Fine Line // H.S.

26

I didn't eat, and immediately turned my phone on.

   Sitting cross legged on our yellow couch with the device gripped in my shaking hand, I scrolled through the several missed calls and voicemails from the same number as the day before along with the same treatment from other strange numbers.

As I was about to listen to all of my messages, the phone started to blare again with another unknown number.

"Hello?" I stupidly answered while biting down on my thumb nail nervously. The silence in the house made it easier for me to hear the woman on the other end mutter out a small 'oh thank God,' as if she was extremely thankful to get me to finally answer the phone.

"Is this," she paused for a moment and I heard rapid typing before she continued by asking, "Belle Granger? Is this Belle Granger?"

"Y-yes," I hesitated, my mouth pressing into a line and eyes searching the sunlit room in front of me.

"Amazing! We've been trying to get ahold of you for awhile now!" The woman blurted with a newfound joy to her voice from the original blandness it held. "I'm Carissa Smith with Variety and we would love to interview you about the headlines that broke about you and Mr. Harry Styles on Saturday morning."

Well I wasn't expecting that. This whole thing is just as big, if not bigger, than I thought. After twenty-four hours of trying to convince myself that things would die down sooner rather than later and that there is no way anyone would actually care that much about little old me, I was proven wrong with one sentence.

"I'm not interested," I said a little too forcefully, knowing now that every other unknown number in my phone was probably from people and outlets just like this who were looking to capitalize and make a quick buck off this story at Harry, Kendall, and I's expense.

"You might want to reconsider," the Carissa Smith lady bit back, all false kindness wiped from her voice like it was never there in the first place. "We're willing to pay."

"I don't need your money," I stated bluntly as I began to feel the nausea coming back. The woman was extremely persistent, so it scared me to think how other journalists would be and how long the destruction of my privacy would last. I tried to recall how long other scandals stayed in the forefront of people's minds, but came up with nothing considering I've never really paid much attention to tabloids before.

Carissa Smith from Variety clicked her tongue before leaving me a number to call if I changed my mind. At the time I was unsure why I wrote it down, but looking back on it I guess my gut was telling me to, and my gut is always right.

When the call ended and another one caused my phone to ring again almost immediately after I hung up, I threw the device down and ran to the bathroom, hunching over the toilet again. It's safe to say that the bathroom is now my absolute least favorite place.

Shuffling back into the living room, I leapt onto the couch and thought about turning my phone off again like Jane said I should, but it just kept ringing and ringing and all I could do was stare at it wide eyed with fear and anxiety.

Eventually it stopped.

The incessant ringing finally stopped, and I could feel my sanity coming back. Until it started going off again like a siren with another caller, making me scream out in frustration. I lunged for the vibrating phone and was about to chuck it at the wall until I saw the caller ID.

Harry.

"Are you okay?"

That was the first thing he asked when I finally answered and pressed the phone to my ear. I didn't even have time to say hello before the question was spilling from his mouth.