Matilda | Harry Styles

ELEVEN

"You'd be surprised. I keep that information very close to my chest," he joked back. It was funny. Even with all the noise and the buzz inside this room; the intensity of the atmosphere, and the stress of just about everybody bustling around - even despite the lowness of his voice, as if the volume were reserved solely for me, he was all I could hear, and all I could focus on. 

I bit back a grin at his response. "Why don't they just ask you about the tour? Isn't that what you're here to promote?"

I watched as his eyes scanned over my face, a tiny, almost a little wistful smile upon his own lips. "That doesn't really matter to them. As long as there's a headline. It's like they can't help it, really - there always has to be a 'are you seeing anybody at the moment?' or a 'do you still keep in touch with this random person from your past?" 

"Surely you just don't answer them."

He blew out a breath, "I don't, usually. But that doesn't really matter, either. They've got my facial expressions on camera, or they'll overanalyse the little that I do say," he paused, raking a hand through his hair, forcing the playfulness to return to his tone, a little. "It's a losing game."

I remembered what he'd told me a little while before about how he would've liked to go to university. University was something that had seemed so trivial to so many - it was almost something that you just did. I know I hadn't given myself much another choice - it was university, or nothing else. And at the best of times, I couldn't stand it. I associated university with exhaustion - just another thing to drain me of every ounce of interest or joy that I had. University, for me, was symbolic of how nothing I ever did felt right. But Harry wanted it. 

I would never have imagined that somebody in Harry's position might envy a position like my own. I remembered the wistful expression on his face, as he'd told me he'd have liked to have the opportunity to grow up, properly. The opportunity to learn, and make mistakes, and grow into yourself as you should be able to; as you should be encouraged to. I looked up at him, now, and felt a strange urge to take his face in my hands; to touch him and tell him that in a funny way, I understood that feeling. I'd have liked that opportunity, too. 

I watched him as he stood before me, pressing my lips together. I wanted to ask him more about himself; what it was like to grow up how he did, but I feared he might ask me the same. I watched the gentle furrow of his eyebrows as his eyes were drawn away from me, to a loud noise made by some equipment from the corner of the room. His lips parted in focus, before he pressed them back together, and returned his eyes to me. I found myself wanting to understand him, weirdly; I wanted to know what had gotten him to where he was. I wanted to know what had made him so wary of others; what had prompted him to create this persona of his that he presented when in public. I knew I'd never understand the intricacies of fame in the way that he did - but I'd always believed a life like his own would be anything but complex; I'd figured it would be a matter of quite literally everything being handed to him on a silver platter, day in, and day out - and in a way, it was. Everywhere he went, he was catered to without hesitation. People fought for even a glimpse of him passing by - but I was beginning to realise that there was far more to it. There was far more to Harry.

"Harry, they're ready for you over there." A voice sounded, suddenly, breaking me out of the secluded bubble Harry and I had appeared to form at the side of the room. I looked up, greeted with a head of blonde hair, and for some reason, I felt my stomach turn. 

Stella's hand landed briefly on Harry's shoulder, and he sent her a nod. He sent me another brief glance, as he took a step away, before his back fully turned away from me, and he made his way over to his chair. I watched him as he walked away, suddenly feeling a strange emptiness in his absence, without him to talk to.