Matilda | Harry Styles

FIFTEEN

It was becoming an all too frequent occurrence that Harry would leave me with a sleepless night. 

It was almost five in the morning when I finally got back into my own hotel room - that meant Harry and I had been speaking for hours, almost completely into the following day. I wasn't sure I'd ever spent so long speaking to anybody without having any sort of awareness of the time passing - it had felt so easy, and so effortless; even when I'd felt myself getting carried away, eventually, it had felt almost impossible to stop. He had that about him; that strange allure - it was like you could tell him absolutely anything without fear of judgement - that was another thing. Somehow, when I made it back into my room, I didn't feel ashamed, or judged. And in a way, that was even worse - I didn't want to grow comfortable with divulging the details of my life, or with oversharing with somebody I had really ought to be doing the opposite with. I didn't want to grow accustomed to confiding in somebody, especially not Harry. That would be incredibly dangerous, and incredibly foolish. To trust somebody in the way I suddenly found myself tempted to, would be naïve. I needed to keep him at arm's length. 

I had gotten myself into the habit of never saying how I really felt about anything, to anyone. Grace was an exception, but even she wasn't made aware of the extent of all my never-ending reservations. The fact that I'd so quickly, and so easily been willing to say what I felt to him, was absolutely not how it could be. 

I knew there wasn't a chance of me getting a moment of sleep, and so I kept myself busy from the second I got inside my room. I wasn't even sure what time Harry had left from his position outside of my door, because I didn't dare to look - instead, I tidied up as much as I could, packing my things into my suitcase so that I was ready to leave Dallas in the evening. I took an unnecessarily long shower, and reorganised all of my things in my case, repeatedly, hoping to remain distracted. It wasn't working - of course, it wasn't. It never seemed to.

I got out my laptop, and tried to focus on some work - but that wasn't exactly easy, either, when the very person I was trying to push from my head was the subject of all of my work. I clicked through what felt like endless photos of him on stage, trying to ignore the swell in my chest at the sight of him. Only a moment or so passed, before I sighed, closing the lid of my laptop. I couldn't really face anymore, without facing the very thing I wanted to avoid.

Had we almost kissed?

In all honesty, I wasn't really sure - it had certainly felt like we had; it had certainly been the closest we'd gotten to kissing, and this time, without much excuse. We weren't drunk - at least, I wasn't, and Harry hadn't really seemed it. We hadn't drank much at the club, and although Harry's drink of choice back at the hotel bar was much more severe than my own, he didn't seem particularly phased by it. I'd seen him intoxicated - or at least more intoxicated - and his demeanour didn't quite align with that.

He'd seemed so thoughtful - that felt like the only way to describe it. As he had been, the whole day leading up to the night, he seemed so contemplative - almost careful. Tentative wasn't a word I'd ever have thought could be used to describe Harry Styles, but I'd felt it from him, last night - he'd been hesitant, and tentative, but had ended up remaining in my company, nonetheless. I knew that feeling - it was like no matter how I felt, or what I did, I couldn't stay away from him.

His confession outside of my hotel room was something I didn't dare to fully consider. I didn't dare to properly let my brain run away with what he'd said - what it could mean. It was the most he'd really said to me about how he felt about anything, but at the same time, I felt like I didn't understand him any better than I had twenty-four hours ago. I couldn't make sense of any of it; not of him, not of how he felt, not of myself, or how I felt. I wondered if he even had half the turmoil I did, or if this even crossed his mind at all.