Remembering Harry Styles

Chapter 21: The Notebook

      Both hands were wrapped around the handle of red Christmas decorated mugs. Setting them down on our coffee table, I sat down across from Harry and adored him. A newspaper was held in both hands and his eyebrows were furrowed together fixed upon the stories he read. Harry rarely read newspapers. He either learned the news on his phone, or the tv at home.

     It felt like eternity waiting for Harry to put aside his newspaper and talk to me. I wanted to hear his raspy deep voice every morning. This morning, it felt different. Were we arguing at something stupid? No. Is today a special day that I forgot? No, nothing marked on the calendar. I was curious.

     “Oh my!” Harry sat his newspaper on his lap, “thank you for the coffee.” I smiled and sipped my tea.

     Harry resumed reading his newspaper. Frustrated, I got up from my seat and sat next to him to see what was so interesting. As I tried to get a glimpse, Harry folded up the newspaper and smiling mischievously. “Okay, Harry. You’re frustrating me right now. It’s rare to see a newspaper in your hands or you reading anything apart from your phone. What’s up?”

     Harry giggled. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. He brought his lips close to my earlobes and whispered, “Nothing you need to know, love.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “If you really want to know, here is the newspaper. I’m proud of you. I thought you knew this news by now.” Harry passed over the newspaper. He flipped through a couple pages and stopped at a page where it had a picture of me. They wrote an article about how my performance a couple days was a phenomenal. My hair was up into a messy ponytail and the makeup artists did their best at preparing my face to look outstanding. With my guitar placed at my lap, I strung the notes to my song. It was like the acoustic versions of my songs. After the concert, I spent time with the VIP people and treated them with a dinner. It was one of those nights where you will keep and cherish forever.

     After reading the entire article, I ripped out the whole page and kept it safe in a notebook. Harry and I created this notebook where we kept pictures, letters, and practically anything. If one of us was gone to miss out on something, we would take a picture or handwrite it out for the other person to read/see. It was a way of connecting with each other when the other person missed out on it.

     “Good thinking! Maybe one day you and I can look back on all these pages.” Harry flipped through pages of the notebook. He smiled looking back at the first page where his mother took a picture of Harry and I when we first met. It was that time where he wore those baggy pants and loose shirts. His hair was a bit straight and not as curly as it is now.

     Leaning in, I pecked Harry on the cheek and giggled, “And someday I assure you we will do that together.”

     “Pinky promise?” asked the cheeky boy.

     Wrapping our pinkies together, I smiled and spoke up, “I promise.”

      It has been a couple of months after the accident. Recently, an interviewer asked my manager if I could be live on air this week. Happily, I was excited to agree to it of course. Lately, I haven’t been out there with singing or any interviews. Even if I did want to go out there, Harry always stopped me from doing so. He always came up with these stupid excuses that I would of course believe. I was getting tired of sitting around at the house and doing absolutely nothing. But this week felt different. I felt the urge of getting back out there to prove to people that I didn’t care what they would say about me.