CHARLIE
DAY 1: LONDON
Everything hurts. Okay, I’m actually physically fine and nothing actually hurts, but I feel as though there is an everlasting empty hole in my heart that only he who is absent can truly fill entirely. It’s like being hungry but nothing in your cupboard seems appetizing and whatever you’re craving is out of reach. It sucks I won’t lie. Eleanor and I were the last left in the van after dropping off the others, and when we walked through the door of the apartment meant for seven, the two of us were instantly swallowed by it’s vast emptiness. El sighed and quietly disappeared to the bathroom leaving me still stood by the door. I dropped my purse and my body fell fluidly beside it. My chest was tight and my throat was dry, and I could hear myself laugh through tears as I realized how pathetic I was for not even being able to stand without Harry to lean on; his absence magnified the strength that Harry really did give me and I hadn’t fully realized it until he was on his way halfway across the world.
I closed my eyes and leant my head against the door, knocking it lightly against it’s surface, a dumbed down version of the dramatics in all the films as my chest fought to rise and fall regularly. I could feel the cold charms against my skin, pulling them out from inside my shirt and wedging my thumbnail between the halves prying it open. I stared down at the two pictures and a smile absentmindedly crept across my face. I knew he wouldn’t want me like this, crying on the kitchen floor literally lost without him, so I took a deep breath, wiped the tears with the back of my free hand, snapped the locket shut and stood up.
DAY 2: LONDON
Harry’s bed engulfed me in loneliness and the smell of him, not only a tease but also admittedly comforting. As soon as the phone rang I could feel my face light up: not only from the glow of the screen but mostly from the voice on the other end. It was short but it was enough. The second the line went dead I fell asleep at once, and for the first time in a long time my dreams would be better than my reality, because at least then I could be with him.
HARRY
DAY 2: LAS VEGAS
“We’re going to go out there and do our best, we need to show America who One Direction are and we’re going to do it right!” Liam took the lead role and spoke in the huddle. I could feel my hands shaking against Louis’ to which he responded by taking it in his and squeezing it.
“Don’t be nervous mate, we’ve got this,” he whispered and I nodded whilst taking hands with Niall, who joined hands with Liam who linked with Zayn and back to Louis.
I could hear the sounds of the seagulls followed by the familiar beat of What Makes You Beautiful in a distance, our opening tour video began, followed by one of the most epic roars I have ever heard. I lifted my head from the bow of the huddle, and I could feel my eyes widening as I saw four other pairs doing the same in front of me.
“D-Do you…” Niall stuttered, starting to ask if we had heard but he needn’t ask because all we could do was smile. My heart was beating against the skin of my tattooed chest, so fiercely it thumped through the thin fabric of my t-shirt, the charms of my necklace clattering together melodically, and even above the screams it sang beautifully in my ear and that’s when I could feel that she was here.
“Let’s do this boys,” was the last thing I said before running full speed onto the stage that started our career in the United States of America.
CHARLIE
DAY 4: LONDON
It was a Friday and I was in my last class before the weekend, and anyone who has attended school knows exactly how that feels. I’d gotten here early and I was already anxious to leave, my foot tapping against the floor of the slowly filling room. I could feel a buzz against my thigh and a smile finding its way across my lips.
Harry: I’m missing you x H
I sighed heavily, rereading it over and over again. This had been the extent of most of our conversations; we’d spoken on the phone only once since the very first day. The next time he’d called me I could hear his smile through the phone, I could almost feel the tears of joy streaming down his face as he spoke. He’d said there were girls with posters and shirts with their lyrics handwritten on them. Fans were screaming their names and singing back each and every word and when they’d left the stage they followed them out to their tour bus just to catch a better glimpse. “I came just for One Direction!” Harry told me girls were saying to him, and I smiled knowing I’d been right. “Charlie,” he had said breathlessly into the receiver and I waited for a while for him to continue, “I think this is just the beginning.” I broke into tears at his words but he begged for me to tell him how I was. I started to talk and I couldn’t even tell you what I said, that’s the thing with Harry and me, it didn’t matter what we said, we just needed to hear each other. In the middle of a sentence he sighed heavily, I imagined a large hand pressed against the wall and his body leaning carelessly against it, one leg crossed over the other as he held the phone to his ear saying “It’s good to talk to you. I find that I miss it even when it hasn’t been that long.”
But it made it easier on me knowing how well everything was going over there, and me being so busy over here – picking up more classes in school and getting back into the swing of things at Topshop it was almost hard to find time to miss him, but I always did manage. And I could tell he had plenty of time to miss me because I’d always find a cheeky little text on my phone telling me how much he did. I wanted to call, to hear his voice somewhere other than the radio but as soon as I would figure out the time difference he would be gone and somewhere new, and as the days would go by I knew it would only get harder. I frowned a little thinking of it, just about to text back as the chair next to me was filled.
“Hi!” someone sang and I was startled by the random American accent. When I looked up at her, her smile faded and turned into a gawking mouth hung open.
“Okay,” she started boldly, “maybe I just have British fever but I swear to God you look just like Harry Styles’ girlfriend… tell me you get that a lot?”
I couldn’t help but laugh but suddenly I had a surprised face of my own, considering her American accent and the fact that I’d never seen her before, she had to be new and she had to be from the US.
“You know about One Direction?”
“So you are!” her eyes lit up like Times Square and all I did was nod slowly.
“And of course I know about One Direction…” she laughed as if I was absolutely deluded “you would be surprised how many people in America know about them. They have no idea how big their fan base is.” Her words excited me, making my heart speed up in my chest but as it fluttered it seemed to sink, like a bird just learning to fly, because while I was proud and surprised I was scared and the fear of losing him, the fear of falling while trying to fly, was bringing me down.
“Charlie,” she said finally taking note of my lack of presence as my mind seemingly was elsewhere, yet trying to bring me back with the extension of her hand, “I’m Sam.”
For the first time I really looked at her, and she looked as American as she sounded. I don’t know what about her made her look American, but when something about her just screamed it – it was weird really. Her hair was long and honey blonde and her eyes were such a light blue you could almost see through them. Her accent was charming and she was that obvious kind of beautiful – she was exactly the kind of American Girl I feared Harry would fall for, so naturally looking at her kind of scared the hell out of me and I was instantly threatened by her. But she was here, and he was there so I just hoped she wasn’t a twin.
“It’s really nice to meet you, did you just move here?”
“Yeah, from New York. All my friends were so jealous, like ‘you’re going to college in the land of One Direction’ and then all of a sudden those bastards go to America the second I leave – what’s with that?” I let out a loud laugh: she was no threat; I was falling in love with her instantly.
“You and me both are disappointed those bastards went to America,” I heard myself say with a small smile and she tilted her head at me like a puppy in question.
“What are you doing here?” she looked like she didn’t mean to say it out loud. “I mean… why aren’t you with him?” she said softly, a question I asked myself on the daily.
“Because,” I said holding my breath as I searched for the right words, “because I needed to stay here and go to school and make something of myself that wasn’t given to me because of him.”
“Wow,” she looked impressed “I respect you a lot for that. But honestly what girl in her right mind lets Harry Styles out of her grip once she has him? Clearly you do need to go to college because you aren’t very smart, are you Charlie?” she said with a wink and an upturned crooked smile that reminded me of his.
As class started, my mind started elsewhere, thinking that besides the boys and the girlfriends and my coworkers, I didn’t really have any friends. I think that was my fault, being content with being alone or only being with the same people – I was just comfortable. When my mom was sick I had her and I had Lou and that was all I needed. And when she died Harry and the boys came into my life and they were all the family I had and I was so grateful that I needn’t look for any other form of companionship because I debatably had the best friends anyone could ever ask for. But when I looked at Sam I felt like she was everything I was missing without me even realizing I was missing anything. I believed instantly that in life you have soul mates, people you are destined to love, to hate, and to be friends with. And in that moment I knew I was supposed to be friends with her, and that she was sat beside me for a reason.
Class seemed to have flown by as the time dripped on more quickly with Sam’s company. I’d realized I was so excited for Friday and yet I had nothing to do… until now.
“Do you want to come over?” I said pulling the strap of my bag over my shoulder, probably the most spontaneous I’d been in ages, “Eleanor is heading to Manchester this weekend and obviously the boys are out of town so I’m kind of alone. You could stay over, I could show you around London tomorrow and stuff...” I felt myself almost fearing rejection, as I never really had to make any friends or plans for myself; One Direction were my friends and my plans revolved around them and school and work. For a split second I felt like my life was incredibly boring when I thought about it that way, until I remembered that One Direction are my best friends.
“Really?” she said so childlike, like the proposition was completely crazy, and I just nodded with an open smile, “sure!”
HARRY
DAY 4: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (12:48 PM)
We’d just eaten at In & Out Burger and my life was definitely changed. American food was just too good. The weather was beautiful and it was the middle of February and I couldn’t help but wish Charlie’s hand was in mine as we walked down the street with the sun on our shoulders watching freckles appear across her tanned skin. We were walking down the streets of downtown LA, Ray Bans shielding us from the California sun, wearing tank tops and jeans. Every once in a while someone would stop us and we’d take a picture and have a chat, and I’d smile in every picture because I knew how much it meant to every single fan to have that one picture to tweet or to instagram or to be their profile picture for the rest of eternity. But when I wasn’t posing with my arm around someone I’d never remember but someone that would always remember me, I wasn’t smiling. I had every reason to be happy, I was on tour in America with my best friends and we were doing better than we’d ever dreamed being five strangers who came in third in a UK Talent show, but without her, Charlie… it was like none of that mattered, like there was nothing to smile over. Like everything we had going for us couldn’t even withstand the empty bed at night and the absence of her laugh, like the lack of her presence in the front row and the way her lips felt against mine. No amount of growing twitter followers or sound of hundreds of girls screaming my name compared to her eyes, or the smell of her hair or the sound of her voice when she’s falling asleep. I just couldn’t completely be who she made me without her here.
“Harry!” Louis’ voice broke me from my thoughts. His face was a mere three centimeters from mine and his hands were firmly clasped on my shoulders and for some reason I felt like he’d been shaking me for a while now.
“I’ve called your name five times, where are you?” he said, his eyes searching mine erratically.
“I’m in Los Angeles, California,” I said finally and he shook his head with his eyebrows knitting together.
“No, Harry. Where is your head? The second we get off stage you deflate. Where are your dimples, Haz? I haven’t heard you laugh in what feels like forever.”
All I could do was stare at him. We were stopped and the others had kept going, we stood alone on foreign streets, my best friend searching for me as I myself struggled to find words.
“She wouldn’t want you to be like this, you know. When you get home she is going to ask you how it was, she is going to want to hear about all the memories you made and all the fun you had, not about how you were a miserable wreck the entire time.”
He was right and I continued to realize that even more as he spoke, “she misses you too Harry, it’s okay to miss her. But don’t let you missing her ruin your entire time. You owe it to the fans. You owe it to us. You owe it to her. Damnit Harry, you owe it to yourself.”
“I know,” I exhaled, my hands running through my hair and holding onto my head as I stared down at him, “I just hate how far she is. I hate the way time zones are an actual bitch. I hate how she doesn’t always text me back, how its never a good time for either of us. I hate not hearing her voice or reading her thoughts or anything. I just need something, you know?” I could feel my voice shaking and my eyes glistening, and suddenly the tone of his voice changed.
“Harry, Harry, hey. It’s all right man. She’s eight hours ahead of us, but you know what? She’ll be there when you get back, she always will.”
CHARLIE
DAY 4: LONDON (8:48 PM)
“I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you everyday for a year.” My bottom lip was shaking, tears were spilling from my eyes, streaming down my cheeks and down my neck pooling on my chest, my face was literally so wet with tears that you would have thought I was in the rain with Noah and Allie that day. Sam and I were sitting on the sofa with Chinese takeaway and Ben & Jerry’s watching The Notebook after she had gotten over the fact that she was spending the night in One Direction’s flat and those assholes weren’t even here – she was great.
“You wrote me?”
“Yes, it wasn’t over. It still isn’t over.”
The remote was in my hand and suddenly the motion ceased on screen after I’d hit the pause button.
“DAMNIT CHARLIE ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? THIS IS CRUCIAL PRESS PLAY NOW!” with tears she choked on her words, Sam’s makeup was halfway down her face and her clear eyes were bright red and I laughed imagining how treacherous I must’ve looked.
“Are you seriously laughing right as Noah and Allie are about to kiss in the rain?” her face was serious and her voice was monotone.
“I’m laughing at your face!” I said covering my mouth muffling my giggles as she picked up her iPhone and looked in its reflection.
“What’s so funny? I look just like you!” she said with a smirk handing me the phone and I choked on my laughter and tears as I looked in.
“Come here we’re taking a picture for twitter,” I said barely able to contain myself, holding my stomach as it ached with laughter, and she shook her head “do you even know how many followers you have? Hell no!”
“Samantha Marie Greene come here,” it was somewhat uncanny how much I knew about her and how much I adored here after so little time. It was as if she was my sassy American fraternal twin.
We smiled with our Lauren Conrad-esque black tears dripped like watercolors down our faces and I sent the image to myself before tweeting it.
“@CharlieParkerxo: @SamanfffaGreene and I are looking like what could only be the product of #thenotebook! Pic.twitter.com/o8GHki7a”
After laughing hysterically at the replies from directioners I’d seen a tweet from Harry.
“@Harry_Styles: @CharlieParkerxo @SamanfffaGreene are you lot at the rain scene or the hospital?! Missing you charlotte xxxx” I smiled, dropping my phone in my lap.
“You miss him too, don’t you?” she said bending her head down to meet glances with mine.
“More than anything,” I sighed and she shook her head.
“This isn’t fair. You’re supposed to watch The Notebook with someone else who is forever alone so you can cry over the fact that no one will ever love you the way Noah loved Allie but I know for a fact Harry would build you a house or climb the freaking London Eye for you… I am being robbed of a quality girl night because you are in just the love we’re supposed to be jealous of.” She threw her head back and shook her head dramatically.
“And then!” she said looking up for her big break, “and then you pause it at the kiss in the rain are you out of your mind!” she was laughing at her own performance, “Why’d you pause it anyways?”
“Do you think I should write Harry letters?” it sounded dumb out loud but she urged me to continue, “we never properly get to talk and I hate that Louis has been telling me how homesick he is and how much he misses me. Maybe if I wrote him a letter for everyday he’s gone he would have something to look forward to… something to keep him going, you know?” I bit my lip but Sam perked up.
“That is so romantic. You could have a letter waiting at every hotel he’s at! Aw oh my god you are the Noah to his Allie I can’t,” she was gushing and I hit her with a pillow as I pressed play seeing them fall together from the pause.
The way he grabs her face, puling her toward him as close as humanly possible, the way she jumps into him, wrapping her legs around his torso and the rain pours on but their embrace continues, I saw us, Harry and me. I saw the way they looked at each other and knew we looked at each other that way. The way they held each other was the way we did. The way they kissed. The way Noah told her he wanted her, all of her, forever, him and her every day – I could hear Harry’s voice, I could feel Harry loving me this much because he did. The way Noah described his love for her, ‘She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time’ was the way Harry thought of me, how I made him the best version of who he was, how he truly believed ours was a once in a life time love, that my hand fit in his because it was supposed to. And I knew I wanted Harry to know I loved him just as much as Noah loved Allie, so I decided to write to him starting tomorrow.
HARRY
DAY 7: DENVER, COLORADO (7:52 PM)
It had been a week since I’d left Charlie at the airport and both of us were busier than we’d anticipated. We had texted back and forth but they were the same irregular pleas of ‘I miss you’ every time. I’d text her every time we landed somewhere so she would know we made it okay, because she was afraid with all the traveling we would have a greater chance of a freak accident – she was a worrier. We climbed out the van and straight up to the hotel, I was so exhausted I just wanted to go to sleep because the new city chaos all began tomorrow: promo, radio stations, sound check, show, exploring. I slapped Niall’s palm and our fists pounded together.
“Goodnight mate,” he said as we disappeared into our own rooms.
As soon as I shut the door my hands instinctively felt my pocket, just about to reach in and grab my phone until I noticed the time: it was almost 3AM in London. I sighed as I fell into routine, kicking off my shoes and peeling off my clothes, finding that Paul or Sean had already brought my bags into my room. I went to grab my laptop to scroll through twitter, sitting on the edge of the bed I favorited tweets and followed a couple of fans who said they were coming to our American shows. My eyelids grew heavy as I stared at the bright screen, so I set it aside and fell back restlessly on the mattress.
“Shit,” I groaned tiredly, a corner of a paper hit the back of my neck, the point of it poking into my skin. I’d figured it was just a hotel pamphlet but when I threw my arm over my head and fished through my curls I’d found an envelope, my name written in familiar bubbly script followed by the address of the hotel, and in the top left corner was my home address and her name in her own pen, Charlotte Parker.
My heart skipped a beat when I read her name, especially written beautifully in her own handwriting. For a moment a wave of worry washed over me, my hand shook lightly holding the envelope in hand, what could this be? My mind flashed back to one of the last movies we’d watched together when Savannah broke up with John via letter after he’d left her to wait and my heart was sinking like a stone in a still lake. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes shaking the thought right out of my head, We’re not in Dear John, I said to myself as I carefully I tore at the top of the seal, revealing a letter neatly covered in her words.
Dear Harry,
I know one of two things, either you’re panicking that I’m totally going Savannah on you right now or you're probably smiling stupidly at this paper right now because you weren't expecting anything [She knew me too well] don't say I've never surprised you! In the spirit of all the Nicholas Sparks movies I’d made you watch, I’m actually going Noah on you and writing you a letter to remind you how much I love you. I want you to know – I need you to know – that I'm fine: I have been busy with school, I've taken a lot of shifts at the store and remarkably I've even made friends! I know what you’re thinking Haz, it seems impossible that I could even spend time with anyone outside of One Direction but I’ve managed to do it! I have a new friend at school named Samantha, she convinced me writing you letters wouldn’t be the lamest thing in the world but actually wildly romantic (which I hope you think so) and she’s hysterical. She is such a big fan of you guys and she’s adorable and I cannot wait for you to meet her... if Niall was an American Girl he would be Sam, blonde haired blue-eyed craic and all! And then at work there’s a girl named Emma, who is definitely a fan of yours in particular… which I can’t blame her because I’m a Harry girl myself.
But anyway enough about them and back to the point: I'm fine. But don’t get me wrong Styles I miss you like crazy… I wish you were here or I was there. I think about you almost constantly but I'm getting along and I don't want you worrying about me. This is your moment Harry, you're in America on tour for the first time (do you know how amazing you are?!) and I want you to remember it for what its worth; I want you to make this a moment you will never forget. I wish I was there and you know that, but for me and for you I need you to be the best that you can be, and even when I'm 7520 kilometers (yes I looked it up) away, or ahead by however many hours (currently 7), I'll always be right here for you.
I love you for all that you are, for all that you’ve been, and for all that you are yet to be. And for everyday we're apart I realize a little more how much that’s true.
Xxx Charlie
As I read my eyes filled with tears but I was careful not to let them slip from my lashes and splatter against the ink. Periodically I felt myself wetting my lips with my tongue and biting down hard. I’d let out a laugh at the trouble she put into this, looking things up and handwriting me a letter to let me know how much she loved me and to make sure I was okay, mailing this out and having it waiting for me before I’d even arrived… she was something special that Charlie Parker. I knew how much this must have sucked for her; having to walk around the empty apartment, swallowed by its silence and all the sights and smells and remnants of the five of us. I thought about the day I came into my kitchen and found her standing there, she was broken and left with absolutely nothing until we came into her life. I thought about how much we changed her life, going from thinking you’re alone to gaining an entirely new family, and the thought of us now being her everything made me feel guilty for stripping her of that by flying away without her. But nothing felt better than hearing she was fine. And there was nothing more selfless that with all that her main concern was me, and that’s when I looked up across the room and into the mirror hung in front of me and smiled because I was in love with the most compassionate, adorable, romantic girl I would ever meet.
And because of that I would fall asleep with her words pressed to my chest, their meaning seeping deeper than the ink on my skin, with the stupid smile she’d suspected all along.