You Still Have All Of My Heart. (Harry Styles)

12.

We arrived in Brighton early, but the boys couldn't walk around outside without being mobbed, so we hung out backstage. The whole time, Harry moped around and acted very strangely. About an hour after exchanging awkward glances around the room, Harry left to 'get some fresh air'.

As soon as he exited, Zayn looked over at me with a puzzled expression.

"Weird..." he mumbled, shaking his head.

I laughed nervously. "What's weird?"

"It's just...Harry looks at you, and he instantly gets sad. It's like he knows you somehow." I freaked out, immediately thinking Zayn knew.

"Yeah, I've noticed that too," Niall chimed in. Oh hell, do they know already? With I stood up from my seat on the couch, suddenly filled with anger.

"I don't know what his problem is, but I'm gonna find out." I was lying to them (I was, in fact, said 'problem'), but at this point, I was tired of running from this.

I marched out to the hall, looking in every door for his floppy curls. He was nowhere to be found. I stopped at the end of the hallway and nearly screamed with frustration. What would I even say to him anyway?

I walked back to the room, since it was time for the boys to get dressed. Everyone seemed a little frantic, but were ultimately happy with the clothes choices. I left Harry's outfit alone while the boys tried his cellphone. "Blimey, where the hell is he?" Louis was running up and down the hallway screaming.

Basically this went on for twenty minutes or so, and Harry seemed to have vanished off the planet. I was in the dressing room talking to Stu and the boys furiously about him, when the disappearing act himself came running through the door, his hair dripping wet.

"I was taking a shower, boys! No need to get your knickers in a knot," he was laughing with that crooked smirk I used to love so much, and my eyes went wide as I stared at him.

I was livid. I was so overwhelmed with loathing for this boy. The rest of the people left the room, leaving me and Harry so he could get dressed. He reached for the clothes on the hanger.

I was putting things in my bag when I heard his voice pierce the silence in the room. "Are you ever going to talk to me again?" he laughed humourlessly.

I whirled around to face him, red with anger. "Do you even realize how scared we were?" I paused, corrected myself, and took a deep breath.

"They were looking everywhere for you, and this is how you act. You could have at least, I don't know, said something before you just, fucking disappeared," I spilled my heart out, making sure he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I stopped for a moment before I continued, "You could have left a note, said goodbye; anything really. But you and I both know you can't manage to do any of that." I turned back around and began shoving my things in my bag again.

I willed myself not to turn around and see his face. His hand touched my shoulder, and I swallowed, shrugging his hand off, and walked out the door without turning. "I assume you can put clothes on by yourself like a big boy, yeah?" My voice shook as I closed the door and walked out and away from Harry.

I thought I could handle this, but I've cried so much already. I made my way to the street, one that wasn't completely mobbed with screaming 14 year old girls. I walked in silence, keeping my head down as the tears leaked onto my coat, staining my face. I didn't understand how a boy could affect me this way.

I don't know where I was going, but I needed to get as far away from that dressing room as I could.

I could smell the ocean. So, I walked and walked and walked until I got to a beach. I took my boots and socks off and sunk my toes into the wet sand. It was too cold to swim, and too dark to see, but I sat down on that beach and thought of home.

I thought of my parents, who had since moved back to America after I had moved out. They didn't know what had happened to me years ago, and I never intended to tell anyone. But yet, I told Harry Styles, the crazy neighbour who got naked all the time and started flour fights.

Harry was just so easy to trust, so caring, so loving. And I think I really did love him in that short year I knew him. And I had hoped he loved me as well. When he kissed me, I flew. When he spoke to me, I felt as if I could conquer the world. He was just...different. And I lost him.

My phone suddenly blared from my bag. An unknown number showed on the screen. "Yeah?" I answered and as if by magic, his voice was on the other line.

"Topher, you sure are a hypocrite," he sounded angry. "Where the hell are you?" his voice broke a little.

"I'm at the beach. I'm sorry," my voice was timid and uncomfortable. He mumbled a 'Be right there' and hung up. I listened to the dial tone for a minute, before sighing and throwing my phone in my bag.

In a few minutes, I heard footsteps on the deserted beach. I sighed when I saw his boots next to mine.

I stood in the dark, unable to see anything but his silhouette. I squinted my eyes closed and hit his chest with all my might. It felt good, almost liberating.

"Why did you do that to me?" I raised my voice, hitting harder. I kept punching his chest over and over until he grabbed my arms with his hands and put them at my sides.

"Sorry," I whispered. I fidgeted with my now bruised fingers. "I just--"

"No, don't apologise. It's all my fault. I should be the one saying sorry, Topher."

I looked closer at him in the dark, and noticed he'd been crying. His long eyelashes were wet, his green irises outlined by a faint red.

"Harry..."

"No, let me explain," he said, beginning to walk back to the bus. I walked ahead of him. "I didn't tell you when I left, because I was afraid of how you'd react...if you'd still look at me the same way even if I did happen to become famous," he gestured to himself. "But in these couple of days that we've been together, I can't seem to forget about the first time I saw you again, how hurt you were. And it's killing me that I made that mistake two years ago." I watched as he swallowed, turning away from me. "And I'm so, so sorry." he finished, voice breaking.

I stopped walking and crushed him to me, clinging on to him like there was nothing left of me. "But now you're so successful and brilliant," I told him, "Don't ever regret that, not even for me, okay?" he responded by squeezing me tighter.

"Can we start over?" I felt Harry's cheeks pull up into a smile.

I nodded a yes into the crook between his shoulder and neck. I had finally gotten him back. I felt like we belonged there, frozen in time while the rest of the world waited patiently for our return.

We stood like that for a while, before I pulled back to look at him. "We have to go. They must be worried sick!" I told him, mock scolding. "Come on, Mister Popstar." I felt just as if those two years were actually two minutes. I felt 16 again. He beamed at me, grasping my hand in his.

"I'm so glad to have you back," he answered, squeezing it tightly. "Friends?"

"Friends."