"How are you feeling now?" Elenore asked, waving a glass of wine under my nose. I accepted it gratefully and swallowed a mouthful. I wasn't in the mood for sipping.
"Still the same as I did at five am this morning," I said bluntly. "Annoyed, disappointed and ashamed that I actually thought he was going to be up for the role of daddy."
Elenore broke a block of chocolate into individual squares and placed it on the coffee table in front of us. I watched as she bit into a piece thoughtfully before washing it down with her wine. "It was definitely irresponsible, I mean, if Nola had been older and therefore more easily influenced, he wouldn't have exactly given her a good example of how to behave."
"Precisely." I sighed, swiring the crimson liquid around in the glass. "The problem is that I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do about it now."
"Well have you spoken to him?" She asked, swapping her wine for her phone.
"Nope." I shook my head. "I've ignored all his calls and text messages and I have no intention of returning any of them any time soon."
"So he knows about the article then? He doesn't just think you're ignoring him for no reason whatsoever?" She didn't look up as she scrolled down her screen with her thumb. I couldn't help thinking that she wasn't entirely in agreement with me giving Harry the cold shoulder.
"Well the first couple of messages and voicemails were oblivious, but then he sent me a text asking if I could give him a chance to explain himself because apparently the article makes the situation sound much worse than it actually is. I haven't checked since." I pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa and covered my legs with it.
"Twitter is going crazy." Elenore said absent-mindedly. She looked up at me and grimaced. "All these people are directly tweeting him and telling him how disappointed they are! Imagine having your fans talk down on you, well, tweet down on you is probably more accurate."
"He's only brought it on himself." I shrugged. "But seriously, what am I supposed to do now? I don't want to be angry with him but I am and he has no one else to blame other than himself...and those three scantily clad women." I felt bile rising in my throat at the thought of Harry publicly humiliating himself with three strangers while his daughter was asleep in her cot, blissfully unaware.
"Anyone would think you were jealous." Elenore smirked. I glared at her.
"That is not what this is about and you know it, Ele." I took another moutful of wine and reached for the chocolate. Having Harry Styles in my life was going to make me fat.
"The boys would be finishing up on stage now right?" Ele said, but I wasn't sure if she was addressing me or just speaking to herself out loud. "Wow, you should read these new tweets, Marn." She continued to scroll with her thumb, her lips parting as she read. I cocked my head to one side and frowned.
"Why? What do they say?" My heart rate increased for a moment, fearing that Nola's existance had been leaked into the fandom. "Is it about Nola?"
"Well, not really." I wrenched myself up from the sofa and stormed towards the arm chair where she sat, her eyes glued to the screen of her phone. She pulled her phone into her chest as I reached for it.
"What do they say, Ele!?" My heart was thumping now and blood was pounding in my ears. What had Harry done now?
"Calm down!" She rolled her eyes as she removed her phone from its hiding place. "It's just fans complaining that Harry isn't himself. Apparently he didn't smile for the duration of the concert or look like he was remotely enjoying himself at all. Some are worried, some think it's just the hangover from his swimming pool antics." I was amazed that One Direction's fans were so observant. "I think you and I both know the real reason behind his bad mood."
"Meaning what exactly?" I snapped, raising an eyebrow and returning to my spot on the sofa.
"He's probably devastated that you're pissed at him and therefore he's unlikely to get to see Nola again, duh!" Elenore explained.
"But you agreed with me that he was irresponsible and immature!" I groaned. "Now you're making it sound like he's the victim! He's in the wrong here, Ele."
"That's because he was irresponsible and immature! But it's not like he doesn't know that what he did was wrong. Your hundreds of texts and missed calls prove that, Marn. At least hear the guy out. It's already impacting his career."
"That's not my fault!" I retorted stubbornly. "He should consider these things before behaving like an oaf."
"This was never going to be easy," she said in a gentle voice. "But it never will be if you're going to regret your decision every time he slips up. This is new to him just like it was new to you when you first had her. Cut the guy some slack."
"No." I pushed the blanket off of my legs and stood up, swiping the chocolate from the table as I did so. Ele raised her eyebrows but didn't comment as I turned and left the room, a stubborn scowl etched on my face. She had no right to make me feel bad, not after everything I'd been through where Nola and Harry were concerned. Yes she'd been with me the whole time, but that didn't mean she'd experienced it first hand.
I shut myself in my bedroom and watched Nola sleeping in her cot. Life was so easy for her and I envied it. I wished I was too young to understand the stupid things in this world. I wished I didn't understand why what Harry did was wrong and why it made him a bad father. I wished this was a normal split parenting relationship where Harry had Nola every other weekend and she was all mine during the week. I wished Harry hadn't made headlines when I'd begun to believe everything was going to be ok. But most of all I wished I'd stop wishing for everything to be what I perceived to be 'normal'. Nothing about this situation was normal. Nor was it ever going to be.
I stroked a curl on my daughter's forehead and sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, being Nola's only parent up until now didn't actually entitle me to be a control freak over her life. Of course I loved her and wanted her to be safe, but I never considered that Harry would also feel the same way, and for him it was a new feeling. It was a scary feeling. When I'd held Nola for the first time in her first few minutes of life, I'd been shocked out how it was possible for me to love something so small, so much. I was forgetting how overwhelming this would be for Harry because I'd already been there, done that and got the t-shirt. Harry had only just got there.
I really didn't want to be angry with him. I just wanted him to be the perfect father I'd always envisioned for my daughter. Inviting Harry Styles into my life to be a 'Dad' rather than just a 'Father' was never going to be clean cut. It really was time to cut him some slack.
Somehow I found myself reaching for my phone. I stared at the messages that had piled up; Harry's desperate pleas to get me to contact him and the voicemails left in an equally desperate and pleading tone. My finger hovered over the call button hesitantly before I tapped it.
"Thank god." He answered on the first ring. His voice was frantic and strained. "I thought I was never going to hear from you again."
"I'm sorry." Was all I said. Harry didn't say anything for a moment so I focused on the loud and adrenaline pumped voices of the rest of the band, congratulating one another on a good performance.
"Why are you sorry?" He asked eventually, clearly surprised and caught off guard. "I'm the one who should be apologising."
"Because I never gave you the chance to explain. I'm not condoning what you did, in fact, I still don't understand it, but I'm just apologising for instantly jumping to a you're-not-father-material conclusion without allowing you to defend yourself." I rambled, gesturing wildly with my hands.
"Oh god, did you really think that?" He groaned. "I'm such an idiot."
"Yes, you are," I sighed. "But at least now you can try and explain it to me. I would really like it if you did."
"My actions are not justifiable." Harry said in a small and somewhat vulnerable voice. "But what I was feeling at the time that caused me to carry out those actions, I can explain. Sort of."
"Go on." I urged despite already knowing what was about to be said.
"This past week has been life changing. I went from being carefree Harry Styles of One Direction to being a father in the space of 24 hours. It was quite a lot to take in." He explained quickly. "I'm not saying I hate it or that I regret wanting to be a part of Nola's life, I'm just saying that it's overwhelming and I just wanted to let my hair down. I know that how I went about it was stupid and foolish and I honestly don't blame you for feeling the way you did. But we all make mistakes, Marnie, and unfortunately this was one of mine."
"I know." I smiled.
"What, no raging comeback or hurls of abuse?" Harry feigned shock and I rolled my eyes.
"I already figured it all out," I confessed. "Well, with Elenore's help of course. She basically made me see that you're in the same position that I was when Nola was first born. Having someone entirely dependant on you is fucking scary." We both laughed as I cursed. "I forgive you by the way."
"Thank you." He breathed, the relief clear in his voice. "How is Nola?"
"She's fine, she's always fine. She's in bed now, wearing her bandana of course." I smiled down at her proudly.
"Of course." It sounded as though Harry was smiling too. "I miss her." My heart swelled.
"I reckon she misses you too, Harry." Even a part of me missed him in some way, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
"I'll Skype you tomorrow, ok? I'm sorry about yesterday, basically that entire night was a complete fuck up. It won't happen again." I didn't want him to make promises that I wasn't sure he could keep, but right now it was enough.
"Ok, Harry. Goodnight." I was blushing by the time we were off the phone; giddy with relief. Just as I headed over to my bed, the door opened and Elenore appeared with a wicked grin on her face.
"I knew you'd crack eventually."