Meet Me In The Hallway

Turbulence

"Get up!" Michael kicked the end of my bed and the shake was enough to rouse me from my slumber. I'd stayed up late, hoping that Harry would call me. But, just like all the nights this week, my phone had not rang, and the lack of that sound was deafening.

His texting had fallen away too; it had been several days since we had had any form of communication at all. His answers to my mundane questions, a line with a dead worm on the end for all their usefulness as bait, were one word often, and his most common sentiment was that he was tired, not that he missed me.

When I first made it home, after my two day coma, he was full of rings and tings. My phone went off a lot I thought, so much that my mom actually seemed really irritated by its interruptions of family dinners.

"You two have been running around the world for months, the least you could give me is a few meals with your cell phones safely away in your bloody rooms!" She'd griped as she loaded up my plate with grilled meat. I could tell she had went to trouble with this meal. The pineapple salsa she had on the side was my favorite. So I didn't answer the phone. It pained me, but it was one of the few calls that I missed.

Harry, I tried to understand, had to press the shady button more often. With the time zones and their scheduled I got it. Then the calls started to dwindle. And self doubt crept in. As time wore me out, I wasn't sure if he was avoiding me, or just didn't really want to talk to me. Over the weeks, my urge to press his contact name and hear his voice was overrun with anxiety. When I stopped calling, he did too. Or maybe I had done most of the calling and was just too excited and enamored to notice it.

He did text me back, though I was sick to death of waiting until he could send me short responses. I was sick to death of waiting. I just, I missed him. And he didn't seem to miss me.

I sat in my room with an empty journal on my lap the night before my rude awakening and just wondered if I had imagined his interest. He had all but said it. And he had shown me that he cared for me, wanted me, implied he loved me. A world away though all I could ask was why. He had the world, and its female population, with a hearty dose of the male too, at his feet. What would he want with one girl?

What would he want with me?

The seesaw we were on was as dizzying as the tilt a whirl, and I had promised myself that if I didn't hear from him soon, I'd let it go. I'd let him go. I didn't want to be a burden. I must be, if the weight of calling me was too heavy, how would all of the massive things that I dreamed about feel across his shoulders, no matter how broad. I wanted more than morning cuddles. I wanted more than him calling me baby. I wanted more than shared meals. I wanted the shared life he had mentioned. I wanted more.

I wanted.

But maybe he didn't. In the moments where he had a willing girl, increasingly naked and eager in his bed, no wonder he had imagined his interest in me. Or worse feigned it. And he, a very red blooded male, who was very active I knew for a fact before I invaded his bed, of course availed himself of my offer. Though in the waning hours of the night, when the world and my thoughts were darkest I wished he had been a little more selfless and given a care before he took--before he took me.

I felt like I'd been taken. Like he owned me, body and soul, and I had been a distraction at best. A warm body at worst.

It was wretched. So, in the interest of self preservation and fear, I decided I'd make myself scarce. Stay away for this final little leg of Oceania, and resurrect all those plans I had for my life before I was monogrammed HS. I'd made a plan. I'd written it all down last night. Hair at the hotel, come home and sleep here when possible. Do not watch the concerts, avoid all mentions of Harry Styles. Make a female friend. Learn to date boys who didn't set me and the world on fire. Actually find a boy to who wanted to date me, instead of have me secretly warm his bed.