Viral Summer

9 Rubix With No Cube

"He shows up on your page a lot," he answers me easily.

"Oh. You've been watching my videos?" I don't know why I sound so surprised, especially because he has mentioned wanting to check out my music before since he's into music production.

"Yeah," he confirms with a slight smile before adding, "I mean, I gotta do my research on who I'll be living with for three months, you know? I've checked out a few of everybody's videos. I don't mean to pry, and I didn't really understand what was happening, but your comment section was very anti-Elliot."

"Things have just been complicated lately," I mumble with a shrug. "We used to be really good friends but then he got this girlfriend and she kind of messed everything up and now things are weird. It's kind of a long story."

"Maybe I'll get it out of you someday," Harris suggests lightly, his dark and narrow eyes staring right through me before he glances back into the viewfinder on the camera. "What's the song choice for today?"

I shift my attention back to the task at hand, resting my guitar across my lap. "Someone Like You by Adele, but from the guy's perspective," I answer him, looking down at my own hand as my fingers wrap around the neck of the guitar. Once I feel ready to start singing, I glance back up at Harris only briefly to say in a soft voice, "I'll need silence on set."

He mimics zipping his lips and then throwing away the key without making a sound.

After a long and slow deep breath, I begin singing the song along with playing the guitar.

How'd you hear that I'm settled down,
With another girl and I'm married now?
You know that my dreams came true.
Cuz she gives me things, I never got from you.
Old friend, I'm feeling so shy,
But I won't hold back or hide from the light.

You've turned up out of the blue, uninvited
Should have stayed away, tried to fight it.
Now that I've seen your face,
And now I'm reminded that for you, it isn't over

Now you know, I found someone new,
But I wish nothing but the best for you, too.
"Don't forget me," you beg
Don't you remember, I said
"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"
"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"

I wish I would have thought the song choice over better because it is a pretty sad song and given my already sad mood, it's hard to make it through the first verse without breaking. If Harris wasn't there, I probably would have, but knowing that I have an audience makes it easier to persevere and I'm able to finish the song.

However, once the last words are sang, I do find myself finally releasing a few pent up tears that I held back during recording. Trying to prevent Harris from noticing, or at least commenting, on these tears, I ask him, "How'd it sound?" as I pretend to scratch my nose and use the pad of my thumb to wipe the tears off of my cheek.

"Sounded good to me," he assures me.

Harris helps me film two more takes of the song while moving the camera around to get different angles that will look interesting together when I edit them into one video. The whole process helps me distract myself from the situation will Elliot.

"Thank you for your help," I say to Harris as we're carrying the equipment back into the house after we finish filming. The girls are still in the living room arguing over their One Direction opinions and barely even notice when we walk into the living room to store the equipment.

"I don't feel like I helped that much, but thank you for pretending like I did," he responds jokingly.

Knowing that I've procrastinated looking at Elliot's text long enough, I head upstairs to my room after everything is put away and I have my video footage ready to be plugged into my laptop so that I can get started editing after I look at my phone.