A Shot of Reality [Harry Styles]

XXVIII. Instinct

"Thank you," she whispered as one tear streamed down her cheek and onto his shirt at every syllable.

"Just, thank you."

They stayed like this until the lights of the six-thousand seat hall dimmed into nothingness and the only thing Harry could sense was the feeling of her lips grazing his neck and the feeling of being so irrevocably and unconditionally in love with someone else, even though she had only thanked him.

In the late morning of the next day, Sydney had woken up only to find herself nude in a empty bed and a pen written note by the table beside her. As the alarm clock beside her flashed the time of 11:34 A.M onto her face, she decided to revive her sleepy mind by reading the note as she pulled it off the table and onto her lap. Stretching her arms beside her and letting the rumpled sheets pool around her legs, she read it:

Sydney-

Sorry to leave you and not awake you with a kiss, but a last-minute lunch meeting came up with Management that I couldn't weasel my way out of. I'll be back around 1; 2 at the latest.

I'm sorry, again. Trust me, I would've much rather woken up with you right now.

To the moon and back,

Harry x

 
A smile couldn't help but tug the corner of her lips as she read the last line. Folding it up, she gripped the note closer to her naked chest and sighed happily as she remembered every kiss and sound of the headboard banging the night previous. Two; she would only have to wait till two P.M to be with him again and experience those moments firsthand. She could wait, but only until two.

A blaring and particularly annoying sound of the room telephone ringing disrupted her impeding thoughts. Although groaning, Sydney picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Styles?"

"It's actually Sydney Ronan, his-"

She struggled momentarily to find a word to describe herself to this voice on the phone.

"-girlfriend. Who is this?"

"Oh! Good morning, Ms. Ronan," the feminine voice answered. "This is the front desk."

"Oh. Hi," she said, accidentally yawning loudly into the speaker.

This didn't seem to bother the lady, as her chipper voice explained more.

"We just wanted to let you know there is a letter addressed to you here at the front desk. Would you like to come down and pick it up or us to deliver it to you?"

Sydney was about to tell the woman that she'd be down there in five or less minutes, but her incandescent yawning and comfortable position on the warm bed told her otherwise.

"Um- you wouldn't mind delivering it to my room, would you?"

"Of course not. I'll send up someone with it right now."

"Okay, thank you so much," she thanked, while tracing the inked craters of Harry's note with the tips of her fingers.

"You're very welcome, Ms. Ronan. Have a lovely day."

Echoing the sentiment back, she hung up the phone and slowly lifted her naked self out of bed so she could dress before the letter came it's way to her. As she fumbled and fingered throughout both her and Harry's suitcase for an ensemble, she wondered about the delivery. It was different that she'd receive a letter in the mail, especially to the Hotel she was staying at.

Quickly although conclusively, she remembered her dreaded stay in Detroit and how she gave her grandmother the New York's hotel name since she would be staying here the longest and if her grandmother desired to contact her, she could do so.

Her tired and weary expression was scrapped as she retired it for a anxious and blissful grin as she realized her grandmother's letter would be up here soon and that it could very well likely contain her favorite candy as a kid that her grandmother found after years of reportedly looking for it in the stores; salted caramel biscuit sticks.

In her childlike innocence, she slipped on her pair of jean cut-off shorts and Harry's faded maroon and forest green flannel braless. Smelling the lingering scent of his signature Chanel cologne on the shirt, she twirled and spun with its loose sleeves flailing until she heard the sound of knocking on the wooden door.

Stalking up to it and looking into the peeping hole of the door, she sought out the lanky figure of a uniformed hotel bellboy, who couldn't be more than her age. Smiling at him, she unlocked the deadbolt and opened up the door.

The boy, with brown hair and equally dark eyes looked up from his stare on the door and at her, with a cream envelope grasped in his hand.

"Mail for Sydney Ronan?"

"That's me," she said, taking the somewhat weighted letter out of his hands and exchanging thanks before closing the door behind her.

Flipping it over to look at the face of the envelope, she noticed something distinctive about the return address. It wasn't sent originally from the mail sorting facility in Detroit. Instead, it was postmarked to be from right here in New York.

"Strange," Sydney thought and as she tore and ripped the envelope open, she thought of more synonyms.

Odd, weird, peculiar-

Both her thoughts and need for breathing stopped as the envelope's contents spilled onto her hand and the floor beneath her like a pounding waterfall. They were photos, taken with the filter and quality of a Polaroid camera. Stunned, she caught second-long glances of various pictures falling out of her hands as they collapsed to the carpet. Most were blurry and unidentifiable, but the few with written captions were creepily professional.

The first one with a caption was a shot of her silhouette simply and idly staring at Harry's singing form at the Los Angeles concert. His eyes were locked on her as he sang his solo with the lens directed right at the black shadow of her head. Below the picture in the white blank space was scribed in black marker:

I

Confused beyond belief, Sydney soon found the second scribed photo. It was one from New Orleans; she could tell by the fuchsia flower tucked behind her ear and the Andrew Jackson statue she was leaning on. At first glance you would swear this was just a print-off of Harry's Instagram photo, but this one was taken from a completely different angle and further distance. It read:

All

Sufficiently scared and tedious now, she clawed at the mess of photos on the ground to find the next one. Snagging her nail on the carpet, she discovered the third one. This one was taken the night her and Harry made love for the first time, as she could tell by their naked bodies tangled up in each other with faces of pleasure emphasizing it. It was taken through a window with a zoomed lens, for there was no way it could possibly be shot right outside their top floor window. Just as she felt all the saliva drain out of her throat, she read the final word to the horrifying game:

See.

Carefully sliding the photos side by side, her breath became rapid and choppy with sobs and partial screams as she stomached the tenth letter of the alphabet scribbled and circled all over the little slip of paper that peeked out of the torn envelope beside her.

The pictures and letter, all side by side, read:

 
All I See, I See All

-J