The First // A Harry Styles au

She.

The makeup of the house is exactly the same as his, only mirrored. It's still in its original slate condition but is growing tired with the lack of use it has. He sometimes breaks in to wander around for inspiration, but it's so worn down all it really brings is dark thoughts. The porch is collapsed and the garden is just weeds. He often considers buying it himself and doing it up, but the thought of reselling it afterwards to anyone makes him irate. He likes being alone.

He runs the same routine every day. He wakes up around eight, jumps straight in the shower, dresses, eats his breakfast at the table in the window and reads the news on his phone, all the while deciding what he wants to do with himself that day. He spends no more than ten minutes in the bathroom every morning - drying his growing dark curls with his towel, cleans his teeth, and moisturises his beard. He's not long been able to grow a beard, but it's suddenly come in thick and full.

Once he knows what he's doing, he'll sit at his desk, or on the front porch or in the garden if the weather is pleasant enough, and he'll write or paint right on through to lunchtime. He'll eat something easy, and then he'll carry on until he's done.

He's meticulous with his work - he doesn't start one thing before he's finished another. Only unless he's struggling and thinks he should start again. He keeps everything tidy apart from his office. Every room in his house is spotless when he isn't in it, apart from that one second bedroom which often feels musty and just old. He doesn't know why, but he likes it that way - like it's his secret.

On his days off he takes the row boat out and drifts into the centre of the lake. He likes lying on his back. He often takes a guitar with him, because in the quiet of his little valley with nothing and no one else around him, no noise but that of the soft rippling water and maybe the odd breeze, a tune will come to his head, and if he's lucky it'll develop into a song. He likes the lack of nostalgia. Nothing about where he lives could ever really bring a painful reminder of anything, because the only memories he has of living here, are just the memories of himself and being alone. And he likes it that way.

Nothing is ever that easy, though.

In those quiet moments where he drifts between reality and sleep - walking that mildly unbalanced line that he could so easily fall one way or the other -, he'll feel her.

When he kips in his boat on those beautiful days, her hand will graze up the inside of his thigh. When he lies in the grass behind his house, on his front and with nose in his book, he'll feel her presence without a want - she'll sit like a mirror before him, her eyes wandering the features of his face and the concentration in the creases of his skin, yet when he drops his book down she vanishes. When he wakes in the morning she's lying on his other side, only the moment he gets out of bed she's not there anymore. But when he returns later she'll often be waiting for him. She joins him in the shower most mornings, she joins him for dinner most evenings, but she is never ever present.

He could draw her from memory - a memory that never actually took place. He has drawn her from memory, though. And painted her and seen her multiple times. Yet outside his head she ceases to exist.

The shape of her body, the colour of her skin, of her hair, of her eyes; he knows it all. He knows the sound of her voice, her tone, her accent, her laugh. He knows what she's like when she walks, or skips, or runs, or dances. He knows the individual creases in her face when she's elated - a contrast to those when she's angry or upset. He knows every slight imperfection of her perfect skin, every scale of her lips, every individual coloured fleck in her eyes. Yet he doesn't know who she is.

He just knows her as... her.

She.

She has a tendency to appear at inconvenient times, though she's never unwelcome. Not to him. There have been times when he's roared, because her appearances can often be timed poorly, but the moment he lashes, she vanishes. She is, after all, inexistant.