Meet Me In The Hallway

Fair Winds

Jamaica was, well I could see why Harry wrote a whole album there. The first week I spent in turns, from elated and relieved and as breezy as the trade winds to dark and twisty and tempestuous as the storm that kept me up all of one night. I'd never heard thunder or seen lightening like that. It was violent and felt cinematic is its drama. So a little bit like me waiting until my wedding day to get my shit together I guess.

When my parents took me to the airport, just two days after I'd deconstructed my life, it felt like they were sending me to tour, like I was once again 18 years old, going to see the world. At nearly 24, it was a better experience. I knew better, and I was going to get to know me again. Not just the me that I was projecting for years, but the girl who fell in love with a dimpled boy under borrowed sheets and never really unearthed herself from that. Who was really afraid of big feelings and anticipated hurt where it might not be found and wound up causing it instead. I was aware of my faults, I think we are all a little bit like that. My physical flaws I could catalog, but the deeper ones I could name at least. But now, I was going to find their backstory and fix it. So that when I stood before Harry and stripped myself down like he had for me on more than one occasion, I could be me, both who he fell in love with and the one who broke his heart. And I could know better how not to do it again. I could get better. That was all if he gave me the opportunity. Which was a big if. It takes a lot to run out of kindness with Harry Styles. I may have done it with my marathon.

I learned a little bit about this while we were dancing around each other. His changing shape and who he was able to really be without an image crafted by someone else. He was the earnest sweet boy who took me in so I didn't have to sleep on a hallway floor, but he was that for millions now. A harbor in a life storm, who said, project on me, I'll give you just enough and what I give you will be kindness, and a kindness, the rest is up to you.

He was also the dirty-mouthed silly thing I'd learned to play scrabble from, who quoted movies and memes in his daily conversation like they were commonalities everybody shared.

These were what I learned talking and texting with him. But, since he walked out on me, finally, I'd spent some more time learning him, following him. And the way he had grown into himself, filled out and then expanded the skin given to him, well, not only was the everspring of my love renewed, but my crush was too.

I think that was why I loved Jamaica. I loved the place, the green of the plants, and the blue of the water and the mountains. The way the sand felt between my toes, and the way I could lie in a hammock all day.

Sometimes I would do that and I'd treat it as a rack, and I would once again stretch out my decisions and feelings until the sinews popped and tears were the only remedy. Other times, the woven fabric would wrap around my salt-crusted body and I'd feel just as weightless as I did when I floated in the turquoise water I'd crawled from. I was getting better, healed by tears, and sweat, and sea.

Another enchanting thing about Jamaica was the way I could imagine Harry there. In the jungle foliage, his eyes matching the leaves, eating the red fruits and only knowing their stain when the borders of his raspberry lips were breached. I wanted to chase him on beaches and tackle him down to powdery sand.

And the best part, the absolute best part, was after running in from the rain that came nearly every afternoon, I would write.

It started the seventh day. I'd been jet lagged for two, and taken some tours or gone to the shops the others, but this day, I just went to the water outside the little bungalow that wasn't a love shack as intended but was a halfway house. I'd bought myself a surfboard on the beach from a boy who looked desperate and given him my phone number for when he regretted the decision. I figured maybe we could trade lessons for the board itself and both be happier for it.