FINE LINE | HARRY STYLES

FORTY-FOUR.

Sunlight,

You once asked me if I would ever choose you over the music and I told you I would without a doubt. And even though you grew upset because you felt the music was more important than just a girl, I still meant it.

Because you are the music. You are the muse.

I present to you the first copy of Fine Line. You are the first to hear the album in its entirety. It's for you, anyway.

It's all for you.

x H.

I sit down on the couch, feeling as though my legs are giving out. Benny joins me, concerned.

"What is it?"

I brush my fingers along the CD cover. He looks so precious. I remember this photo shoot. I remember how he came back to my house jumping around in excitement because the pictures turned out so well.

"The album he wrote about me." I whisper.

"The fact that you say that with so much confidence says a lot, Mona."

"What do you mean?"

"He wrote an album about you. If that's the case that just means you're all he thinks about. Enough to write music for. He loves you, Mona. I know you love him too. And whatever is happening, you guys can work it out. Soulmates aren't meant to be separated."

Tears brim my eyes as my lip quivers.

"What if they are?" I sniffle.

"Then maybe their love was just too strong to hold together."

-

I listened to it multiple times. Played it over and over again all day. Analyzed every lyric, every melody, every harmony, every single thing. Cried each time.

When I heard 'Cherry' in its final form, I felt like jumping off a bridge. Especially when I heard my own fucking voice. I recalled the night I read the lyrics on the page while he was in the hospital. How painful it must have been for him to write them.

Now it's just as painful to hear them.

He left a recording of us. It's such a vivid memory. When I heard it, I could picture it in my mind. Harry sitting on the floor, playing that melody while I spoke to my grandmother on the phone. Told her how we went to the beach because I had a bad week and Harry dragged me out there to show me that even when life is bad, we'll always have the ocean to hug us.

But then he told me there was no point though because no matter what I'd always have him to hug me.

In that moment I realized how badly I needed him.

It felt like I had opened up his diary or something and I almost felt guilty for listening. The fact that he's going to share this with the world baffles me. But somehow it reassures me that I'm important enough to be shared to the world.

There was one song that stood out to me in particular though.

Fine Line.

I sat down and wrote the lyrics out since they weren't on the internet yet. And I read them over and over.

It was us. We were the fine line.

Something about it is so...familiar. I rack my brain for hours trying to figure out why it's so familiar. But then I remember.

It was 3am. I had woken up with this awful anxiety. My grandmother was sick at the time and I couldn't fly to Paris to see her.

Harry sensed me. I don't even know how the hell he did, but I remember how he sat up the second I sniffled once and he quickly tended to me. He stayed up with me until 5am, talking to me or telling me stories from the early 1D days or reading poems that reminded him of me from the poetry book he had been attached to just so I could hear his voice.

Finally, when I felt like I was getting sort of tired, he brought his guitar out. And there it was, some random melody he concocted in five seconds. The same one I hear in the song.

Out of nowhere, he started singing softly.

"You'll be alright."

Over and over until I actually genuinely felt like I was going to be okay.

I could tell it was something he was just coming up with on the spot, but clearly it meant something to him. Because I remember it had put me to sleep immediately. And anytime I had anxiety from then on, that was my special anxiety song.

Just him, the guitar, that melody, and those three words.

But he changed them.

We'll be alright.

And that fucking hit me like a semi truck.

But frankly, it was all I needed to hear.

Because it was enough to bring me to his doorstep at 1am.

**

I would like to formally apologize for what's about to come. Kinda tempted to wait a few days to post the next chapter so the anticipation builds up but who knows