Dear Friend,

chapter 10

Harry Styles

The last few days we've been rehearsing for SNL and I'm getting really excited for the episode to air. Performing is one of my favorite things, I don't typically get worried before I go on stage and if I do feel nervous, I usually lose my nerves when the music starts.

Tonight is a different story, and for this I'm terrified.

It's Saturday Night Live, there are going to be so many people watching, some of who have no idea who I am. It's completely different from one of my shows where everyone listening already likes me.

Lennox is also going to be here, and she'll be hearing me perform which is even more of an added stress. I have no idea how much of my music she's heard, if she listened to the first album she'd probably be able to piece some of my life together and she'd pick up pretty quickly on the fact that some of the songs are about her.

Without trying, almost half of the new album has become about her or at least inspired by her.

I started writing and she became my inspiration and she doesn't even know it. My career is something we haven't talked about too much and the only reason she knows about the new music coming is because of SNL.

The way she spoke so passionately about her job and her students when we were talking made me realize that was exactly what I needed to do for writing the new songs. Once I changed my mindset, the ideas started flowing and I was focused on writing what I was the most passionate about.

I've been over at her apartment almost every night this week telling her about the skits I would be doing and what I had to do for each one. I practiced giving my monologue and told her about the songs I was going to be performing.

My favorite night from this week ended with Lennox and I drinking wine on her yellow couch passing a script back and forth between us to practice the accents that I'm going to have to do for some of the skits.

After only a few glasses she started to get extra giggly and she kept telling me that my voice sounded funny. I tried to explain to her that was the whole point of why I had come over but she was just laughing more. She kept asking me to show her the songs I would be performing and my smile kept growing as I shook my head telling her she had to wait.

Lennox has always been stubborn and never a fan of surprises so when I had information she wanted she always knew how to get it out of me, but this time I wanted to wait for her reaction to see the new song.

Lights Up has been out for a few weeks now and it was the first one I am going to be performing on the show. It's the lead single and one of the first ones that we mixed for the album. We are going to be performing it a little differently, playing it a little slower and with some backing vocals making it sound like a completely new song from the studio version.

I've been keeping the second song a secret. It was the one we recorded after I saw the sign in Lennox's classroom. We just recorded it and performing it wasn't the plan but after I told the band how much I wanted to do it we've been rehearsing to make sure we can do it.

I have no idea how she's going to react and if she'll even put it together that I built the song based on some rainbow bubble letters from her classroom rules poster.

She was still asking me for a sneak peek or even just the names of the songs but I changed the subject by getting her to talk about the cast.

When we were talking the other day, she said that weekend update is one of her favorite segments and she told me she would freak out if she saw Colin Jost and I couldn't tell if she was joking around with me or not.