It's You [H.S.]

11.2 | You're it

Ironically, she must have passed her on the freeway.

Jeff told him Eloise had shown up at his place, hammering on the door, shouting for him, then breaking down sobbing about how she didn't understand what had happened, what went wrong.

Then, after another couple of days of her blowing up his phone - processing from shock to confusion to disbelief to anger - Ben let him know, shortly, that she'd fled home.

Home-home; to their parents' place in Richmond Park.

But the distance didn't help him feel any better.

Worse, if anything. Her empty sides of the wardrobe and ensuite, haphazardly ransacked as they were, suggested a worrying permanence.

>

In the dark about it all, Mitch and Tom were struggling to understand what had happened and how best to help.

They figured music might prove the distraction he needed, until he was ready to talk.

Tom swung by one day, and, having literally dragged Harry off the shower floor, helped channel his angst into writing Falling. Bam, done and dusted in just twenty minutes - leaning against the piano, wrapped in only a towel, laying his emotions bare.

Then, in need of a distraction, Harry's obsessive streak flared up, and he'd made it his mission to track down authentic dulcimers for a new track they'd penned called Canyon Moon. That was at least three days relatively well spent.

Eloise's final missive, a week later, was scathing fury melting into accepting heartbreak.

"After everything that has been going on, our relationship was just about the only thing keeping me afloat. But I'm sorry if that was too much of a burden on you... I guess the last three years must have meant more to me than they did to you? ...But the very worst part in all this, Harry, isn't that tramp or the fucking media or rabid fans; it isn't even what you did... It's that I never would have once pegged you for a fucking coward who runs away and won't even acknowledge the damage you've done. You arrogant son of a bitch, you've fucking wrecked me... But you obviously have no intention of talking to me, so this is it. Goodbye, I guess, I'm done".

See? Haunting.

>

To try to protect what was left of his sanity and strength of will, he had to get away from places that remind him of her.

It didn't prove easy.

Seeing so many reminders and traces of her around the house was killing him. And, while his songwriting team was in LA, with his blue mood, he was genuinely worried about the path he could go down if he started dabbling in shit again. And he'd promised her; never again.

He considered heading home to Holmes Chapel, but knew his mum would only nag him about her; and the recording studios nearby aren't really up to scratch.

He evidently couldn't face the Hampstead house, and when holing himself up in a hotel suite didn't help either, he realised he had to get away from London too. She was too close; the temptation too much.

He decamped to Real World, a recording studio complex in Bath, for just over a week, but the nearby M4 proved problematic.

On a couple of occasions, he found himself getting in the car and sneaking back towards Richmond Park, only to then come to his senses and sheepishly turn around again.

Temptation proved too strong, but he really needed to bunker down and make some headway on the album.

Impulsively, he headed east.