Unrequited

Chapter 18 (Part 2)

Despite that little pre-show misadventure, the show had run smoothly - or so I’d been told afterwards. After leaving the boys’ dressing room, feeling that unstoppable wave of emotion start to inundate me again, I got Therese to organise me a car back to the hotel. I collapsed on the double bed as soon as I got up to my room, limbs thrown out into a star shape, my feet dangling off the edges and weighed down by my boots. I stayed like that for ages, staring up at the ceiling and letting my thoughts hover (I must have been half asleep because Harry didn’t seem to dominate my thoughts) until Mum texted me and the message tone coming from my coat pocket made me jump ten foot in the air. I sat up and was made aware of the fact that the concert was over, Mum was on her way back soon and if I hadn’t eaten she would bring me back some hideous form of deep fried take away or another. I told her I wasn’t hungry and prayed that she would take that as a polite hint not to come to my room again that night. I wanted to be left to go to pieces by myself - I knew it was only a matter of time before I broke down again.

I managed to finally pry myself away from the warmth of my coat and get changed into my pyjamas. I downed two cups of steaming tea thanks to the kettle and mini fridge in the corner. I was distracting myself with TV to prolong the crying as much as possible and it had worked so far. A feeble knock at the door came at about 2:30 in the morning. Everyone on tour knew no one else slept after a big concert so it wasn’t exactly a surprise to have a visitor at this time. I’d believed it would be one of two people - my mother with a shopping bag full of hot food (despite my text an hour before) or Niall routinely checking up on me. I didn’t really mind answering the door to either of them so I went ahead and rolled out of bed, trying not to take the jungle of blankets with me. To answer the door to Harry Styles is a shock in itself. But to answer the door to Harry Styles the boy who has broken your heart with a few awful words and a bunch of cruel lies, is almost traumatic. He’d made it very clear earlier that day of his feelings towards me and was now standing at the entrance to my hotel room in the early hours of the morning. 

“Hi,” I said flatly, crossing my arms across my chest. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained. I nodded and replied, 

“Me too.” I felt like adding ‘Because of you!’. I felt like shoving him hard in the chest and watching him stumble back in surprise as I slammed the door in his face. I felt like slapping him sharply across his pale cheek and watching as his eyes watered and he asked me oh-so-innocently why on earth I’d done that. But most of all - and I hated myself for feeling this way - most of all I wanted to yank him towards me by the hem of his maroon knitted jumper and go to pieces with my face buried in his chest. Even after what he’d done, I just couldn’t push him away. It was sickening really, that I had no power to reject a boy that had treated me so disgustingly. But there’s nothing I could do about it. I realised that really caring about someone meant having to give in to the most ridiculous instincts. It meant putting up with feelings so overpowering that they tinted your outlook on life indefinitely, making you see things and people a different way, making you do and think things in a way you wouldn’t have before.

I didn’t act on any of the scenarios I had just played out in my head and, distracted by my own imagination, all I could do was stare as Harry brushed past me silently, head down, hands in pockets. I closed the door and followed him into the room. I let myself drop back down onto the bed, the covers in a messy tangle as a result of my dramatic scramble to the door a few seconds before. I hoped my sitting down was invitation enough for Harry to follow suit. It was. He sat down slowly on the edge of the bed facing his back to me and resting his forearms on his knees, his long fingers twisting themselves into knots and then disentangling them. Even though I was the only one aware of a cause for tension, the air in the room didn’t feel right. There was no kiss on the cheek hello, much less a hug or even a hand on my upper arm as he passed me. I tried to focus on the television screen in front of us as easily as Harry was doing so. I realised that the way he made everything he did look effortless was either a carefully practiced act or an inherited trait - either way I had no hope of mastering it at that moment, especially with heavy air in the room that seemed to hover constrictively around my neck.