This Thing Upon Me [Order The eBook] [Harry Styles]

Chapter 25

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"I had all and then most of you, some, and now none of you.

Take me back to the night we met."

Lord Huron | The Night We Met

The arid days of 2015 seemed but a vague recollection of a past life as I gazed into his eyes a few feet away from me on the sofa. Swimming in his mellifluous laughter, my blood slowing to savor the warmth of his studious regard. I felt giddy and weird. He had gotten up briefly to light a candle (vanilla, our old favorite), before plopping back down beside me and lighting a Marlboro. The satisfaction I derived from seeing him smoke again felt like a cool towel pressed to a fevered brow, or a splash of water on the tongue after a desert trek.

It offered an inexplicable combination of emotion. That of relief, of nostalgia—of vicarious pleasure. His lips curled around the filter with a sensual grace. With each inhale, I inhaled. With each exhale, I had to refrain from shuddering. Smoke shrouded the space between us, spilling spectral from his nostrils and parted mouth in an irreverent display that said, f—k our health, f—k our youth, do whatever feels good. His eyes were heavily lidded as he watched me over the pall of smoke, tempting me with every unspoken device in his arsenal. I wanted so badly to become his drug. His nicotine. I wanted him to breathe me in and out, over and over again, until he depleted my self-worth—until he was satiated. I needed him to need me.

He hung his head on the back of the couch and puffed away. I followed suit and lay back as well, folding my hands atop my stomach. We were absolutely perfect for each other, and I was reminded of that in the strangest way now. Our silence was already comfortable. I wasn't anxious about what to say next, and neither was he. We were so used to simply existing near each other that the pressure to say the right thing had faded, and we were keen to let our non-verbal chemistry do the talking.

After seeing him again, I couldn't stop revisiting every nuance and elation and peculiarity of our time together, like I was flicking through a photo album of our greatest hits. I could remember the aroma of the weed he carried in his backpack, which left the odor all over his paperwork sometimes. I could sense the warm moisture of his tongue caressing mine. I could taste chocolate on his lips whenever we kissed after eating sweets. I could feel him breathing down my neck as he read something over my shoulder, laying across the bed stark naked; he half atop of me.

I remembered everything now. Something about his presence unlocked a corridor in my memory that I raced down in true abandon to recollect the pieces of us lost in grief. I saw him sleeping, long dark lashes against hollowed cheeks. Fine-boned and exquisite. He rarely slept through the night though, and I wondered if that restlessness still plagued him.

Sometimes he would wake me up and pick up a conversation we'd been having hours before I fell asleep, and I always tried to answer as coherently as I could. I could translate his morning grunts when he didn't feel like talking. He knew how I liked my coffee. I knew how he liked his chicken. He liked missionary so he could stare into my eyes the entire time and intimidate me—exposing my weaknesses for him.

I remembered when he would get so high he would f—k me stupid, and the only way I could get away was to sleep in the tub with the bathroom door bolted. I could see him now sifting through the clothes I had taken off at the end of the day and finding my shirt to wear to bed. He had an obsession about wearing my shirts when he slept, and it took me a while to realize he needed to be held too; and that this was his way of satisfying that need without having to admit to it.

I moved further down the corridor and unlocked several wings that recounted expressions of our love language (intimacy beyond intimacy.) Sometimes after a show he would rub my back until I fell asleep. I liked to scratch his scalp in the car, even if he had his headphones on and was ignoring me. He would pop my blackheads some mornings, out of a morbid fascination, and I'd pick crusty stuff from his nose, or from the corners of his eyes whenever he awoke midday.