Aureate | Harry Styles

15

*warning: mentions psychedelic drug use!*

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ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Meet Me in the Hallway by Harry Styles ────────────────⚪️──────────────◄◄⠀▐▐ ⠀►►⠀⠀ ⠀ 1:15/ 2:54

"just let me know i'll be on the floor, on the floor, maybe we'll work this out, i gotta get better..."

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I don't text Emerson that next day. Or the day after that. My mind is swimming with thoughts of what I had overheard her saying to her dad on the phone.

"He's perfect dad, there's not really a better word to describe him."

"No, but it's okay. He just wants to be friends and if that's what he wants, it's what I want too."

Those words ring in my ears the entire drive home. Despite the fact that I feel a distinct need to tell Emerson that I had inadvertently listened to her conversation with her father, I can't bring myself to talk to her. Not even a single text. Guilt consumes me for my silence, but fear consumes me even more.

It is not a lack of care for Emerson that scares me, it is the fact that the roles could have been easily reversed with Emerson overhearing me talking about her. Hearing her talk on the phone did the opposite of what it should have done. It filled me with dread and brought the feelings of heartbreak that had just dissipated back to the surface.

I spend the whole night after I leave Emerson's house sitting in silence, remembering every piece of the conversation that Camille and I had immediately following our breakup. I remember her calling me arrogant for thinking that she would ever want to get back together with me after what I said to her. I remember the way she looked at me—with pity—as she left, and how she didn't look back once as she drove out of the driveway. There is a pit in my stomach, just like there was that night, and it is all I can do to not picture Emerson and I reaching that same end.

When I met Camille, I was taken with her beauty and her intelligence. I thought she was kind but the attraction I formed was based on a false sense of awe of someone like her wanting someone like me. The feelings were real, but shallow, and formed on surface-level observations, and encouragement from my friends. Our relationship was not characterized by encouragement or helping the other build skills or learn together. Instead, we solved tension, boredom, and filled really any quiet moment with sex. While wholly and truly a wonderful person, Camille did not fit me and I did not fit her.

My relationship with Emerson is almost the exact opposite. I noticed her kindness first. The way she talked to customers, and how diligently she worked. I see her as a person, not as a woman better than myself who is unattainable. I immediately had respect for her, in a different way than I had with Camille. I wanted to be her friend first, to get to know her. There is no conquest or a sense of desire that goes beyond natural attraction. It is healthy.  She provides a relationship that has give and take, and allows me to be myself fully without conditions, or feeling like I have to maintain the image of Harry Styles the pop star. I am able to write music without being overly conscious if she would like it, and can enjoy myself doing nothing with her. As she said of me, she is perfect.

I wake the next morning around 11:30 which was highly unusual for me.  I had a fitful night of sleep, full of dreams about her smile and the way her lips formed my name when she spoke, and devoid of the comfort I felt when she was just a room over. My back aches from the position I laid in while trying to sleep, knowing I didn't have to courage to admit to her what I'd overheard; and that I feel the same way.