Affinity [harry styles]

03

June 3, 2018

・❥・

RHIANNON CASTELLO

Practically, my entire closet is strewn across my bedroom floor. Kai insisted that we go out tonight. She heard about some new club downtown. And I am willing to take up any excuse to not give Freddie the contracts.

It's been about a full day since I signed them and the longer they sat on my coffee table in the living room, the more I overthought. I desperately want to do this tour for the sake of my career and because it would be fucking incredible. But I am also terrified. I've never done this before. And part of me wants to tour just to get as far away from Lucas as possible.

There are too many what-ifs. I just needed to get my mind off of it. I know I had to give them an answer sooner or later, but it's definitely not happening tonight.

So, tonight I get to pretend like my life isn't flipping upside down. I'm all for it. I put on dark blue cargo pants and a white tank top, then lacing up my white high-top Converse. I grab a black purse and sling it over my shoulder, and walk out to the living room.

My phone dings, probably Kai telling me to come downstairs. I grab my keys, ID, chapstick, mascara, and my wallet, putting them all in my purse. Walking out the door, I lock it behind me and head downstairs.

When I make it outside, I see Kai leaning against a parking meter outside my building. Smoke blows fluidly from her lips into the crisp evening air. She grins as she sees me walk through the glass doors, getting up from her leaning position. She throws the cigarette between her fingers on the cement, putting it out with her worn-out black high-top Converse.

"You told me you would quit smoking cigarettes." I scold lightly, giving her my best 'mom' look.

"And you told me you'd stop drowning yourself in tequila." She teases, saying tequila in a sing-song voice.

"Touché." I laugh. She grins, slinging her arm over my shoulder. It's kinda sad we both laugh about that, but Kai and I both have our own fucked up stories that led us here.

Ever since my mom had disappeared six months ago, I had turned to the bottle. The warm liquid down my throat and flooding my veins seemed to fill something in me that my mom took with her when she left. But only for a moment. Then when I woke up the next morning, I'd be back to feeling like shit.

I have no idea where she went. One week when I went to visit her in our hometown of San Francisco, California, she had vanished. The day before we were hanging out together and bonding, something we hadn't done since before I had moved to New York when I was 19.

But the next morning I woke up, she was just gone. I called her, texted her—and I still do to this day. I searched everywhere she could be, but she was nowhere to be found. It was almost as if she had fallen off the face of the Earth.