5.
The day goes by quickly, we stop by Emma's work to grab lunch again, and before I know it, I'm putting the camera away and pulling my bag out of my locker. Harry leans back against the wall, his ankles crossed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Townes walking over here again.
My heart freaks out for a second, and I shake my head at whatever feeling just leapt up inside of me. Jealousy? Fear? I try to catch a glimpse of Harry's expression without him noticing. He sees her, and lightly shakes his head. My eyes shoot back to her. She nods, smiles, and walks away. And then I realize I've been holding my breath. I slam my locker door closed.
"Quinn," he starts. I glance up at him. "This has been fun and all, but I don't feel like I've got a full grasp of what you do."
"What do you mean?" I smile, throwing the bag over my shoulder. He shakes his head, his hair flopping back and forth.
"You're just...filming for coverage. You're covering the event. I want to see what you do with that." He points to Cherry. I give him a disapproving look.
"She has a name you know."
"I want to see how you work with Cherry," he smirks. I pat the camera lovingly. Contemplating his request.
"Alright," I decide. His eyes brighten.
"Yeah?"
"Sure." I pull my jacket over one of my arms, juggling the bag and camera in my hands as I shake the rest of the coat onto my body. "Let's head outside."
He follows me, giddy. I can tell because his hands fan out like he's a little second grade girl in her favorite dress. But he's a 23-year-old man. It's still cute. It's him. It's interesting.
We are met by the chilled air of late September, and he stuffs his hands into his coat, pulling his sunglasses out running them up into his hair like a headband. I pull Cherry off of my shoulder, holding her in my hand.
"Alright, so how does this work?" He grins, soaking in my movements. I look around.
"I wait for inspiration I suppose, let the camera do the work for me." My eyes wander over the storefronts, sidewalks, street, and high rises. Around us, people shuffle past, unconcerned with our faces. I figure Harry must like that, just how focussed and unbothered people are here. I squat down, staring at the sidewalk, and then my eyes move towards his feet. In my mind, they are glowing. "Here we go," I smile.
I flip open the camera, clicking record. He stands absolutely still, terrified by my actions. My camera is trained steady on his shoes. "Don't be shy," I urge him.
"What do you want me to do?" He is frozen, paralyzed by the camera lens.
"Whatever you feel like doing. What is your gut telling you to do?" I offer. He ponders this. And then suddenly, breaks out into a little dance. His heeled boots tap the pavement carelessly, and from above I hear him faintly humming along to whatever music just started playing in his mind. I smile, he's uncomfortable, it's a coping mechanism, music.
I end the recording. "There, just like that, that's what I do," I conclude, folding the camera up and hanging it back on my shoulder.
The wrinkle reappears between his eyebrows. "I don't understand."
"You're not the first. But just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you can't appreciate it."
"Yep," he chuckles, shaking his head. "That's you in a nutshell."
I don't like his words, I feel a strange sensation in my gut. I don't like how he so easily categorizes me, writes me off in a way. I blink. "Come on, let's do some more."
We wander through the streets, and occasionally I stop, turning my camera back on and recording bits of the city. He watches intently as I focus my shot on a single, torn up shoe I found on the sidewalk. "Why this one?" He mumbles.
"It makes me sad."
"Yeah," his voice is strange. "Me too I suppose."
After a while we find ourselves walking down a sidewalk on some street I forget the name of, the sun setting, reflecting on the glassy mirrored buildings. That's one of my favorite things about New York, you get to be surrounded by the sunset. I stop walking, and Harry turns back to look at me, his hands in his coat pockets.
"What is it? Do you feel something right here?" His eyes light up. I nod, opening my camera. And it automatically goes up to his figure. He shrinks. "No, I'm supposed to see how you work, this isn't about me."
"I am working." I mumble, taking a few steps back. The shot is...absolutely breathtaking.
(not a great edit but you get the idea lol)
He stares straight down the barrel and I laugh and shake my head." No, you have to act natural."
"Not sure how to do that when you're pointing that thing at me." He mumbles.
"Look away, look at a car driving by." I offer. He nods, immediately taking my suggestion. "And now, tell me something."
"Tell you what?" He asks, his eyes still glued to the road. He holds his phone in his hand, fidgeting with it.
"I don't know, a story, something I don't already know," I urge him.
He nods, refusing to look at me and the camera. And thinks for a second. "I'm a very physical person, I like physical touch, it's my love language," he starts. I barely breathe, keeping the camera as steady as I can. His sudden surrender, vulnerability, it's exciting. It's authentic. It's everything I want to capture on Cherry. "Let's see, what else," his lips twitch as he hides a smile. "You know what song you remind me of, Quinn?" He continues to fidget with the phone in his hand. A car drives by, blinding him in light for a moment.
"What song?" I whisper.
"She's a Rainbow, by the Rolling Stones." His shoulders relax a little. This is his sweet spot I think. Talking about how he feels about others. It's vulnerable, in its own guarded way. I nod. "Because I feel that energy coming off of you. You have a rainbow energy, being with you, looking at you, it's like, you know the feeling when you open a hot oven and the massive wave of heat hits you in the face. And it hurts but it also feels a little good." He stops himself, getting confused and tangled in his own analogies. "Everytime I'm with you, it's like I'm staring into a furnace, or walking on fire."
He finally looks over at me, over the camera and into my eyes. "It scares me, in a cool way. In a way that makes me want to be around you, understand you."
I end the recording and lower the camera. "Do you get it now?" He's shaken, like he just woke up from a dream, and looks around at the city, his eyes blinking softly.
"Yeah, I get it now."
"I make people feel real." I explain. He nods.
"You do more than that though, you make people feel good about being real." A smile spreads across his face and he turns back to look at me. "That was weird."
I laugh, slinging Cherry back onto my shoulder. "And it's all on video now, can't take anything back."
"Oh, I don't want to," he shakes his head fervently.
"It kind of sounds like you're obsessed with me Mr. Harry Styles."
"I don't know how anyone couldn't be."
His words make my heart soar. I can't wipe the smile off my face. Right now, in this moment, I am so intrigued by him. He's beautiful, soft, easily embarrassed, and obsessed with me. Despite his walls, his guarded, quiet demeanor, he feels so authentic. I could film him all day, all week even, and never get tired of the way he moves, speaks, lives. We start walking again, and I hear a shout come from a car behind us.
My head whips around, immediately thinking that I'm being catcalled, but the car is full of teenage girls, maybe sixteen or seventeen. They squeal and point at us, and then I register what's happening.
"Should we go hide out somewhere?" I suggest. He smiles and shakes his head, lifting his hand to wave at them.
"Why would we do that?"
"I don't know, I don't want you to get mobbed or anything I guess." He laughs.
"Mobbed by five teenage girls?"
"Well I don't know--"
"It's okay, Quinn. They're just excited. They just want to talk, to meet me. I could never deny them that."
"Never?" I raise an eyebrow. He rolls his eyes.
"Well sure there are times when it's a little inconvenient, is that what you want to hear?" He confesses.
"You're lucky the cameras aren't still rolling, Styles." I tease him. The car parks a few feet ahead of us, and the girls step out of it. We meet them halfway. One of them is crying a little bit, but other than that they just seem jittery, full of adrenaline.
"Love, come here don't cry," he smiles at one of them. "Would you like a hug?" She nods and he pulls her in, lightly rubbing her back. I wonder what it would be like, to be her, to love him like that, and then be comforted by him like that.
I feel a sudden urge to open my camera again and record the interaction. I begin to reach for it, but then stop myself. Why am I stopping? I rest my hand against it's cool, silver exterior, my fingers playing with the cherry keychain. I've never stopped like this before. Never. I follow my gut, listen to the camera, capture what needs to be captured.
But this moment feels so incredibly intimate between them, I feel almost voyeuristic. I feel like I'm watching something I shouldn't be watching. I feel like, whoever this girl is, she deserves this moment for herself and nobody else. I take my hand off the camera. She gently pulls away and he lets go.
"How are you all doing this fine evening, isn't that sunset beautiful," he gestures up at the sky and they nod, a few awkward laughs passing between them. "What are your names?"
"I'm Kelsey, and this is Erica, Morgan, Brooke, and Olivia." One of the girls points everyone out.
"Olivia! I wrote a song called Olivia," he grins, proud of the connection. The girl shyly smiles, tucking her hair behind her ear. "What are you all doing in New York tonight?"
"Um, well we just saw a movie," Morgan explains.
"Which one?" He asks again, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Star Wars," she replies back.
He nods. "Good stuff, did you like it?"
"Not really," one of the girls in the back pipes up. They all snicker, he smirks. "Could we get a picture with you?" He nods enthusiastically, turning to me.
"You guys are in luck actually, I'm out tonight with an actual real life cinematographer, what a surprise," he nods at me. I fight a smile and hold my hand out for one of their phones. One of them hands me their device and I hold it up, making sure all of their faces are well lit, before taking probably twenty photos.
"There, took quite a few," I offer the phone back.
"How do you two know each other?" One of them asks.
"I--" I start.
"She's my colleague." Harry interrupts me. I glance over at him, but he refuses to look in my direction.
We part ways with the fans and continue making our way down the street. After we get out of earshot, I turn to him expectantly.
"Colleague?"
"The most neutral word in the English language," he explains. I think about it.
"What about friend?"
"Friend is a word people use when they don't want other people to know that they're sleeping together," he argues, and then stops walking. His face contorts into a character, and he puts on a fake Californian accent. "I'm Harry Styles, and this is my...friend." I can't help but laugh at the absurdity.
"I guess that's true."
"Believe me, it's true," he reassures, his eyes thinking back to some secret memory.
We keep walking, not caring too much about our destination, but I keep his statement, his tone, in the back of my head. After a bit of silence, I pipe back up. "You've lived a sad life in some ways."
He shakes his head stubbornly. "No I haven't."
"I think that's a bit narrow-minded, to deny yourself whatever sadness--"
"I need to." He looks directly at me, his lips parting slightly as he tries to find more words. "If I start thinking about the bad parts of everything, the sad parts, I will spiral. Anyone would, it's human nature."
I nod, and turn forward again, but he seems hung up on my words.
"I mean, wouldn't you?" a trickle of doubt enters his voice.
"No," I argue.
"Why not?"
"Although I probably wouldn't make a good celebrity. I speak my mind, always have. Life's complicated, we're all complicated. I think a lot of people try to simplify themselves so others will understand them and accept them. But I don't do that. If I was a celebrity, I wouldn't be a brand. I would never be dishonest with myself. If I was unhappy or feeling stuck, I would make a change. But like I said, I wouldn't be a good celebrity because of that."
He stares at me, and then I feel his eyes travel down and back up my body, like he's sizing me up, seeing things he didn't notice before. "How do you feel about me right now?" He asks softly, I barely hear him.
"I like you," I confess, and I know he knows it's the truth. "I am intrigued by you. I think you're captivating. I want to film you more." His face slowly brightens and he scratches the back of his neck.
"Do you still think I smell warm?"
"Did you even understand what I meant when I said that?" I laugh.
"I think it means that I smell safe."
I nod. "Yeah, you get it."
a/n aww this chapter is sweet.
Imagine getting a hug from harry styles :0