurt you. Not just you, it's going to hurt me." I pause, just as Harlow turns away, his gaze pulls to the front. I felt ignored, and a breath of rage came to life inside of me. "Are you listening to me?"

He doesn't say anything, allowing the silence to consume us. They tick at my skin, like bugs waiting for a reaction, and my heart was throbbed in my throat. I watch him, waiting for him to say something.

I would never tell Harlow to change for me, but I want him to understand the consequences of his actions. That his life—despite how considerably small it is accounted for against the billions of population—matters. To strangers, to family, to me.

He says he's going to be forgotten, a name written off the books and never to be heard from again—but he won't. He'll never.

I'll keep him alive.

"Alive for the little things?" He repeats, slicing the silence with the thickness of his voice. His jaw sharpens subtly, almost unnoticeable to the superficial eye, but I picked it up. I watch him, trying to dictate the thoughts he had in mind, before I nod once.

"Alive for the little things."

Harlow turns back to me, his expression somber. His blue eyes trailing along the structure of my face: the outline of my jaw, the prominence of my nose, the curves to my lips. Then, he stops at the latter and my heart drops alongside. I held my breath, hoping, wishing he would initiate something.

We don't have a title. We're nothing.

Harlow creaks his brows, swallows hard and pulls his hands into fists. He sucks in a sharp breath, with whitening knuckles and forces himself to turn away—facing the front once more.

The hope in my chest dissipates, but I wasn't surprised. I press my lips together and face the front, maneuvering the same way he did. We watched the nothingness of the park and the stillness of the atmosphere—and we said nothing.

"Alive for someone."