A Shot of Reality [Harry Styles]

XXV. Consummation

"So Harry, that song in Detroit..."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"We already know you initially wrote it for the album, but what both the public and I want to know is who the song is about."

"All I can say is that the message in the song is about someone, um- very important to me and has been for a long time. It's kind of just saying that I'll always be there for them, no matter what, excuse me; shit- comes in the way."

"So is this 'message' friendly, or does it tread into romance?"

Silence. Exhausting, abhorring, damning, convulsing silence.

Finally, Harry sighed and let the truth overwhelm his tongue.

"A little bit of both, I would say."

Even after that said with her a mere six feet away, she still wouldn't utter a word or steal a glance at him.

Every day, the fans on Twitter and in person had begged Harry to sing that same song from the previous night. Harry had contemplated it for a brief moment, but as he remembered how much it burned him white to know and witness Sydney wanting nothing to do with him, he dutifully and confidently answered "no." He was looking at these mentions blinking blue on his feed en route to New York when a silhouette casted over his screen and seized his attention.

"Hey," he exhaled heavily when he realized the shadow was one that hadn't given him this proximity in days.

Instantly, the screen displaying Twitter faded into black as his phone slid into his back pocket and his off-guard attention turned undivided.

She stood there, fiddling with her fingers in nervous habit but with her gaze settled on Harry. Her pupils maximized and minimized at every angle, contour and mark on his face in effort to delay her impeding sentence.

"That song was really... really..."

"Really?..."

"Something."

Harry blinked his eyes a few times, to make sure she wasn't in the midst of finishing her sentence. When she didn't, he mumbled out the only words she had given him at that moment.

"Something..."

"Yeah," she said almost condescendingly, as if she expected him to be pleased with her one word, two syllable answer.

At that, he laughed.

Manically, bizarrely, uncomfortably, extensively laughed.

"Well, I guess I should be happy with that. It is after all, a word."

She screwed her eyes hawkishly, and the twiddling of her limbs stopped.

"What are you saying?"

"Come on, Sydney," he said, allowing his laughter to carry over to his words. "You haven't said a word to me since I sang my song in Detroit."

A soundless pause calibrated the exchange and Harry felt a buzz against his jeans that signaled a text, most likely from Management. But he ignored it, as he continued this somewhat awkward but necessary conversation.

"Why is that, actually?"

"I don't have to tell you anything, considering you do the same," she sneered.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, Harry," she mocked. "I know about how-"

She stopped for a moment to recollect her stolen breaths but her eyes still bled red as she pursued her tirade.