Adele, Don't You Remember
"When will I see you again? / You left with no goodbye, not a single word was said / No final kiss to seal anything / I had no idea of the state we were in".
4th February 2019
Things have been pretty hideous, for four hellish months now.
It's been twenty weeks, to the day, since he'd spoken to her.
Then, the last time he'd heard from her, had been two weeks after that. 8.10pm on the eighth of October, as it happened.
After reams of texts and missed calls and messages - all unanswered - that final, sobbing, broken, anguished, and confusion laden voicemail marked the final missive.
It had him promptly hurling his iPhone against the wall - distraught for sure, but mostly to avoid the impulse to call her straight back and try to console her, try to possibly explain.
That was just the first of three phones to have met a similar fate in the last four months.
He knows it would have been fairer to them both if he blocked her number; to take away the temptation for her to keep trying, and for him the anguish of receiving it all.
But, if her final broken, hollow words in that voicemail were true, the perseverance paid off.
Those words still haunt him.
"...I'm done".
Now, at least he could rest slightly easier, knowing that she could reach him if ever she needed him. He'd always drop anything for her. He has to believe that.
But, four months on, it all still hurts. Unbearably so.
He can practically still see teasing flashes of it all, dancing behind his eyelids when he tries to fall asleep.
Those damning and salacious headlines were attention grabbing enough.
'Love rat'.
'Cheating scum'.
'Playboy'.
He'd been thoroughly vilified.
That the stories broke the morning of their third anniversary - well, her date for it, anyway - only made him feel all the more wretched.
He hadn't anticipated that; in his distraction, he hadn't put two and two together.
After waking up early, he'd taken his time to say his own silent goodbyes as she slept, before cowardly slinking off.
Throwing on some clothes and grabbing his hastily packed bag - hiding in wait in their closet - he loitered by the bedroom door, bestowing silent apologies as tears streamed down his cheeks.
Totally numb, in hindsight, he can't quite recall even getting in the car, let alone the subsequent drive.
But he certainly remembers the guilt he felt leaving.
Leaving her to wake up alone, to all that.
>
Hiding out alone at the Azoff's holiday home in Palm Springs, he'd ended up making himself physically sick.
But a few days wracked with fevered chills, unable to either keep anything down or stop crying, didn't feel nearly like punishment enough.
When he turned the corner a couple of days later, it transpired that nothing had yet calmed down.
He'd never heard his mum so furious.
And she then jumped straight on a plane and demanded he head back to LA to face her.
Ironically, she must have passed her on the freeway.
Jeff told him Eloise had shown up at his place, hammering on the door, shouting for him, then breaking down sobbing about how she didn't understand what had happened, what went wrong.
Then, after another couple of days of her blowing up his phone - processing from shock to confusion to disbelief to anger - Ben let him know, shortly, that she'd fled home.
Home-home; to their parents' place in Richmond Park.
But the distance didn't help him feel any better.
Worse, if anything. Her empty sides of the wardrobe and ensuite, haphazardly ransacked as they were, suggested a worrying permanence.
>
In the dark about it all, Mitch and Tom were struggling to understand what had happened and how best to help.
They figured music might prove the distraction he needed, until he was ready to talk.
Tom swung by one day, and, having literally dragged Harry off the shower floor, helped channel his angst into writing Falling. Bam, done and dusted in just twenty minutes - leaning against the piano, wrapped in only a towel, laying his emotions bare.
Then, in need of a distraction, Harry's obsessive streak flared up, and he'd made it his mission to track down authentic dulcimers for a new track they'd penned called Canyon Moon. That was at least three days relatively well spent.
Eloise's final missive, a week later, was scathing fury melting into accepting heartbreak.
"After everything that has been going on, our relationship was just about the only thing keeping me afloat. But I'm sorry if that was too much of a burden on you... I guess the last three years must have meant more to me than they did to you? ...But the very worst part in all this, Harry, isn't that tramp or the fucking media or rabid fans; it isn't even what you did... It's that I never would have once pegged you for a fucking coward who runs away and won't even acknowledge the damage you've done. You arrogant son of a bitch, you've fucking wrecked me... But you obviously have no intention of talking to me, so this is it. Goodbye, I guess, I'm done".
See? Haunting.
>
To try to protect what was left of his sanity and strength of will, he had to get away from places that remind him of her.
It didn't prove easy.
Seeing so many reminders and traces of her around the house was killing him. And, while his songwriting team was in LA, with his blue mood, he was genuinely worried about the path he could go down if he started dabbling in shit again. And he'd promised her; never again.
He considered heading home to Holmes Chapel, but knew his mum would only nag him about her; and the recording studios nearby aren't really up to scratch.
He evidently couldn't face the Hampstead house, and when holing himself up in a hotel suite didn't help either, he realised he had to get away from London too. She was too close; the temptation too much.
He decamped to Real World, a recording studio complex in Bath, for just over a week, but the nearby M4 proved problematic.
On a couple of occasions, he found himself getting in the car and sneaking back towards Richmond Park, only to then come to his senses and sheepishly turn around again.
Temptation proved too strong, but he really needed to bunker down and make some headway on the album.
Impulsively, he headed east.
Way east.
>
He'd been in Japan intermittently from late-October to early February.
After a fairly bleak and unproductive initial few weeks, he promised himself he'd get his head back into work as soon as December rolled around, but then he'd been struggling with writer's block.
Mitch had sent him some music for a new track, and he'd penned the lyrics to that - To Be So Lonely, appropriately enough - but that was it. That's all he has to show for his time here so far.
Since late October. Yikes.
Jeff will soon be on his case, and Columbia out for his blood again.
Sure, his journal is littered with dark, nonsensical and incomplete scribblings, but they're too depressing to be worth sifting through, even just in the hope of panning for any tiny nuggets of gold.
His muse is evidently no where to be found.
Well, he knows exactly where she is - in southwest London, safely at her parents house, he hopes - but she wants nothing to do with him, that's for sure.
That final voicemail is all the reminder he needs.
"Goodbye, I guess, I'm done".
"...I guess, I'm done".
"...I'm done".
He still replays it on a loop when he's too many whiskeys or sakés or tequilas deep, or feeling lonely in a small twin bed that has somehow never felt wider.
>
Succumbing to temptation again, he returned back to London in mid-November on a whim, intent on heading straight to Richmond Park and trying to explain himself.
But he chickened out, again.
After spending a few days holed up in another hotel in central London - he still couldn't face the Hampstead house - he returned to Tokyo with his tail firmly between his legs.
Going off the grid, he focused on unwinding and trying to live as discretely and anonymously as possible, eschewing attention - well, to the best of his ability.
As much as he stood out - literally, a good few inches above the average height, and a white celebrity to boot - the highly polite, considered and respectful nature of the Japanese was massively appealing.
He ended up revelling in his solitude - oddly enough, for someone who'd been willing to sleep on friends' sofas for the best part of two years as an eighteen year old multimillionaire, just to avoid waking up alone in his echoey new home.
He'd had a quiet and glum Christmas and New Year's without her. Returning home to Holmes Chapel, he was withdrawn and surly and sullen.
Worried, his family promptly realised they'd need to tiptoe carefully around him and dance around the elephant in the room to avoid him scuttling off and back into the woodwork again.
But he did anyway, on the second of January; and fell quickly back into the same rhythms of his bizarre little life in Japan.
>
After going to ground too, for more obvious reasons, come January, she emerged briefly as well.
Her name had been in the press.
He'd know. His Google and social media search histories are pathetic.
After some print and televised - but never live - interviews for Killing Eve season two and her writing credit on Sex Education, which both premiered to much acclaim in early January, she was also a surprise and unannounced guest at the Golden Globes.
She'd cropped her hair - sitting in a blunt, choppy bob above her shoulders; bared in her strapless metallic Chanel couture gown. It was somehow show-stopping, yet understated, at the same time.
With her dad on her arm, and a couple of discrete bodyguards hovering close, she'd only braved a few interviews on the red carpet. Unsurprisingly, they each grilled her about their relationship and why Harry wasn't with her.
Evidently, that glass face hadn't fared terribly well under interrogation. It proved excruciating for him to watch.
Her subsequent triumph - winning 'Best Actress Television Drama' and 'Best Television Drama' - had been bittersweet.
Harry was beyond proud; elated for the recognition of her starring role and first screenplay. But also devastated, that he wasn't there as her biggest cheerleader; and, reading her glass-face and body language, knowing she wasn't quite in the mood to enjoy it either.
He couldn't help but notice she looked sad and tired, and too skinny again. He clocked her fake smile and notably short acceptance speeches too. "Wow! This is really overwhelming, my gosh... Just thank you - to the voters, our incredible cast and crew, to Netflix and the BBC... To everyone. And thank you, of course, to my family, my friends... To anyone I've ever loved, this is for you".
He wasn't quite sure whether to read anything into that, but couldn't help but hope.
The next day, already suspicious of them suddenly dropping out of public life, and not having been seen together in public since the summer, the media re-hashed speculative stories about their break-up, but with a fresh angle after she was photographed chatting intently with Zayn, of all people, at an afterparty.
After scouring all the editorial photo sites, Harry only spotted a couple of photos of her after the ceremony at all. One clutching her two awards; and the other that weird one shot with Zayn.
However hard he tried, he couldn't seem to find a rational explanation for that one, but what right did he have to speculate?
>
With renewed focus and some fresh resolutions, Harry threw himself into work throughout January.
And, finally, the self-imposed heartbreak proved wonderful inspiration, and songs started spewing out of him.
Admittedly, they're raw and bleak, in wild contrast to the happiness-laden tracks they'd initially laid down in Malibu, right after the tour.
On better days, he knows that it's all for the best. He channels the feelings into his work. Or goes for long walks with his mate, Fujii - a former pro wrestler and, incidentally, his new housemate - and his Shiba Inu dog, Bell. Or else calls his new therapist to talk things through; she's been a god-send, actually.
But, on bad days, his outlets prove less healthy. Either obsessively hitting the boxing ring, or else bars. He's on his third new phone already. And, needless to say, his Google and social searches remain humiliating.
He had a wobble and took a few steps back when Daisy Jones & The Six was released. Downloading it immediately, he fell asleep listening, if not watching it each night. He'd take any version of her; anything he could get.
He'd memorised all the video and audio clips of her stored on his iCloud already. And it made a change from all the Killing Eve, Baby Driver and War & Peace that he'd already had on repeat; but Eloise as Daisy definitely gives him some fucked up, trippy dreams.
Then, those unfounded rumours about Kiko Mizuhara, a Japanese model, definitely prompted some really bad days.
Shamefaced, he insisted it was only ever that - just a rumour; and one he's fairly sure probably came from her publicist. He, Fujii and new pal Kunichi Nomura - a radio host, DJ, TV presenter and everyman; alright, yes, essentially the Japanese version of Nick Grimshaw - innocently bumped into her and her friends at a bar, and stayed for a drink, just to be polite.
But a few tagged social media posts did the damage, and set the rumour mill ablaze, literally overnight.
He felt sick at the thought of Eloise seeing any of the coverage. Fuck, how low would her opinion of him get?
Immediately calling Jeff, he'd insisted they refute the story.
He had to do some damage control, if he was ever to be in with a fighting chance.
And, he'd admit, he hoped she'd notice the active rebuttals. That alone would have to mean something, surely?
>
Since Christmas, his mum and Mer had broadly stopped talking to him.
And he owes Gemma the mother of all apologies now, after she flew all the way to Tokyo ahead of his birthday, to check in after he'd ignored her daily calls and texts.
On edge after the Kiko stories, and embarrassed at the state she found him in, he'd blown up when she'd pushed and pushed, grilling him about Eloise.
They'd never had such a vicious fight, both stooping so low as to say awful, spiteful things.
After she'd flounced off home, he went on to spend his twenty-fifth birthday entirely alone - finding himself drinking tea and re-reading Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle in a little cafe on the outskirts of Tokyo.
It was, admittedly, a bit emo of him. But Eloise had been the one to recommend the book to him originally - the first of many she'd pushed his way; inadvertently making him an unashamed bookworm.
He'd never admitted it directly, but his appetite for knowledge and eagerness to learn over the last few years were entirely down to her. With her gift for writing, thirst for reading and, not to mention, that shiny Cambridge degree, he'd always been conscious of her outshining him. He's no slouch, and can hold his own with a wide variety of people, but he's conscious he left school at just sixteen. It was an incredible opportunity and one he'd never have turned down, but still...
Resolving that twenty-five year old Harry will be more considered, more aware, more centred, he strives to take more ownership of his appetite to learn and grow... Far better than sixteen year old Harry ever could, that's for sure; even if he's still just as likely to have his mind wander over a pretty blonde with perky tits and a cracking pair of pins.
With a sigh, he found himself draining the last of his tea to take page sixty-seven from the top again - for the third time.
But at least he made the most of his peaceful solitude, while it lasted.
>
>
7th February 2018
After a worried call from Gemma and Anne, Jeff reached out to Harry a few days ago to say enough was enough.
He'd booked tickets and would be arriving soon, with Mitch and Tom in tow.
Still self-aware enough to feel some shame, Harry promptly booked a suite at the Aman hotel, to avoid them seeing the relative squalor in which he'd been holed up, in the spare room at Fujii's apartment.
>
Upon arriving at the plush hotel suite, it's safe to say that they're shocked at the state of Harry.
Hugely concerning; he looks fundamentally unhappy.
Despite looking buffer than ever after all his boxing, MMA and jui jitsu training, he looks haggard, and desperately in need of a shave and a good hair cut.
They're sad to see the sparkle wholly missing from those usually ethereal eyes, a frown permanently furrowing his brow, lips downturned and no hint of his usual ready laughter.
His reality proves worse than they had feared.
>
After some encouragement, early that evening, Harry finds himself tucked into a quiet corner of the hotel bar with the boys.
Sooner than he imagined, he caves and can't help but ask after Eloise.
They were all her friends too, and he hopes they've been there for her, if she's needed support.
He's not that surprised to hear Tom hasn't spoken to her. They were friendly enough, but never best buds.
It's worrying to hear that, despite his efforts, Jeff hadn't heard from her directly since two weeks after everything went tits up. Glenne had tried too, and she'd at least received a response. But Jeff understands why she'd be distant.
Mitch admits he met her for a coffee, when she was back in LA for the Golden Globes. He'd seen the photos in the press and reached out again early the next morning. He'd had to.
Staying at Adele's, Eloise had begged that he and Sarah come to her, in a bid to keep things discrete. And, once she realised he was in the dark, she loosened up a bit, but it was awkward. "It was devastating, H... She should have been on top of the world after her wins, but she was like a shell of her former self".
That hits Harry like a kick in the teeth.
He admits it's all been a hell of a burden, weighing heavy on his conscience.
What has he done?
What about her in all this?
Was all this possibly some subconscious ploy to inspire his work?
He's disgusted with himself. She doesn't deserve it. And she's right, he is an arrogant son of a bitch.
If he barely recognises himself, what chance would she have?
"Man...", Mitch sighs, reaching over to squeeze his arm. "You have to clue us in, H. Please? This is killing you...".
So he does.
Harry finally offloads. And then some...
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A/N: Ahhh... Please don't hate me! So, any theories...?! The next chapter, revealing some pieces of the puzzle, will be posted in the next day or two... Xx