.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
THE RUMOR FACTORY
IS HARRY STYLES RETIRING FROM MUSIC AFTER HIS TOUR ENDS?
By Alex Miller
Harry Styles released his first album when he was only 17, and since then he has known nothing but success and fame. At 25 years old, he has released 4 albums in total, selling millions of copies around the world, and selling out arenas and stadiums in each country he has visited.
But has he decided he has had enough?
Apparently so, because sources close to the artist have revealed that after the last leg of his latest tour, he wants to focus on his family, particularly on his baby daughter, Sage.
While that's good news for Sage, and probably for Harry's boyfriend, Louis Tomlinson, because they get to spend more time with him, it's terrible news for his fans everyone, who can't live without a dose of new songs from Harry every other year.
But hopefully this is nothing but a rumor, and while Harry might be planning to take a little break after the tour ends, we hope he will get back to the studio in a few months and surprise his fans with new music.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
LOUIS
Sage had started crawling, and she had gone from 0 to 60 very fast, so Louis had spent the entire afternoon baby proofing his flat, not wanting anything bad to happen to her because he was careless.
"Alright, Sagie, we're all done" Louis decided when he put the last plug cover, so he took Sage out of the playpen, where she had been confined while he worked, and then sat on the floor with the baby "You can crawl all you want now".
The second Louis let her go, she crawled away from him, but when she was just a few feet away, she stopped, and sat on her bum.
"Come back" Louis encouraged her, opening his arms.
Sage giggled, and went back to her hand and knees, and went straight back to Louis, immediately trying to climb him, so he laid on his back to make it easier for her, but ended up having to help her.
"Hi" Louis smiled at his baby once she was laying down on his tummy on top of his chest.
Sage babble as she looked at him with her big eyes wide open, which were so much like Harry's; they were even turning green in the middle, but were still very blue on the edges, which Louis thought was absolutely breathtaking.
"How are you so beautiful Sagie?" Louis said as he lightly patted her little bum "And how is it possible that I love you as much as I do?".
The baby babbled some more, and tried to grab her mummy's face, laughing in the process.
"Ow" Louis complained, when she pulled his nose "Not so rough, love".
They were interrupted by the doorbell ringing, so Louis got up, leaving Sage on the floor to play with her toys, and went to get it.
He wasn't expecting anyone, and thought maybe it could be Harry having forgotten his key or something, although he had no idea if he was going to come over for dinner or not. His boyfriend had picked up Sage very early that morning, and then brought her back around 1, because he had some work stuff to do, but they hadn't talked much about what would happen the rest of the day.
But when he looked through the peephole, he realized he was wrong, because he saw no other than his friend Niall on the other side of the door, which was strange.
He obviously still opened the door, and saw Niall was holding a pizza box.
"Hi, Lou" Niall greeted him.
"Hey, what are you doing here, Nialler?" Louis asked confused.
"I thought we could have dinner together so I brought a pizza" Niall smiled.
"You didn't tell me you were coming by" Louis pointed out.
"I would have if you had bothered picking up the phone" Niall answered, and made his way past Louis into the flat.
Louis closed the door, and followed Niall, who had left the pizza box on the kitchen counter, and had gone over to Sage.
"Hi, Sage" Niall smiled, and picked her up "Oh my god, you're so big now".
"She's still tinier than average" Louis pointed out what her pediatrician said last time he saw her.
"Yeah?" Niall asked.
"Yes, but within normal ranges" Louis explained, as he noticed Sage holding her arms to him "That's uncle Niall, love, let him give you a cuddle"
"I think she wants her mummy" Niall said when Sage started fussing.
"What's up with you?" Louis asked the baby as he took her, because Sage was usually fine with people other than him or Harry holding her.
"She might not remember me, I haven't seen her in a while" Niall suggested.
"Right... yeah, maybe" Louis considered.
The truth was, for the past month or so, Louis kind of had retreated himself from the world, and had barely seen or talked to anyone, except for Harry and Sage obviously, wanting to be alone.
"I'll go get plates and the pizza so we can eat" Niall decided, and went over to the kitchen.
Louis sat down on the couch with the baby, who had stopped fussing almost immediately, and they were soon joined by Niall, who left the plates and pizza box on the coffee table.
"Can Sage have a little bite of pizza?" Niall wondered as he put a slice on each plate.
"No, she's too little" Louis denied, and he put Sage on the floor again, because she had started kicking her legs which meant she wanted to be put down.
"Look at her go so fast" Niall smiled looking as Sage crawled to her toys.
"Yeah, she just started crawling, but got the hang of it pretty quickly" Louis explained as Niall handed him one of the plates "Thanks, mate".
"You're welcome" Niall answered, and took a bite from his pizza "So...".
"So...?" Louis asked, and took a bite from his slice.
"I've been worried about you, that's why I've been calling you so much, in case you were wondering" Niall explained.
"I figured" Louis nodded, knowing this had to be the reason for Niall's unannounced visit "And I'm sorry I didn't pick up, I just... I wanted to be alone for a while, and just think about what happened, and then I got a bit inspired, and I started writing, and just focused on that".
"I get it, mate" Niall nodded, and ate some more before he spoke again "So what are you writing about?".
"Honestly, I have no idea, I'm just writing stuff, ideas, scenes, but nothing very coherent... it's probably going to end up like everything else I write; in the trash" Louis shrugged.
"You're doing a fantastic job cheering yourself up, aren't you?" Niall joked.
Louis let out a small, breezy laugh, and shook his head.
"I'm just saying it how it is" Louis explained.
"Louis-" Niall started.
"Give me a sec"Louis interrupted as he got up to go get Sage.
She has crawled to the kitchen and was behind the counter/breakfast bar thing, where Louis couldn't see what she was doing, and although he had baby proofed the kitchen as well, he still rather have his daughter within his line of vision.
"This is the limit, no crawling behind this point" Louis said to Sage, showing her an imaginary boundary, and he made sure to also close the door that led to the bedrooms, so she wouldn't go there either "If not, you go back to the playpen while uncle Niall and I eat, alright?".
He sat her down with her toys again, and it seemed like she was going to stay there, so he went back to the couch, and grabbed his pizza plate.
"Alright, sorry about that" Louis apologized.
"It's fine" Niall replied.
"So what's up with you? How's life, how's work?" questioned Louis
"Life's pretty good, work is the same as usual really, but I still love it" Niall answered.
"And Liam?" Louis wanted to know.
"He's in LA right now working, he's been there for a few weeks, but he's supposed to come back next Tuesday".
"You miss him?" Louis wondered.
"A lot, but we talk on the phone and text all the time, which makes the distance alright" Niall explained.
"You guys are doing great, aren't you?" Louis said, guessing it by the smile on Niall's face when he mentioned Liam.
"We are" Niall smiled again "I'm glad now that he insisted on us moving past the casual thing; he's an amazing person, and he makes me happy".
"I can tell, I think this is the happiest I've ever seen you with someone since I met you" Louis considered.
"Yeah, this is by far the best relationship I've been in" Niall nodded.
"That's great, Nialler" Louis smiled, liking to see his friend happy.
"It is" Niall said happily as he took another slice of pizza from the box "So how about Harry?"
"Oh, uhm... he's at some work thing" Louis answered vaguely, because honestly, he had no idea exactly what he was doing.
"I meant how are you guys doing" Niall specified.
"We're doing fine" Louis answered as he took a slice of pizza for himself,
"I don't think you are" Niall contradicted him.
"Sorry?" Louis asked raising an eyebrow.
"I know you're not doing well, Lou" Niall told him.
"How would you know that?" Louis questioned.
"Because I talked to Harry a couple of days ago".
"Why would you talk to Harry?" Louis wondered, because he had never heard of them talking when he wasn't there.
"He came to me, he's worried, mate" Niall answered.
"About what exactly?" Louis wondered.
"About the fact that you decided to distance yourself from everyone around you" Niall explained.
"You're making it sound like it was just a whim, like I woke up one day and I decided I didn't want to talk to anyone, but it wasn't like that, Zayn died, and I needed to be alone to think" Louis repeated what he had just told Niall.
"I get it Lou, of course I do, that's why I didn't come over sooner, I guessed you needed space" Niall told him "But I had no idea you've been distancing from Harry too".
"I haven't, I see him everyday" Louis said truthfully.
"Maybe there's not a physical distance, but from what he said I reckon there's a big emotional wedge between you" Niall considered.
"What did he say exactly?" Louis wanted to know as he kept an eye on Sage, who was on the move again.
"That you barely talk to him unless it's Sage related, and that he feels you're not invested in your relationship anymore" Niall explained.
"That's not true" Louis denied, because he was invested, of course he was, he loved Harry.
"Maybe it's not true, but it's what he feels" Niall told him "And he also said that you decided not to go on tour with him anymore".
"I did, yeah" Louis mumbled, as he left his plate aside, and picked up Sage from the floor, who had crawled his way "It's just not something I can do right now".
"I know I have a soft spot for Harry, but as he said all this stuff he honestly broke my heart" Niall told him.
"Why?".
"Because he was so sad that you're not letting him be there for you, and that you and Sage aren't going on tour, he doesn't want to be apart from you, especially Sage" Niall explained.
"I don't want to be away from him either, and I definitely don't want to keep him away from Sage, but going to America for 3 months? I honestly can't, I just... I can't do it".
"Why not?" questioned Niall.
"It's not right for me right now" Louis answered vaguely, because he couldn't really explain what he was feeling.
"What's not right is that you're throwing away a relationship with someone like Harry" Niall argued "And I get that he was a shït boyfriend in the past, but he changed for you, and he loves you so damn much, I'm sure he'd walk through fire for you".
"I'm not throwing away my relationship with Harry" Louis fought while he rubbed Sage's back "I want to be with him, and I'm aware of how much he's changed, and how much he loves me".
"But you are throwing it away if you're barely speaking to him, and if you're willing to spend 3 months being apart when you have the opportunity to go with him" Niall insisted "From where I see it, Harry's right, you've disconnected from the relationship, it's like you gave up".
"I haven't given up on my relationship".
"Then work for it, Louis" Niall urged him "You've been in enough relationships to know that they're not easy, you have to put an effort for them to work out".
"It's not that I want to throw away what we have, or that I purposely disconnected from Harry, it's just what happened as a result of something that broke me" Louis explained.
"Zayn dying was always my biggest fear, that's why I kept trying to help him, but then stopped for good, and he actually died because I wasn't there" Louis said and shook his head "He called me, did you know that? He called me twice that morning, and I ignored him, but what if he wanted to ask for help? What if he needed someone to believe in him? Did he just give up? And if he did, did he overdose on purpose? Did he want to end his life because he thought he had no one?".
"Louis-" Niall said, his voice soft.
"That's all I think about, and it pains me that I'll never know the answers, I will never know what was going through his head and if I'm really the one to blame".
"You're not, whatever was going on in his head, it's not your fault" Niall told him "He was an adult, he knew what he was doing".
"But he was sick, drug addiction is a disease, and he needed help" Louis argued.
"You gave him all the help you could, Lou" Niall insisted "You gave him years of your life, you went through hell trying to get him to stop, you even paid for his rehab".
"It wasn't enough" Louis said looking down, shaking his head.
Niall didn't say anything for a while, but Louis could feel him staring at him, and when he looked up he realized he had been.
"You can say whatever it is you're thinking" Louis encouraged, knowing there was something, it was evident in his face.
"I just.... I get it, Lou, I get that you're hurting about what happened to Zayn, and I can also understand why you're blaming yourself, but as harsh as it might sound, Zayn is your past, and sadly he passed away, and there's nothing you can do about it, all you can do is focus on your future, and your future is Harry... unless you don't want him to be".
"Of course I want him to be my future, I love him" Louis stated.
"Then make an effort, Lou" Niall insisted "If you don't, he might leave, and I don't want to see you crying if that happens, because it will be your own fault".
"Did he say that? That he's going to leave me?" Louis asked, holding Sage tighter.
"No" Niall shook his head "All he kept saying was how much he loves you, but I think there's so much a person can take, I mean, if it were me, and Liam started distancing himself from me and barely spoke to me, I would probably end up breaking up with him, because what would be the point of being in a relationship that doesn't feel like a relationship?".
Louis looked at Sage in his arms while he thought about what Niall was saying.
"I think Harry loves you enough to hang around for longer than anyone else would, but that doesn't mean it's right; he's human, Louis, and what you're doing to him is hurting him" Niall explained.
"I don't want to hurt him" Louis stated.
"Then don't".
----------------------------------
A.N. I know some of you wanted Louis' perspective of what's going on, so here it is.
What do you think about his conversation with Niall?
Is it making him rethink his attitude and his decisions?
Thank you so much for reading 💖
Xoxo