GOLDEN (harry styles)

tout ira bien pour nous?

(25/09/19)

HARRY'S P.O.V

"It'll be fine..." I mutter, trying to convince myself. "They like it... don't they?"

'Watermelon Sugar', my new song, released about four months ago now, roughly. I think people like it. I mean, I've heard it on the radio a few times as I've driven to the supermarket, or to the local bookshop to finally get my own copy of In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan. That was a funny coincidence.

My thumb gently nudges the screen, scrolling upwards on the hundred of comments I've been reading intensely for the past hour. They never seem to end. It's pages and pages of what has so far been mainly positive feedback, complimenting my voice, and the trumpets.

I knew it was a good idea to put the trumpets in.

I swipe off of this post, and flick over to the next. It's a fan page. My breathing stills for a short second as I glance briefly at myself in the account's profile picture, cringing ever so slightly. It never feels normal. I don't think it ever will, honestly.

Without a second thought, I click onto their most recent post, a photo of the single cover, and tap directly onto the 267 comments. I can feel my eyes swell as the lighting changes, the white brighter than it was before as my phone adjusts to the dying sunlight.

As I inhale deeply, the words digest in my brain. Every single letter, every sentence, every description, both positive or negative sinks in deeply, deeper than it probably should. Why would it be shallow? I want people to like my music, after all.

But it just takes one glimpse of a harsh comment to make this happy-go-lucky attitude fall. It falls faster than it could fly to begin with, trembling and quaking as my heartbeat does the same. It pounds heavily beneath my skin.

This spreads like an angry rash to my hands, of which start to grip my phone just that little bit tighter. My mind spins in crazy directions in an attempt to comprehend and understand what I did wrong. It's as though I'm in a whirlpool suddenly, with no way out.

Yet, I keep reading the comments. In fact, I click onto the replies of the hurtful comment, examining each one for the worst kind of pain an anonymous user can hurtle at me. It's addicting in a weird way. I'm transported back through time to my first few performances, when I craved the opinions of others so badly that it made me sit in my bed each and every night, eyes glued to an endless sea of insulting comments. I keep saying I've changed, and I don't care what people think, but really...

It's the exact opposite. If anything it's worse now, because I'm alone at night without anyone to stop me from causing myself harm, whereas at least before I had my best friends. Now, the one person I crave more than the idea of falling into this pit again isn't here.

But somehow she feels so close.

I guess she is, in a strange way. It would only take a second and a half for me to dial her number, and hear the soothing sound of her voice combined with the sea.

I grit my teeth, not stopping myself as my hands launch to my cheeks, scratching harshly at the burning heat of them as the night finally kicks in. The most dangerous time. I can't sleep, because my thoughts keep me awake. I don't have anyone to hold onto, to tell when the nightmares start.

When the water starts flooding in around my lifeless body, and I can't breathe because my lungs are captivated by my heart as it loses power to beat. The same wicked dream state I've been dragged in and out of since I started making my own music. At least in 2017, it was pink, and I had flowers in the ocean. It was pretty to look at as it killed me.