Story Edited By: Kellie Woolf | Published March 21, 2020
(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)
"This thing upon me...howls like a beast. You flower, you feast."
Harry Styles |Woman
February 14, 2016
"You good?" [Manager] Jeff asked, watching as I climbed down from the backseat. I held the door for a minute, vacillating, drumming my fingertips; but eventually let them slide away. The truck door was heavier than I was used to, so it slammed, echoing in the courtyard and prompting something to run from the hedges.
"You alright?" He repeated. After tonight, I wasn't good, but I needed to be alone.
"Yeah, mate...all good..." Not really, I nearly croaked. But I swallowed the bile-like words, clearing the lump in my throat with a crooked smile.
"Should we come up for a bit?" Glenne (his girlfriend) asked, hand already on the door-handle; tennis bracelet glinting in the blue LEDs that bathed the car floor. "Night cap?"
"No need. I'll be alright." I grinned. "I swear I'm good." She looked skeptical. "See you Tuesday?"
"No, tomorrow." Jeff cocked a brow. "Noon, pal. And get some sleep, alright?"
"Promise." I drawled, blowing kisses and watching them pull away.
The Escalade reared back up the incline of my driveway and vanished. The driver had cursed earlier after picking me up, realizing how steep the climb was before just flooring it. I nearly laughed remembering how much he apologized, thinking he had lost his tip and earned a scathing review. But I cursed just as much whenever I walked it in the mornings.
On my way to the backdoor, I shook my head at the heap of PR packages accumulating on the terrace. It had grown steadily from the moment I processed an official change of address at the post office last week, and was showing no signs of stopping. Over a dozen brands had found me, relentless in their pursuit of my 'endorsement'-whatever the hell that meant. Especially Apple. They sent me stuff nearly every month; prototypes and limited editions and other stupid shit I couldn't name to save my life. None of it registered anymore, since I was inundated regularly from every Fortune 500 that dominated the west coast.
One day last year, Jeff had sat me down and explained that my social media engagement was next-level, so as a result it had become a rare commodity. He went on to say that my Twitter was of particular interest: in a day and age where most people (i.e. fans) had jumped ship and gone over to IG or Facebook, my numbers were simply unheard of. To me, this wasn't impressive. It became an added anxiety, reminding me the entire world was tracking my every move. And it was equally as unsettling to search my name on Twitter at any given moment and see that thousands were discussing me (24/7).
Anytime I mentioned a book I had read in passing, or tweeted lyrics to a song I loved, I apparently made 'waves', and was therefore expected to be more selective about the things I endorsed. Eventually I became so conscientious about what I should and shouldn't post that I barely tweeted at all.
Brands had redoubled their efforts to pin me down since early 2015, my numbers only increasing after March and growing more insane by the day-that is, compared to my four, "equally renowned" counterparts.
Inside, I kicked my shoes off at the staircase and headed up without flicking the lights on. I didn't want to be seen, even though there was no one around to do the seeing. I smelled Windex halfway up, and the pungent furniture polish the women used to keep steps and banisters gleaming. Something with lemon. Some days it was just noxious, and I held my breath as I passed through to the landing.
Twitter remained on my mind, which it usually did whenever I was tipsy or lonely. I thought about tweeting something just for the hell of it, or at least to remind people I was alive. Maybe posting something about the smell of olives? Or maybe something about how long the day felt in comparison to yesterday? I opted out of both choices and chewed a strand of my hair instead. My tweets were awful most days, (just a bunch of random nonsense) so no one was really missing anything if I scrapped the draft I had put together in my head-or at least this is how I justified my fickleness to myself.
Funny enough, I had somehow authored the most retweeted tweet in the world in 2015, and while most considered it something to celebrate, the context of said tweet still bothered me. It was single-handedly the most miserable thing I had ever produced, and I thought often of deleting it.
It still gave me butterflies when I read it, my heart instantly reliving the feelings that had impelled it. "All the love as always. H" (March 25, 2015). Over 700k retweets. The second most retweeted tweet that year was-believe it or not-from HIM. The one about the band's new single where he had feigned interest in our first production without him.
At the time in 2015, everyone figured I'd be next to split from the band, so dozens of brands attempted to get ahead of the PR mob that would be sure to follow by sending me stuff relentlessly. I quickly became one of the most-if not the most-sought after byproducts of One Direction, and I still had no idea how to feel about it.
In my bedroom I keyed up Damien Rice's "Cheers Darlin'" on the intercom so that it played throughout the entire house-morbid as hell. As I showered, I listened to it on a loop, taking longer than usual to finish up because I couldn't stop staring at my tattoos in the mirror. I took the towel from my waist and cleared the fog from the glass to get a better look.
Some were awful. Many had slipped my mind and I only remembered they existed now because the ink seemed to scintillate. Had I lost it? I shut my eyes and re-opened them, and it seemed to radiate even more. I was hallucinating.
It was as if my past was being resurrected to taunt me, making the markings on my skin more prominent, and forcing me into encounters with absolute ghosts; like earlier tonight. I looked at the Liam Sparkes heart and immediately looked away. I hated to see it. It started to thaw-ink bleeding down my arm, trickling onto my fingers, and splattering onto the tiles at my feet like a broken pen.
I took an account of the rest, many of which held no particular meaning. One was stretched, since my arm had grown. One was faded beyond recognition, and from what I could tell, it must've been the lyrics. The incorrect lyrics to "Sweet Disposition", which Taylor never allowed me to live down after she read them. She thought I was an idiot for f--king up something that huge, but she never realized it had been done intentionally. How would she know it was for him? That he would always mumble and mix up the words whenever he sang it? That this old, withered tattoo was my cheap homage to his humanness? I had gotten this, and he had gotten a giant mic inked to his forearm. Somehow we thought it was clever.
Shutting the medicine cabinet, I chewed a few Tums to quell the heartburn that was sure to come whenever I drank too much. Before I could even swallow them, I was doubled over the toilet, fumbling to open it and spewing my insides onto the floor.
**********
Smoke trapped in his cologne, suffocating it, mingling with body-wash and the oatty underpinnings of his shampoo. That's what I had stumbled on tonight. An old friend. A composite smell. Heady, sweet, dark...bright. It had been months since I last encountered it, yet that's all I ever remembered after spending time with him. Hardly the face, always the smell. I might shut my eyes and pick him out of a group of a thousand silent people-or an arena. Like the ones in Asia where they were too frightened to shout while we performed, so it felt like we were singing to ghosts.
I dreamt in arenas now, but they were never anything like reality. I dreamed we were trapped in murky spaces, deep with clusters of deranged people. And backstage there awaited corridors lit like morning when you exited the low-lights of the show; blinding you. Too many faces. A sea of faces. Hell, I had probably seen more human souls in a single night than most would see in a lifetime. Yet that smell was remarkable. It opiated the craze of those days and I could find it anywhere (whether sleeping or awake).
Tonight, there was the moor and the sound of static. The kind that overtook the airwaves whenever I had driven too far outside the city, meandering into places that killed the radio and cell service. Those places that made me feel dire as night fell. I could starve here. I could be forgotten here. Is that what I wanted? Sometimes, but not now. Not after seeing him again. He wasn't in the moor anymore.
**********
As I stood in the closet of the LA house, pulling on drawers and trying to exit that awful daydream, I stubbed my toe. That was all it took to jar me back to reality. The feelings welling up within me came to a grinding halt as I nursed the wound, pulling the broken bits of toenail away until it started to bleed.
Striding across the room, feet still damp, I flicked a switch on the main wall, retracting the screen that covered the floor to ceiling windows (more like a glass wall) in the master suite. There I stood and stretched, and stared out at the cityscape of Hollywood Hills.
The view was insane-one that property connoisseurs of any merit would kill for. And every night it delivered without fail, shimmering out of the darkness like some remote and fabled land of plenty. Over time this vantage had endowed me with a sense of...well arrogance. Sometimes I admonished myself, but I wasn't afraid to admit how proud I was of the property; not in the least. Though more respectably, it gave me a sense of accomplishment, one that the numbers in my bank account failed to provide. Whether the city was foggy or rainy or resplendent beneath the golden hour, setting the terracotta roofs ablaze for miles, this view stole my breath.
I grabbed my phone and scrolled to A-ha's "Take On Me". I refrained from doing lame 80s dances like I normally did, but couldn't help singing along for a while; my voice activating the acoustics of the house. The number of times I had stood in front of these windows stark naked, or drunk and playing air guitar was too embarrassing to account for without shame. And no one could appreciate these sorts of antics or how satisfying they were to the soul, except one other person.
But HE had never stepped foot in this house. He didn't know this part of me, just like I didn't know that part of him. He had a new LA pad too, and every bit of it remained a mystery to me. Sometimes I wondered if his also made him feel overconfident. I wondered how many parties he had thrown. I wondered if he had f-ked in every room. I wondered if he also had a sun-bleached fort of PR packages accumulating on his terrace as well. I wondered if he had a view like mine, but it was doubtful that he did.
Recently I learned he had settled someplace modest in Bel Air; a one-story compound, deeply sequestered and surrounded with gorgeous landscape. They told me he tended to move a lot. It was the only time I allowed myself to check up on him, (apart from what I could find online). I just wanted to pin him down after he moved to the States, and now that I knew, I wouldn't look into it anymore.
I didn't blame him for moving to LA full-time, since I had done the same. In our line of work, it was the place to be, and I couldn't ever imagine moving. It felt like the center of the world. The parties I'd already thrown here were legendary and only promised more of the same. The culture, the food, the people, the nightlife? Maddening. Most nights as I stared out over everything from my bedroom terrace, contemplating the course of this life and its endgame, I felt like the King of Hollywood. A despot.
Yet, after seeing him again, that feeling now evaded me. Running into him had been like a blow, which had ultimately reminded me of my place. I was not a king, I was an overly emotional kid. A dumb mortal. And now I couldn't register anything but the knot of regret writhing in the center of my chest, threatening to break through.
**********
Thousands of lights stood before me; something like a galaxy rising out of a cosmic map, outstretched at my disposal. But really, it was a desolate feeling. He was one of those tiny lights, and I feared I'd never lay eyes on him again. Not in the flesh.
Now he was lost to the stratosphere. A realm of elitism and star-power I thought I navigated well, yet somehow he was untouchable. He had shed the boy I'd grown up with, and become a man with ways unknown to me. Now I walked behind him, and he ahead. Far ahead. Light-years. I stood apart from his universe and whenever I reached out to touch it, it withdrew from me, departing with a sneer.
Dumbfounded, I sat on the floor in front of the glass, legs and arms crossed like a petulant child. Soon I felt entrapped, like a chimp behind a shrinking display at a park-the walls closing in on me. To wrest free of this sensation, I keyed up Adele's "Hello" on the Bluetooth, and after that Sia's "Elastic Heart"; followed up by a few reliable tunes from Van Morrison. "Sweet Thing" hit different tonight. Atonal bliss. The chaos within it-both lyrically and melodically-generated something similar within me. Something wild. Such intense dissonance was exactly what I needed.
Above the fireplace, the hands on the clock moved in implausibly slow increments, as though they were bone-tired and had to be coerced to keep moving. This was the time of my life. It oozed through me, pulsing out as I remembered a boy and a smell that had haunted my teen years and eluded me my adult life.
**********
Earlier That Night
"H? Hey?" Glenne waved a hand in my face when I got back into the truck, somewhat entranced. "Who was it?"
"Um..." I opened my mouth and shut it. Then: "Him."
"Sh-t..." She breathed, covering her mouth. "Again? That's insane, right? Twice in one night? Did he follow you?"
"'Course not. They just...happened to stop for coffee too, I guess." She laughed, then mouthed:
"Holy shit..."
"Yeah..."
"Well?! What'd he say? Did he act any different? Did he sound any different?"
"Umm, no, not really. Yeah...no." I said carefully. "He's mostly the same. The accent's a bit heavier, y'know-a lot thicker than I remember."
"Awe..." She smiled. "So what'd you talk about?"
"Uh...not much, I think. F-k's sake...I already can't remember. Music?"
"That's all?" She cringed. I knew it was pathetic, but I had been too high strung to think of anything else at the time. Everything I thought of to say to him felt unnatural, and his gaze was as narcotic as ever, disarming me to a humiliating degree. His presence, his personality, his grin, his cologne-had all been overwhelming. She waited for me to expound, but I shook my head, regretful that we hadn't gotten around to much else.
"He looked good, though." I uttered, staring at my knees.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Really good."
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