The idle din of the nattering television was a welcome sound in my apartment these days. I had it on pretty much twenty four seven lately, because it was easier to deal with than the undisturbed silence of being alone. It was a sad reality that today was no different to any other in that respect.
I was all alone on my birthday.
I didn't feel old enough to be seventeen. That sounded very mature, very grown up and I was neither of those things. The last week had proven that, as I sat around doing absolutely nothing, but staring glassy eyed at yet another crappy TV show.
I watched Jeremy Kyle a lot. I'd gotten to know the entire cast of Made in Chelsea and The Only Way is Essex. It seemed the British had a rather great talent for making atrociously awful TV shows that somehow whiled away the hours effortlessly. I liked staying in bed all day. I liked painting my nails into different patterns in the evening, then cleaning it off the next night and starting again with a new design. I liked trying on the maternity wear I'd ordered off the internet and watching how the specially designed tops flowed over my tummy effortlessly, concealing my evergrowing bump from the public as of yet. I went window shopping with the girlfriends a few more times, and despite my initial embarrassment, I eventually felt a strange sense of contentment when they pointing out tiny baby socks or and little booties, and prams adorned in lace. They seemed aware of my reservations, giving constant encouragements. "You're kid will be more spoilt than Suri Cruise! It'll have the best of the best! And imagine Harry's eyes and your nose in a little face..."
Eventually, I found myself enjoying their comments. Just the slightest bit, but still. I almost felt proud. It gave me hope, because if they could accept it, surely the rest of the world could?
Tensions had definitely eased between Harry and me. All it had taken were those few texts, and a phonecall the next day to apologize properly, both me and him. We were still a little cold, but it was nice to know we were no longer at war with each other. It made everything feel a lot more secure.
The girl on the MTV entertainment news nattered on now about how such and such had broken up with whats-her-name, the new movie so-and-so was currently filming. I was still in my pyjamas, channel surfing, sleep still in my eyes. It was afternoon now and I was only just having breakfast, if you could call it that. Toaster waffles with three scoops of vanilla ice cream with chocolate and caramel sauce and sprinkles. A tall glass of hot chocolate and cream topped with tiny marshmallows, all to be washed down with a tube of sour cream and onion Pringles and a packet of oreos. The cravings had hit me like a brick wall this week, and sugar was the header on my list. Chocolate was my foremost pleasure, though I felt guilty for binging so much. I was trying to make the most of my time without Harry, who would surely tell me off and force me to eat shitty weetabix or something equally drab and crap. What would piss me off so much about his stern advice was the fact that he would be right. I'd gotten a leaflet about a healthy diet during pregnancy from the doctor, but the smell of anything sweet and creamy was like cocaine to a crackhead for me. So for as long as Harry was away, I planned to take advantage and fully enjoy stuffing my face.
The television droned on, story after story about the elite and their lives. Some of them I'd met once or twice, despised, and now felt a smug twinge of satisfaction at hearing about their downfall from grace in some messy breakup or flopped movie. I immediately felt despicable, however, given my own condition. I was hardly the epitome of a star - knocked up at seventeen. Sometimes I thought that the world would be better off if people worried about their own lives rather than those of the rich and famous. But then again, maybe it was just human nature to idolise certain individuals, as a sort of life goal, and inspiration. Whether it was to make yourself feel better about the state of your own life - people like those I saw on Jeremy Kyle - or the seemingly perfect. Models, singers, actors. And yet, despite putting them on a pedestal and believing they had everything, we needed the reassurance that they were not as polished as they appeared from the magazines which reported their divorce or drug addiction or diet plans. They were like everyone else at the end of the day. Nobody had it all...not really.
"In other shocking news, boyband heartthrob Harry Styles is set to become a daddy later this year..."
My spoon clattered into my bowl as my head snapped up at the sound of his name, my heart in my throat. The ice cream flattened and splattered outwards, smattering my purple silk duvet with specks of white cream and sticky brown sauce. I tried to swallow but my dry mouth hung open uselessly. His picture flashed up on the screen. Smiling, in a smart, pressed, navy suit. His blue and grey bowtie flattered him. It was the Kid's Choice Awards, if my memories served me well. It flipped to one of him with the band, as the girl commentated. I could barely hear her - my ears seemed to be ringing. I wanted to switch it off, to do what I did best which was hiding from reality. But my eyes were stuck, and my heart was pounding. I had to see this.
"The 18 year old singer admitted that Disney Star Tamara Gold, who turns seventeen today, is pregnant with his child. However, it's not all plain sailing for the pair. The source also claims that One Direction's drummer Josh Devine was a possible daddy. That would explain the fisticuffs between him and Styles the other day outside their venue in Paris."
They knew everything. How did they know all of this?! My mind swam with angry, hurt questions, shock and confusion and shame. The whole world knew. I wasn't ready for this, not yet. We were supposed to admit it all in a press conference, an interview. Something official. How had it leaked?!
"Harry is reportedly having a lot of doubts about their future and whether the pair are mature enough to raise a child together. However, he says they're definitely keeping the baby..."
I ignored the incessant pounding in my chest and the aching of my head, my bowl of ice cream discarded on the floor in my panic. I flung my arm out, grasping for the phone. I needed to talk to him, to hear his voice. That was the only thing I knew I could do.
The dialling tone seemed endless. When he finally picked up, he barely got in a friendly 'hello'.
"Harry? Harry?!" My voice sounded shaky and desperate and angry all at once, and not like myself at all. I sounded like a woman on the edge. Well, my world was falling down, not to mention my hormones were probably sending my emotions into hysteria. I felt like every sensation in human capacity was flickering through me, sorrow and rage and loneliness and elatedness simultaneously. Confusion, in the midst of it all. No, that wasn't it. Confusion wasn't lost amongst all the other conflicting feelings; it was the result of them.
"Tamara?" his voice was deep and husky, and the sound sent me into yet another wave of feeling; passion, desire. Fuck, I missed him, and these hormones did nothing to help. I tried to shake off my illicit thoughts that his deep tone arose in me, but I was cranky and easily distracted. Pregnancy turned me into an senseless mess.
"Harry." I repeated his name, hoping I would sound angry, but falling into a whimper of fear and sorrow instead. All I needed was for him to tell me it was all going to be okay. "Harry, it's all over the news..."
"What is?" He was clearly still half asleep, bewildered by my jumbled words. "Tamara, what's wrong?"
Everything was wrong. "Me." I mumbled through shuddering breaths, the choking need to cry it all out enveloping me suddenly. "Us. The baby. We're all over the news."
There was a long, harsh silence and I could hear the buzzing static of the long term call over the line. I breathed heavily down the phone, my tears rolling downwards. Was it wrong that I almost enjoyed the warmth of tears on my skin? That I liked to cry? I tasted salt on my tongue as I licked my lips. It was almost a comfort; a way of getting it out.
"Shit." He muttered seriously. "Fuck, shit, cunt."
"Harry?" I gasped through the rattling of my breaths. "Harry, what is it?"
"I...I told someone."
There was a weighty pause as his words sank in. My previous fury bubbled to the forefront of my mind. I tried to control it, to hide it from the depths of my voice. I spoke flatly to conceal it. "Who?"
"A girl at the bar...in the hotel. I was at the bar..."
His words babbled wildly and I gritted my teeth. So, what? While I was sat at home, cooped up in this apartment feeding my cravings as I carried his unborn child, he went out drinking at the hotel bar, chatting up random girls?
"A girl," I scoffed, unable to help the hint of bitterness in my voice, "At the bar. I bet when you mentioned the fact that you're going to be a father she wasn't so keen on fucking your brains out."
"Tam," he sighed in frustration, "it wasn't like that, okay? It was the other night, when we weren't talking. I was upset, I went for a drink to take my mind off it. We started talking..."
"About what? Let me guess, her modelling career? How she can tie a cherry stem with her tongue? How much she'd love to suck to off?" I spat, hot tears burning my skin. Maybe I was overreacting, but everything felt like it had caught up on me. After all my hiding, shutting myself away in here...I couldn't avoid this happening. And I hated it. And I was taking it out on him.
"Tamara," he growled, "Just shut up, please, it wasn't like that!"
"Then how was it?" I screamed, shaking with sobs now. "Because it sounds like you went out and got drunk and chatted up some whore because I wouldn't talk to you. Is that how it is, Harry? We fight, so you look for some elsewhere?"
"I missed you!" he yelled down the phone. I was quiet, surprised by the force of his voice. I let him speak. "I missed you so much, and I doubted everything because of the whole mess over Josh. I felt like, if we couldn't get over that then maybe we're not even ready for a kid. So I tried to drown my sorrows, and suddenly she was there. Asking what was wrong. I wouldn't say a thing at first, but she told me she knew what it was like to be alone..." he sighed dejectedly. "So I told her everything."
I swallowed the angry lump in my throat. My head was spinning, the TV still blaring in the background. "You're a stupid fuck, Harry Styles."
"I was drunk," he pleaded helplessly; "She must have been a reporter. I had no idea...she just listened to me, and I needed someone to..."
As he trailed off, his voice weak and regretful, I felt awash with remorse. Why was I blaming him? Maybe if I'd not been so stubborn and broken our hateful silence, we wouldn't be in this mess. He hadn't meant to let it get out, so why was I so furious at the man I loved? The man I would most probably be with for the rest of my life?
"I'm sorry for not calling you. For being so...cold." My apology felt pathetic, but it hung in the air between us. I could hear his breathing, and my heart twinged painfully at the slight rattle in it. Was he crying too?
"I'm sorry for yelling at you," he murmured, bringing my thoughts back to the phonecall that began our feud. When he'd screamed at me and called me names. How I'd wept afterwards.
"Did it have to be him, Tamara? My drummer? You're a slut. A fucking slut..."
"I hurt you," I muttered stiffly. "You had a right to be upset."
"I had no right to say those things, though."
I didn't reply, because I couldn't deny that. "You're such a whore. Did he fuck better than me?! Was that why? You disgust me, Tamara! "
"We shouldn't let them do this to us," he pondered quietly.
"Do what?"
"Break us. Tear us apart...we need to be strong, together. For the baby."
"Who's trying to break us?" I asked speculatively. I didn't quite follow his thoughts, but I settled my free hand over my bump protectively from the threat of the 'them' who Harry spoke of.
"I don't know. Everyone. The world." His words faded off. "The whole world against me and you."
"And him," I added. Patting my bump. Wishing Harry was next to me to place his hand over my own.
"Happy seventeenth Birthday, Tam," he murmured after a few moments, and I could hear the smile on his face. "You'll be getting presents later on today, I promise. They're being delivered."
"Thank you," I replied gratefully, my words being cut off by a strong quiver inside my tummy, stronger than any I'd felt so far. I realised with a start that I still hadn't told Harry that the baby was doing this. "I've been feeling flutters."
I could hear the untainted awe in his voice as he gasped. "Really? It's kicking?"
"Yeah, he's an active little thing anyway," I smiled warmly at the thought of my little boy, his tiny, unformed feet. So small, so fragile. I sighed sadly at the reality of our situation. The baby wasn't the only one feeling fragile right now. "What do we do now, then? Now that everyone knows?"
"I don't really know," Harry mused.
"I don't want to be alone," I confessed before I could stop myself. It was true; I was certain that if I took two steps out the door, the paparazzi would be on my like maggots to sour milk. I couldn't do this by myself, couldn't deal with it all. But Harry was so far away...
Harry seemed to pause for thought. "They need to see us together. As a sign of unity, to show we're strong and in love."
"That would be great," I replied wistfully, "Apart from the small problem of us being in different countries from each other."
"I'll sort it out," Harry asserted confidently, "I'm going to fly you over. I need you here, with me." There was a pause as he took a breath, and I felt his pain. The concern and doubt and fear that had plagued us both ever since we'd found out I was pregnant. It was a constant thing, never stopping or ending. There was no escape from it. The fear of the future. "I love you Tamara. And I'm not going to let them break us."