Till The Clock Strikes Gone

26 | my heart

The scene unfolding before Harvey made his body feel like it would stop functioning at any moment.

He watched as Eliza and William's eyes locked into each other and he felt like he could see each molecule of air between them turning and changing to transform themselves into a wall of concrete. They were near, hardly ten feet distance took the space between them, but in Harvey's eyes, they seemed very far from each other. They weren't saying or speaking anything but just looking at each other and he could see his daughter's expression start to portray something that looked like the beginning of fear.

Suddenly, she gasped and took a step back as her hands covered her mouth. Her eyes flickered from William to him and he could see the trembling of her body. William wasn't saying anything. He was still looking at her but his eyes...his eyes were sad and he looked sick.

All of a sudden, Eliza was storming out of the room and he heard her footsteps as she ran up the stairs.

"Eliza," he called out after his daughter but he heard the opening of her door.

He rushed behind her, giving William a last look and still found him rooted to the same spot. He ran upstairs and soon he was at Eliza's door and had flung it open.

"Eliza..." he said but stopped when he saw her.

She was kneeling in front of her open cupboard and in her hand, she held a small packet of what looked like the most disastrous things he ever saw in his daughter's hands. She was staring at him, wide-eyed and nervous, and he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. Shocked, he closed the door behind them and covered the distance to reach her.

She continued looking at him as he knelt beside his daughter and reached out to take the packet from her hands. It was a white one and as he peered inside, he instantly identified the contents it carried. He was horrified and he looked at his daughter with a disbelieving glance.

"Honey..." he began, but his throat felt parched; he didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry, Papa," she said the words and he felt his heart breaking to pieces when he looked at her green eyes which were now filled with shame and revulsion...for herself.

He kept the stash aside as he sat in front of her, legs crossed and looked at her. She looked so weak and now that Harvey knew the reason, he wanted to kill himself. He stretched out a hand and placed it on her head.

"When did you start taking that, honey?" he asked gently.

"A few months ago, Papa," she said and began to sob. "I'm so sorry. I started it because everyone did. James, Arabella, Knight, and all the popular kids. Everyone did it and I didn't know that it would lead to all this." She sobbed as she lowered her head, not meeting her father's eyes.

Harvey looked at her, confused. "What are you saying, honey?"

"This Papa," she said, pointing towards the stash. "These things are making me see and feel things that aren't real. It made me see a person named William Ray and it made me believe that he is my future."

As each word escaped her mouth, Harvey's heart trembled. He swallowed a huge gulp before he slowly brought his hand to her cheek.

"You think he isn't real?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"He can't be real, Papa," Eliza cried out loud as she leaned towards him. He held her close and hugged her tight, bringing her small and weak body to his lap. He held her like he had held her when she was little and he realized how less she weighed. His heart beat loudly in his chest and he tasted failure as a father.

"Why can't he be real, honey?" he said as he cradled her on his lap and she laid her head on his chest, her cries not even close to a stop.

"He can't be real. My future can't be him. It's so scary, Papa. It's scary to know your future, I don't want to know mine..." She sobbed loudly and he held her tighter while smoothing her hair as tears stung his eyes. "My future can't just be walking, talking and moving around like that. He is a ghost, Papa. He is a ghost and I'm so scared of him. It's the drugs. It's making me see things."