It had been six days since his first session with the psychologist his sister had made him go to. For the most part of his week, he had been able push aside his thoughts on the matter. He was at work, and needed to be fully focussed. He was able to compartmentalise his thoughts, and due to his lack of down time, Taylor and his session with her had barely entered his thoughts.
Taylor had gone on with her normal everyday business – she saw clients most of the day and went grocery shopping or had lunch with her friends. It had even snowed that week and she'd gone out to a close-by park. Harry and his green eyes and deep voice had only crept into her mind late at night when everything was done and she was lying in bed, half asleep. Then she'd remember how he pulled his fingers though his hair or how slightly weird he looked when he smiled – like he didn't do it very often.
She really wanted to help him overcome whatever it was, that was stopping him from having anyone in his life. Taylor sought out to help all her clients, but for some reason he was different.
The attraction to him was there – of course it was there – but obviously she couldn't exactly act on it. They had a doctor-patient professional relationship. Taylor had seen her fair share of emotionally damaged people. People who wouldn't acknowledge the pain that they felt, and she usually knew how to help them, but he had something different about him. She didn't really know what it was.
She had sensed that he wouldn't be willing to talk to her in the environment she worked in – he had already told her that he didn't believe in psychologists. So, she'd decided not to help him as a client, but as more of a friend.
It only took Harry about five minutes to find what he was looking for. Being good at hacking into things was part of his job. He stared at his phone screen after he'd typed Taylor's number in, running through everything he wanted to say one more time, so their correspondence would be efficient. Then he clicked 'call'.
Taylor was still up; despite how tired she was, finishing some paperwork that she could file in the morning. It was late, by any standards. She'd been working since her last patient had left in the late afternoon. She shuffled upstairs from the study, where she had been working, to her bedroom, yawning a couple of times on the way there.
She was tired and couldn't wait to literally throw herself into bed and pass out immediately. It had been a long day and an even longer week – but tomorrow was Friday. That meant the weekend was close – and it also meant she would be seeing Harry, who hadn't been on her mind for a long while now. She allowed a small smile as she thought of their little experiment.
At the time, she had thought that it would be a god way to show him that friendship was more than a distraction from his work. Taylor found friends very important – it was her friends – and her family – that helped her get back on her feet emotionally after Tom left.
It was almost impulse for her to roll her eyes every time he came to mind but she had managed to suppress it these days. At least he was back—her thoughts were interrupted by her ringtone – the default one the phone came with – and vibrating in the pocket of her sweatshirt. She pulled it out, noting there was no caller ID.
The paranoid part of her brain was telling her that answering a late night call from an unknown number was exactly how horror movies began. She swiped right and put her phone to her ear.
"Hello?" she said, hesitantly.
"Hi. Taylor? It's Harry."
Her eyes widened, both out of relief that it wasn't a serial killer and confusion. "Harry – as in Styles right?"
"Yes, It's me. I hope its okay that I called. I just had some concerns," he said and she noted how his voice was a little hoarse – it was late.
Her voice softened, "No, of course. I'm your psychologist – it's why I'm here. What's up—wait! How did you get my cell phone number?"
"I'm a technology analyst who has hacked into the FBI database on several occasions. Phone companies are easy to gain access to. It would be worrying if I couldn't get your number."
She snorted, "Hey, was that your attempt at a joke?"
"Humor is proven to make correspondence more light-hearted and diffuse any awkwardness or tension. Did it work?"
Taylor found herself smiling and biting her lip as he spoke – Harry obviously had no idea how adorable he was – any girl would be lucky to have this guy, and it was her responsibility to make sure he was emotionally available for that girl to find him.
"Yes, it did work. You said you had some concerns?" she asked, shifting her position on her bed, trying to stifle a yawn.
"Oh yes. You told me to 'come appropriately dressed for item number one on the list you gave me' yes?"
"Yes..." Taylor felt a small smile stretch across her face as she waited for him to continue.
"Which item is item number one? Your list isn't numbered."
"Are you sure you're a genius, Mr Styles?" she found herself chuckling at the absurdity of what he was saying.
"No, I assure you my question is valid, because the first thing here is, and I quote, 'watching the sun set on the beach' and there are a couple of flaws I see in doing that tomorrow."
"Oh, and what are those?" Taylor frowned, holding the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.
"Firstly, we live in New York, and most beaches are virtually inaccessible by car which is my – and I've gauged, your – preferred mode of transportation and unless you have a private helicopter, travelling out to a beach might be an issue," he took a breath and cleared his throat to begin again, "Secondly, it is currently mid-November and freezing cold outside – by the time we commute to a beach, the sun will already have set, with New York having an average sunset at 4:29pm."
"Oh," Taylor felt her spirits dampen a little bit, She had just scribbled down all the items on the list on a whim, giving no consideration to the season or weather of late.
"Judging by your tone and monosyllabic answer, I think you're a little disappointed."
"Yes, I am," she made an effort to brighten her voice, "But it's fine. We can push it to the end of the list, it's okay," she scratched her head, "What's item number two?"
Harry had predicted that that would be her next plan of action, but glanced down at the folded notebook page he'd kept in almost pristine condition.
"Star-gazing," he said with a rare smile.
Taylor could hear the joy in his voice and she smiled too, "Then we're on."
"What time shall I pick you up?"
Taylor had to sit up and repeat his words to herself in her mind – his words made it sound like they were discussing having a date – but no doubt, Harry was oblivious to the connotations of his question.
"Uh, is six o'clock tomorrow okay?" she said, trying not to convey her amusement at his cluelessness.
"Okay. Bye," he said, but remembered his manners, "And goodnight."
"Goodnight Harry."
-
At precisely 6pm, the following day, a black Jeep stopped outside Taylor's house. It was Harry's of course, and he was annoyingly punctual, as she had predicted. The weather outside had warmed up considerably, but it was still Wintery and chilly outside.
She zipped up her coat, under which she was wearing a cute sweater with a fox on the front of it, and a long-sleeved vest. Taylor stood by the door and shoved one foot into her boots, while shoving her phone into her pocket and grabbing her purse.
She almost shouted a goodbye into the house and up the stairs as she closed the door, but she remembered at the last second that she was home alone.
Harry jogged out to open the passenger seat door for her, and she was reminded of how painfully polite he could be at times. She thanked him, and he stared the car, pulling out of her driveway and turning onto a road that would lead them to the highway.
"I know a really good place to look at the stars from – I hope you don't mind that I picked somewhere," he said, a bit nervously.
"No, no, that's absolutely fine, thanks," she said, giving him a small smile, even though he couldn't see her, his eyes firmly concentrated on the road ahead of them.
The car turned onto the highway, and he leaned back into his seat a little, which Taylor took as a sign that he was loosening up. He spoke a moment later.
"I've got a couple of my telescopes there in the back seat, I was thinking we could pull them out and I can show you all the different constellations and maybe even see some planets, if the lights aren't too bright," he said, with a faint look of wonder and... excitement? Taylor couldn't tell.
"Do you enjoy this a lot?" she asked, trying to keep the conversation flowing as they drove away from the city and inland, where the light pollution was less dense.
"Oh, yes definitely. Astronomy has been incredibly fascinating to me, ever since I was a little boy, we—" he stopped himself and seemed to hesitate before bringing his hand to the radio and turning it on, "Music?"
Taylor knew he was about to say something important, perhaps about his childhood, and she was so close to getting him to open up, but then he'd stopped.
She decided that she still had a bit of time before they reached where they could set up the telescopes, and the entire ride back to probe him further – if not as his shrink, then as his friend.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly hooked it up to the car's stereo system – she saw Harry slightly frown as she scrolled through her music app, trying to pick a song that Harry might enjoy.
The sound of drums and a voice counting down filled the speakers and immediately, Taylor's spirits lifted as the song began to play. Harry had both hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road, but every two seconds or so, he glanced across at her, with an amused look on his face, as if trying to read her mind.
"This is what friends do – they bring music to make the drive out more fun," she told him as John Mayer's voice filled the car interior. Harry's eyebrows knitted together at her words.
"Okay, now I have a question," he said, slowly.
"Shoot."
"You said that we would be doing some experiments to show me that activities can be more enjoyable with the company of friends. And you just did something you said that friends do – are we friends, Taylor?"
His innocence was so adorable, if it had been under any other circumstances, she may have kissed his cheek – but this was her patient. Who had just asked if they were friends. Were they?
"Yes. Well, I think we could be – I can be a friend and your psychologist – they aren't mutually exclusive things, Harry," she said, looking at him. He glanced at her and their eyes met before he had to turn back to the road.
"Okay.. that's good. I haven't had a new friend in a long time," a small, timid smile found its way to his pink lips. A few moments later, he said, "I'm sorry I hacked your network provider to get your phone number – I'd forgotten to ask for it when we last saw each other and I panicked a little bit—I'm not really used to wanting to preserve other people's feelings and that's something friends do, right?"
"Yes. But sometimes friends tell the truth irrespective of their friends' feelings because honesty is important too."
"Okay," he replied softly, and Taylor could almost see all the gears turning in his mind as he understood and internalised her words. After a few seconds – the song playing in the background – Harry said, "Friends can be a bit complicated, I think."
"They're worth it, I think," Taylor told him.
The next five minutes were spent in silence as they listened to the next song on Taylor's playlist and turned off the highway and onto a steep road that went up and around a mountain with a cliff off to one side and parked.
When the car stopped and the music turned off, Harry said, "I don't normally enjoy music that isn't classical. But that was good." Taylor smiled at him and helped lug out the equipment he had in his back seat.
Once both of the telescopes was set up on a tripod of its own, Harry and Taylor sat down on the collapsible chairs he'd brought and he began a crash-course of some sorts on Astronomy. He showed Taylor the different positions and directions to point her telescope so that she could see Corona Borealis and just to the east of that, Hercules. When he'd stood behind her to show her how they linked up to make the constellation, she complained to him that it rather looked a lot more like a spider than a Greek warrior. Harry laughed.
It was after their lesson that Taylor had pulled him down to lie on his back on the tarp they had spread out by the equipment and they both looked at the dark expanse of black sky, they stars little pinpricks of light – some pulsing and larger than others – and they sat in silence. Taylor told him about how small the dome of stars so far away made her feel and Harry nodded and knew she wasn't talking about the infinite amount of times the universe was bigger than she was.
"I haven't done it like this since I was a little boy," Harry admitted into the darkness.
"In England?" Taylor tried.
"Yeah," he began speaking slowly, as if trying to sort out and explain something he didn't think about very often. "Gemma and I used to grab flashlights and walk up to the little hill by our house – not much light interference in a small town like ours. We used to link the stars up with our fingers and make our own shapes. It was a bit of an escape from me – my parents loved me, but I wasn't a very emotive kid – they didn't really..." he faltered, "understand me. They took me to a few child specialists who told them that my IQ was incredibly high – but my emotional quotient, how I related to people, and understood my own emotions, was really low."
Harry stopped and took a deep breath. Taylor automatically reached her hand out and squeezed his arm reassuringly.
"It's okay, you don't have to continue if you're not ready," she said, sliding her hand to clasp his hand. He looked down and their touching hands and then back up to the sky as if he'd made a decision.
"So my whole life, we've had trouble connecting, my parents and I. I never learnt how to accurately gauge people's emotions. I was always distant when I was younger. Gemma was really the only person who understood me... and I don't blame my parents for not being able to connect with me or understand my interests – there's no manual on how to raise a genius. But my own downfalls with my emotions have sabotaged almost all my personal relationships – there was a time where I couldn't have a girlfriend for more than a couple of months. They all just left when they realised I couldn't be what they wanted. And I guess that it's easier to distance myself from people."
His words hung in the silence between them and Taylor moved closer, so that there was only a few centimetres between their arms.
"Thank you for sharing that."
"Thank you for listening. I know it sounds a bit irrational and cliché, but I feel lighter, even though I know no mass had been lost from my body."
That made Taylor snort, "It's what friends do. No problem."
"I'm glad we're friends, Taylor. I'm unhappy to admit that this has been more enjoyable with you here, proving me wrong and you right."
Taylor punched the air and Harry looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head. She just smiled and said, "Taylor – 1; Harry – 0."