Events || Harry Styles

bonus content (1)

"From what we can tell thus far, there wasn't any forced entry into the house from any door—including front door, back door, and garage doors. The security company notified us the alarm was set off when motion was detected on the stairs."

Harry and I made the conscious decision to have alarms set for all doors and windows, and were very careful with locking all of them. Later on, Harry had added motion sensors for the downstairs and the hallway upstairs.

"How is that possible?"

"Well, it's possible they were already in the house. They had to have gotten inside before the alarm was set and before one of the doors was locked."

I stopped breathing altogether, but wouldn't allow my mind to run awry with that information. I didn't allow myself to linger on the fact that when I went to bed tonight, alone and thinking I was safe and sound with the house armed with motion detectors, there was already someone inside with me.

"Who? Who was it? What did they want?"

Officer Güney took a deep breath and looked up and around the SUV at something I couldn't see from my position. "We're working on identification now. All of your questions will be answered soon, but for now, is there someone we can call for you?"

I gave him Harry's and Jeff's numbers off the top of my head since I seemed to have left my cell phone inside the closet. While he worked on getting ahold of them, another officer, Officer Jen Holdings, came over with a blanket to cover my thin t-shirt and shorts before taking my statement. She asked who owned the house —Harry and I—where my fiancé was—out of the country—and the nature of our "celebrity status"—celebrity enough to have stalkers and intruders. What felt like at least twenty minutes went by before Officer Güney returned.

"I couldn't get ahold of your fiancé, but the secondary contact answered. We've also ID'd the individual who was inside, and if I may, I want to show you a picture and you can let me know if you recognize him."

I nodded. "Okay."

Just as I rounded the back of the SUV, loud shouting ensued. About a hundred feet away just outside the police car that had its doors open, a man struggled in the hold of one of the officers, his eyes trained on me. He looked enraged and, for lack of a better word, unhinged. Hands grabbed onto me while the memory took over.

Flashes of the last time a man was unhinged in my presence seared across my retinas. It was a struggle to come to terms that what I was seeing—what I was reliving—was not actually happening. I wasn't in the parking lot of a hotel late at night. My father was not beating the absolute crap out of me with a wild craze in his eyes, spewing shit about how awful I was. I was at home, surrounded by people who were hopefully going to help me.

"Ms. Baker." It took a couple shakes by Officer Holdings and a shining light in the eyes by Officer Güney to jolt me out of my flashback. When the memory faded at the edges, the man was no longer outside of the car, but secured inside, and I was sat down on the curb.

After assuring I was okay, Officer Güney asked, "Do you recognize him?"

I could hardly bring the man's face to mind over the constant recall of my father's. But I knew I didn't know the man. "No, I don't. I'm sorry. I've...been attacked before. He just startled me is all."

"Who attacked you?" The question sounded a lot less impeding than it actually was. He was clearly trying to the connect dots that weren't there.

"He's dead. It was years ago."

I was holding up just fine answering all the questions, but once they were all answered, I wanted Harry. I wanted his arms and his voice telling me everything was going to be okay. I wanted to not be alone like I was the last time I was attacked. And, while I wasn't attacked tonight, the flashback I had not only tricked my mind, but made my body ache with phantom pains.