The next day was a long recording day. No one seemed to be able to agree on anything, and it wasn't because everyone had opposing views; it was because nothing sounded right, and only three weeks in, it seemed like everyone was experiencing some sort of creative fatigue. Everyone seemed to be dragging their feet, and Harry complained once or twice about not being able to write songs. They were pretty much stumped on the songs they were already mid-production on, so they'd suggested Harry take some time to try to complete some songs he had in the works. That wasn't working out so well either, evidently.
Everyone straggled around the studio until nearly ten that night, everyone finally just giving up and calling it a night, citing that a good night's rest would help them replenish their creative flow. While everyone that was set up in nearby hotels got cabs to take them back into the city, Sia wandered to the kitchen, hoping to find a snack that would help her settle down for the night. But after a few minutes of searching and pondering, Sia realised that she was too frustrated with how the session had gone to let her mind settle. She shut the refrigerator door once more with a heavy sigh and glanced over her shoulder.
The moon was full that night, shining in all its splendour on the rippling waves of the water and sparkled on the fine sands of the beach. It looked so inviting that Sia was already opening the back sliding door before she had even made the conscious decision to go outside and down to the beach.
All the doors and windows in the house were set with security sensors, and it beeped when any of them were opened. When the three little chirps sounded out, Harry looked over the back of the couch from where he'd been playing a game on his phone. He saw Sia standing in the open doorway, moonlight washing over her face, illuminating her profile. It'd been a long time since he'd taken just a few moments to really admire how beautiful she was. Sure, he knew she was beautiful. They'd been in a relationship for years and friends for even longer, so he was always aware of her good looks. However, in that moment with the natural lighting grazing the high points of her face, she looked like a goddess. It felt like a punch in the chest when he felt those familiar butterflies take flight in his stomach.
"Goin' for a walk?" Harry asked her, making her quickly turn to look at him. She hadn't realised he was sitting there.
"Yeah. Need to let myself calm down from all this stress today. Beach looked good."
"Mind if I join yeh? Need a few minutes myself, I reckon," Harry told her, already standing. He'd changed since they'd been in the studio. He'd been wearing loose-fit jeans and an Eagles t-shirt, but now he was in a very old, very hole-y, Rolling Stones tee that Sia was pretty sure he'd owned since he was seventeen, and a pair of athletic shorts that were a bit too short by American standards, but no one looked twice at in the UK. He looked comfortable and snuggly, and Sia had a sudden urge to plop herself on the couch and pull him beside her and just cuddle. While the thoughts were no longer unpleasant, they were still a bit jarring, and she blinked a few times to dispel the feeling.
"Sure. Could use the company, I guess. Plus Mitch would probably pitch a fit if he knew I went out alone this late," Sia said with an affectionate roll of her eyes.
Harry motioned for Sia to exit the house before him, closing the slider behind himself once he stepped out.
"You and Mitch have gotten close, I take it," Harry commented as they made their way across the bridge that connected the property to the beach. Sia kicked off her sandals as soon as her feet touched the sand.
"Yeah. He's like my American Ellen," Sia joked. "Let's me vent to him and just offers advice. No judgement, no harsh words. I mean, Ellen can be a bitch, but it's out of love. Mitch is like Ellen, but without the harsh reality side. Give him a few months, though. He might start puttin' me in my place." Sia chuckled, just imagining Mitch actually saying something unkind. It wasn't easy to picture. "Is always lookin' after me, checkin' in whenever I've wandered off. He's been a good friend."
Harry cleared his throat. They had taken up a slow but steady place along the shore, right at the edge of where the water washed up, letting the waves wash over their toes. There were a couple of bonfires off in the distance, creating dots of bright orange along the coast. The sound of the lapping water was loud in the quietness of the night. The surf was calm, the waves no bigger than half a meter. Everything was just as Sia had imagined it would be. It made her wonder why she didn't take advantage of the beautiful beaches back in LA more often. Maybe now she wouldn't take them for granted.
"I uh...I was the one that sent him out lookin' for you that first time," Harry admitted, sounding a little bashful in his delivery.
Sia looked over at him, having to tilt her head up slightly to accommodate for their height difference. The moonlight was so bright that she could see the slight pink tinge of his cheeks and the high points of his ears.
She waited a beat before responding, "I know. Mitch told me."
Harry hummed, dipping his chin to his chest. "Wanted to go myself, but thought better of it. Mitch said he'd go for me. Just didn't want yeh gettin' lost out here by yourself in the dark."
Sia bit at the inside of her cheeks, contemplating how exactly she was going to respond. Her and Harry were still in this delicate place between tipping to hating each other again or tipping to becoming friends like they once were. She didn't want to go back to yelling at each other and avoiding each other at all costs. Everything she'd conditioned in herself over the last year told her to tell him he needed to mind his own business, because she was none of his concern anymore, but she kept reminding herself that they were working toward being friends again.
"I know I've bit your head off about it a couple times before," Sia began hesitantly, dipping her head down to look at her feet as they shuffled through the packed sand, "but I do actually appreciate your concern. Kinda miss havin' someone look after me. Not that I'm not capable of lookin' after myself. But..." Sia shrugged, "yeh know."
Harry stopped walking, and Sia only walked past him for a pace or two before realising he was behind her. She turned on her heel and looked at him. He had his head tilted down to his feet, both hands shoved in his pockets. His toes were wiggling in the damp sand.
"What?" Sia asked, very aware that he was toying with something he wanted to tell her in his mind.
Harry sighed before looking back up at her, giving her the courtesy of looking her in the eyes. "I know we agreed to not dive into all our shit, but, I feel like it's doing ourselves a disservice if we don't at least talk about something. It just eats at me sometimes."
Sia felt her jaw clenching in an automatic reaction to Harry's confrontation. And it wasn't even really a confrontation, it was more of a pleading suggestion, and it was one that was a long time coming. She had really got to get over her split-second reactions to all the things that Harry did, otherwise she'd be sprouting grey hairs before the end of this all.
"Can we..." Sia began, trying to unclench her teeth. She looked around and spotted a fairly big boulder that looked like it would do for a bit of seating while they were hashing things out. "Can we at least go sit for this?" she asked, gesturing to where she'd seen the rock, just a little ways down the shore.
Harry nodded and silently followed her, helping her take a seat before he arranged a comfortable position for himself. For thinking he was ready to have this conversation with her, he was feeling a lot of nerves about opening up the communication about what it was that had went wrong between them. He didn't want it to be the beginning of the end yet again.
When Harry had been silent for longer than Sia was comfortable with, she sighed and looked over at him. He had a nearly violent grip on his lower lip with his index finger and thumb, turning the skin a pale colour.
"Know I've said it before, but it really wasn't supposed to be like this," Harry started before Sia could say anything to prompt him. She started ringing her hands together in anticipation and nervousness.
She wasn't sure she was ready for this, but everyone in her life had assured her that she was more than ready, and she was more than strong enough to deal with it. She just had to stop convincing herself that it would push her over the edge and past her limits. She had made it through the trauma itself and was functioning as a normal, productive, sound person. She had to believe that dealing with it alongside the other person that was involved would only help her heal. It was the only way she was going to stop herself from freaking out further.
"What was it supposed to be like, then?" Sia asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She couldn't look Harry in the eye, or even in the general direction of his face. She kept her eyes trained towards the ocean, watching the waves swell and crash against the sand. That was sort of how her life felt over the last year. A big swell of goodness and happiness and progress right before it all came crashing down, breaking against the shore and scattering in different directions. It kept happening to her over and over again, and she so badly wanted off the ride.
"I just...needed time," Harry stumbled out. He ran his hand through his hair, lightly tugging at the strands. "Everythin' was changing. Zayn left. The band was endin'. No one really knew what the fuck we were doing past early December. August was kinda the beginnin' of the end."
Sia clenched her jaw against his reasoning. Was he serious?
"So that meant the end of us, too? I was just another thing who's ties needed to be cut? That's fuckin' fantastic, Harry. Really glad the three years in a relationship and over a decade of friendship meant so much to you."
She moved to press herself up and off the rock, already regretting allowing herself to even begin this conversation. All this time she had spent convincing herself that speaking with Harry and forming some sort of new relationship with him was the best for her mental health and her own piece of mind had all been a waste. Her therapist would be getting a phone call in the morning.
"Wait!" Harry shouted, his voice sounding much too loud in the quietness of the evening. His hand darted out and grabbed ahold of her wrist gently, urging her to stay put and not walk away from him like she'd done countless times before. Doubtlessly, she'd been entitled to the storm-off before, but he thought they were past that now. They needed to talk, and he wasn't going to just let her walk away this time.
"That's not..." Harry rushed to get out, making sure she was still sitting on the rock beside him. "That's not what I meant, love. I didn't wanna drag you into all that shit with me. You were on the verge of startin' your dream career. What woman wants to have a boyfriend that wanders aimlessly because he has no idea where his life is going? I just needed time to get my shit together after the end of the band, and I didn't wanna pull you down in my slump."
"So you broke up with me 'for my own good'?" Sia asked, genuinely confounded. She didn't think she'd ever furrowed her brow so hard before. "Are you fuckin' kidding me?"
"It wasn't just about you!" Harry insisted, trailing his hand from where it had still had a grip on her wrist to hold hers. He didn't dare intertwine their fingers, so he kept them palm to palm, his fingers curled around the back of her hand. Just as a way to keep her anchored to him, at least for the duration of their conversation. "I didn't want it fucking us up. Our friendship didn't deserve a disastrous falling out because I was lazing around, unable to pull my life together. I swore I'd never be able to forgive myself if that happened."
Harry swallowed harshly as he watched Sia watch him. Her eyes flitted around his face, most likely searching for any signs of insincerity, but he knew she wasn't going to find any.
"I know that was selfish and stupid of me, but it was comin' from a good place. I was tryin' to preserve our friendship. Then, maybe if I got my shit together, we could go back to how we were."
"That obviously didn't happen," Sia reminded him, not so kindly. "And somehow, finding you on a yacht with a model you'd claimed over and over again was just a friend just weeks after your last appearance with the boys doesn't scream 'man trying to get his shit together to get back with his ex-girlfriend.'"
Harry flinched at the venom in her voice, but she couldn't find it in her to care. He deserved the ridicule and the harsh words. Nothing about his behaviour in those months after One Direction broke up spoke to the words he was trying to convince her of now. What man is spotted and photographed with his hands on the ass of another woman and then claims he'd broken up with his ex in order to try to preserve their relationship? Sia was calling absolute bullshit on that one.
"We were on holiday and drunk most of the time."
"With your mum in tow? I'm sure Anne loved that."
"She was just a..."
"Rebound? Booty call? Easy fuck? Pick one, Harry."
"We'd been separated for months. Like you haven't been with others since then."
Sia was clenching her jaw so hard that it was beginning to hurt. She'd be paying for it the following day.
"No, actually, I haven't. Unlike the other half of this relationship, I went into mourning after the end of my three year partnership that I'd thought was the be all end all for me."
Harry would never realise the double meaning of her statement.
Sia couldn't handle this conversation anymore. So much for taking a calming walk to shake off all the stress from the day. Now she was just more stressed, her shoulders up by her ears and her teeth audibly grinding against each other. And she was angry. She needed to go.
She pushed herself up from the rock they were sat on, and this time she didn't let Harry's protest stop her. She was already five meters away before Harry caught up to her, gently grabbing at her wrist once again. She shook him off and he let her, making sure she knew that his contact was only to get her to slow down and recognise his presence.
For all her initial anger at his comment and the reaction it had drawn out of her, the brisk walk she'd taken away from him and his appearance made her come to her senses.
She really had no right to be holding this grudge nearly a year on, and he was right, even if his argument sounded a little childish. They hadn't been together anymore, so he really had no obligation to stay away from any women or abstain from sex. Sure she was hurt that he'd moved on so quickly after he'd broken up with her and had claimed that it was for the best for the both of them, but that didn't justify her continued anger over the matter. She had bigger emotional things to worry about, and her fictionalised version of Harry that had been unfaithful was unfair to both him and herself. She needed to move past it.
Sia stopped suddenly, causing Harry to nearly trip over his own feet as he hurried to meet her movements. She stared down at her feet, and Harry watched as she chewed at her bottom lip. He wasn't sure what it was that had her thinking so hard, but he hoped this wasn't her shutting down even more.
After what seemed like hours, but was really only a few moments, Sia finally looked up at him, looking much less tense than she had just a few minutes before. Harry didn't want to get his hopes up, though.
"I'm sorry," Sia said, shaking her head, though she looked more exasperated with herself than anything else. "I overreacted. I've been overreacting for months now. It wasn't fair to you, and I'm sorry."
"For what?" Harry asked, genuinely confused by her apology. He had never questioned her anger at him over the breakup and the subsequent events that led to their falling out. It had hurt him to see her so angry and knowing it was his fault, but he'd never been upset with her over it. So her apology was out of left field for him.
"For holding this grudge against you for no reason. I don't apologise for my initial anger over the breakup, but I do apologies for all these months of animosity. Cutting you out of my life completely and making our families our go-betweens was childish. I don't wanna do all this anymore, Harry."
"So...?"
"So I'm calling a cease-fire," she stated succinctly. "No more harsh words, no more heightened guards, no more tension. I want my childhood friend back."
Harry was sure he had never smiled harder in his life.