(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 6 - Start Again And Find Somebody)
"Don't let her go!" Karen shouts at me desperately, brushing fruitlessly at her skirt with her hand. "Go after her! She's going to the press!"
"She's not going to the press," I sigh, wearily.
"Do you really want to take the risk?!" Karen snarls.
"I really, honestly, couldn't care less," I reply. "I deserve whatever is coming to me. But I'm telling you now, she won't sell her story. She isn't an attention seeker, and she would never deliberately hurt me."
"Even though you broke her heart?!" Karen rages.
"Even though I broke her heart," I mumble, staring back at my feet again.
"Well I'm sorry, Harry, but I'm afraid I don't share your faith. I've seen a woman scorned too many times. Someone needs to stop her!"
"Go on then," I sigh, and she stops wiping her skirt and lifts her head to stare at me.
"What, me?!" she says incredulously. "She won't listen to me!"
"I'm not going after her," I declare, stubbornly. "I've treated her badly enough. The last thing she wants is me begging her not to sell me down the river."
Karen lets out a growl of rage and steps past me and into the corridor, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor and she strides towards the stairs in pursuit of Jess. I wait until I hear the door swing shut, and then get up out of my seat, step out into the corridor and look out of the window into the car park.
Antos, a bald-headed driver for Modest, is opening the door of what looks like a black Mercedes, to let Jess in. I watch as she slips gracefully into the back seat, her hair scooped forward over her shoulder. He shuts the door behind her and walks around the front of the car to the driver's side, and that's when I see Karen emerge from the front door of the building. She crosses the car park with purpose, and as she reaches the car the back window slides down and I can see Jess's face. Even when she's angry, she's beautiful.
I can't hear the conversation from up here, but it doesn't seem to be going too well for Karen. I smirk as Jess rolls her eyes in Karen's face and winds the window back up again while Karen is still bent down trying to talk to her. Eventually she stands up and watches with her hands on her hips as the car backs out of the space and crawls out of the car park.
Once it has disappeared she folds her arms and walks back across the car park to the entrance. I slip back into her office and sit down, and after a minute I hear her heels clicking along the corridor again. She sweeps into her office and shuts the door behind us, a little louder than necessary.
"Well it's safe to say my skirt is ruined," she snaps as she sits down behind her desk.
Safe to say my life is ruined, but whatever.
"It's only water," I mutter.
"This is dry clean only," she says stonily.
"Oh."
"I can't believe she wouldn't listen to reason!" she explodes, slapping her palm on the desk in annoyance. "Why didn't you let her sign that bloody agreement? It would have prevented all of this!"
"All of what?" I huff. "She hasn't done anything, and she won't. I trust her. She won't betray me."
"You're so naive," Karen sighs.
"I'm not naive!" I protest. "If it was anyone else I would wholeheartedly agree with you. But I know her. She won't let me down. That's what makes all this harder."
"What do you mean?"
I mean that it makes me sick to my stomach that after everything I have done, after the way I let Jess down, after I humiliated her publicly and broke heart and her trust in the worst possible way, that I know she wouldn't ever try and get revenge. I just know she won't.
"Never mind," I mumble.
I don't have the energy to argue this out anymore. I don't have the energy for anything anymore. I'm tired of hating myself. I'm tired of feeling guilty. I'm tired of feeling miserable.
I'm tired of missing Jess.
"I'm not letting this go, Harry," Karen warns. "It's my job to maintain your image. I'm not having the entire world blasting you for one mistake. You're only human. People would do well to remember that."
It's ironic, really, when she's treating everyone like puppets.
But just as I know Jess won't sell her story, I also know Karen won't let this drop until she gets her own way.
....
When I get back home that evening, Mum is already there. She has made a lasagne and I can smell it the moment I walk in the door. She gives me a huge hug when I enter the kitchen, and I tell her everything about my meeting with Karen and Jess.
"Are you certain Jess won't go public?" Mum asks, as she spoons lasagne onto our plates.
"Positive," I reply, and she nods thoughtfully.
"I do think you have unresolved feelings towards her," she says softly, and my heart jumps painfully.
"I don't want to talk about it," I tell her.
I can't think about it anymore. Jess is out of my life now, for all the right reasons. I can't dwell on the past any longer. I'm on the verge of making myself ill.
"You know where I am if you change your mind," she says, squeezing my hand gently.
I'm lucky to have such a supportive family.
Mum stays at my house until Friday morning when I leave for Oslo. She gives me a kiss and a hug, and tells me to call her anytime, day or night, if I need to talk. I'm feeling a bit better, because I have forced myself not to think about what happened, and focussed on everything else around me instead. I have three more European dates left, and then I will be flying straight to the US to spend a week acclimatising before the tour schedule resumes in San Diego.
We land in Oslo and I meet my old friend Jack for lunch. We have a good catch up, reminiscing about our childhood and laughing about the pranks we used to play when we were kids. It's another welcome distraction from Jess, and it feels good to be smiling again.
The show in Oslo goes well, and I think of Jess as I make the crowd do the sex noises and scream OH YEAH! I can feel Niall's eyes on me, and when I finally look at him he gives me a quizzical look, probably wondering why I am torturing myself by sharing mine and Jess's private joke, but I give him a shrug. In a weird way, I like that these memories are still very much a part of me, and I enjoy sharing them on stage. It's an opportunity for me to think about her in a happy way, instead of wallowing in self pity.
We fly back to London after the show, and it's the early hours of the morning again before I fall into bed. I text Grimmy when I wake up to see if he is free later, but he's going out for some drinks with some people I don't know, and I don't really feel in the mood for socialising in a big group. I end up driving over to Gemma's flat and watching Friends repeats with her until past midnight and deflecting questions about my love life.
I wake up late on Sunday, to the sound of my phone ringing. It's Grimmy.
"Hello?" I croak.
"Guess who I saw last night," he greets me.
"Ummm... I dunno," I mumble, feeling confused and disorientated at being rudely awoken like this.
"Jess."
That wakes me up with a start. I sit up in bed, my heart pounding.
"Jess? Where? Did you speak to her? How is she?"
"Yes. In a bar. Yes. Not great."
It takes a minute for me to pair his answers with my questions.
"What bar? What do you mean, not great?" I ask.
"Same bar as last time. She was with her friend Callie and her boyfriend. She wasn't too happy."
"Whose boyfriend?!" I demand as my stomach twists at the thought of Jess with someone else.
"I mean Callie's boyfriend," Nick clarifies. "Although..."
He hesitates. I have a horrible feeling I know what's coming.
"Although what?"
I feel sick.
"Well, Callie had sort of set her up with someone... some guy called Adam whose parents own an art gallery in Camden. The Plan B guy?"
I can't speak. My head is spinning. A fucking art gallery?
"Jess didn't seem too into him, though, from what I could see," he adds quickly.
"Why, what happened?"
"They were just talking. But then he stood up to get her a drink, and, uh, he sort of kissed her."
"He kissed her? What did she do?"
Why do I even care? Why do I have an indescribable ache in my chest? Why can't I get the image of some faceless, sophisticated art critic wining and dining her and finishing the evening with a tour of his parents' gallery?
"She just kind of stood there, and then he went to the bar. That's when I left, though, so I don't know what happened after that. Harry?" he asks, after I've been silent for a few seconds.
"Yeah, sorry, I'm here."
I swallow hard and rake my hand through my hair.
"I've done the right thing in telling you, yeah?" he asks.
"Yeah, of course," I mumble, staring down at the duvet cover.
"You should call her."
"No," I reply, quickly. "We're over. She can do what she wants."
"You miss her, though."
This isn't a question. I don't answer.
"Her mate was being really obvious," Grimmy says. "I think she wanted me to see what was going on. Probably so it would get back to you."
"Job done," I say, bitterly. "You free later?"
"Yeah, you want me to come over?"
"Yeah. Bring Pig," I tell him.
Pig is his dog. Don't ask.
"I'll bring some wine too," he offers.
"It should be beer really, to keep it manly," I joke.
"You don't even like beer," he reminds me.
"No, not really," I admit.
"Wine it is," he confirms. "See you later."
I lay back in bed and stare up at the ceiling. If I can just keep myself occupied for the next week or so I can fly to LA and try and move on from the car crash my life has become. It'll be the break I need to help me get over everything, I'm sure of it. Once I'm out of London I won't be thinking about Jess constantly, and having to force myself to concentrate on other things just to get through each minute.
My phone lights up again, with a call from Jeff this time, but I divert it. I haven't spoken to him properly in a while, and I don't want to end up talking about Jess. I'm not in the mood to rehash it all right this second, not with this latest revelation about her and this Adam guy. I feel sick.
My phone lights up again immediately. It's Jeff again. I ignore it, tucking my hands behind my head and closing my eyes.
A text comes through, from Jeff.
We really need to talk. It's about New York. Call me.
I can't face it. I'll ring him back later.