Already Home // Harry Styles

Not The One

4th November London/LA

Three months. I had been single now for three whole months. After those first weeks of adjusting, grieving and telling everyone about the split, things settled quite well. I haven't moved house yet. Charlie and I are still yet to sort out anything about the apartment or who's going to take Stanley. In fact, we had only had two conversations since the split. He didn't seem in too big of a rush to sell up and he was still paying his half of the mortgage so it suited me well for the moment. I had been looking, but affordable apartments were not a plentiful market in London.

I thought it would be more difficult, cutting ties with someone you had spent five years loving. It was never something I thought would happen so quickly and finitely, but I had grown used to it. I no longer woke up in streams of tears like I did in the weeks following the split. There was definitely still times when that loss would hit me and I would miss him terribly. Usually it was late at night and I was lying in bed alone. But those moments were coming further and further apart. Occasionally I would hear what Charlie was up to via Ricky and I would feel my chest tighten against my will, but I was confident that soon enough I would just think of him with fondness. I hoped that one day, I would hear how he was doing and I would smile and be happy for him.

The past two months I had felt myself starting to blossom. Thrive even. I spent so much time out with my friends now. I went to dinners, to the West End, to the cinema. I even went to one of those immersive nights. You know the ones where you get a costume and they give you a role to play. Most nights I had plans, even if it was just with myself. Life was starting to feel good. I had even been on two dates with a guy over the past two weeks. Ben his name was. I met him through Taylor and Ricky. They were kind and often let me play third wheel on their date nights. They never made me feel awkward about it either. They didn't speak much about Charlie, but I was sure they were all still on good terms. And I was glad of it. We had gone to see a play, Mousetrap. An Agatha Christie murder mystery type show. Ben was in the cast and was an old friend of Rickys. We had met at a drinks reception after the show and he seemed taken with me. Very flattering! He wasn't my usual type, but maybe that was okay. He wasn't overly tall, but still taller than me. He had dark blonde hair, clean cut. Bright blue eyes. He was in shape, but not exactly muscular. He oozed kindness and maturity out of him. Straight away he just seemed like a sweet and genuine person and that was what made me say yes when he asked me out for coffee. I thought it was too soon to be dating again if I'm honest, but there was something about this guy that made me wanna give it a shot. He seemed to be so emotionally mature and that was a very attractive trait.

Coffee had led to lunch which then led to a stroll around south bank and a sweet slow kiss on the bridge before he had to rush off for his call time at the theatre. Our second date had been a Sunday, the only night off theatre performers seem to get. He took me to dinner and then a moonlight cruise on the Thames. It wasn't exactly the south of France but it was wonderful. He was sweet and polite and took interest in the things I had to say. I felt giddy at the thought of him. I was taking it at a snails pace but it was such a positive sign.

Our third date was due to be this weekend. That was going to have to be postponed now.

Early in the morning I got a phone call from Harry. Not entirely unusual you would think, but we hadn't spoke much over the past month aside from the odd texts here and there. Mostly him checking in on me, making sure I wasn't just letting myself spiral into a dark hole. I had been busy adjusting to a new life, being excited about a new guy in my life. And Harry, well he was still on tour, he was living with Hayley now full time, working on various other things. We were both just busy. When I met with Gemma recently she had told me she hadn't spoke to him too much either. She mentioned Harry had seemed distracted and preoccupied with some things, but never went into detail over what.