golden | A HARRY STYLES NOVEL

"And I'm Still Thinking Back To"

Chapter 29.

Halloween by Phoebe Bridgers
"You look really pretty today, Darbs."

I turned to face the voice, already predicting it'd be Harry. Being right, I gushed as he reached around my waist and pulled me in. I was interrupted very quickly.

"8 days, Harry, how we feelin'!!" Jeff came crashing into the room. It'd been awhile since I'd seen him, but that hardly stuck in my head. He said eight days... eight days?

Harry looked over at me quickly as he talked to Jeffery, putting it in my head that we'd talk about it later. It was always later... and I hated to be that way but time is a fragile thing in my mind and sometimes forsaken in other's.

He looked at me again, my face obviously saying something wrong in it's expression. "I'm okay." I accidentally said aloud, which made no sense inside of the conversation Jeff and Harry were having that my ears somehow just refused to hear.

"How did you feel about the back cover of the vinyl we sent you?"

"Yeah, I think I want to change the font of the tracklist... erm... then when we're in LA for the release we can... use that font for the, um, the-- I can't think of the word."

LA for the release. It felt like he said that just to let me know. That made me feel sick, and I casually excused myself to go get some water.

...

"What was that?" He came up to me in the kitchen a couple minutes later. "Wh- wh-" I was too confused by him to even articulate the words. "No. No, what was that." I whispered.

He wiped the stress off the corners of his mouth. "Darby... Darby just come with me."

"No... you know I can't do that." I kept repeating myself like I was daydreaming and trying to wake up. He kept persisting, something he would always do. "...Is there anything I can say... that would make you change your mind."

"If you're pressured to say it just to change my mind... you probably shouldn't say it."

He couldn't say anything after that, so I rinsed out my empty glass and put it in the sink. I sure was one to unintentionally let my emotions slip out in my tone, I never meant to. And apologizing right away would take away the impact of what I said... So all I knew to do was distract myself and leave.

I'm just tired. I'm so tired I can never write, I spend all my nights just sitting in my kitchen alone half of the time. I had such a spike of inspiration that my downfall insisted on being much harder and heavier. And I was feeling left alone again, and it was a familiar feeling, one of disgusting comfort just because I knew I was about to go back to my normal life and nothing else. I'd be stuck writing stupid verses that didn't actually mean anything in real life, though I knew I'd try to translate my pain into at least something. It would never work, it would never feel right, I would never be able to put into words everything I felt. And so I decided to feel nothing. And write nothing.

"I'm giving you a ride home." He called over to me, in a tone that seemed both annoyed and ambivalently assertive. I didn't have anything to say, I wasn't mad, just closing off. I wattled into his car like a lost kid.

It had become late in the night somehow. It felt like a long drive as I was trying to fall asleep, uncomfortably laying across the middle console where my head rested close to his side. He'd normally put his arm when he drove. Now it rested at the bottom of the steering wheel.

"I've met Phoebe before, did you know that?" He whispered softly. I listened to the song playing; my phone had automatically connected to the bluetooth in his car. Of course it was Phoebe Bridgers. It was probably why I was feeling so unstable.