Note To Self (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter Twenty.

Harry's excitement about getting an chance to hang out with Aubry was completely crushed when he wasn't allowed out that night. Harry had lied, told his mother he was going bowling just with Liam and himself only, but she was still upset about the bad grade he'd brought home and refused to let him go.

He spent the night upstairs in his room pouting. Liam obviously hadn't gone either, he really wasn't sure if he wanted to in the first place, and he was sent home before dinner and that left Harry to entertain himself. He was mad about not getting what he wanted, though he usually never did anyway, but his method of silent protest was to lay in bed staring at the ceiling instead of spending hours upon hours of studying like his mother wanted him to. She had no idea, she hardly ever checked in on him, but he knew what he was doing and that was satisfying enough.

The white textured ceiling paint wasn't much more interesting to stare at than a textbook, but at least it didn't give him a headache like reading about cellular respiration would. He tried finding patterns in the bumps of the ceiling, like constellations made from the grooves in the paint. He saw the Little Dipper. At least, he counted it as that.

He found it ironic that he was stargazing on his ceiling because he wasn't allowed to go outside to see the real stars in the sky. Instead, his mind was creating pictures out of texturized ceiling paint. He contemplated getting glow in the dark stick-on ceiling stars for the next time he found himself with nothing better to do.

He wound up laying in the dark curled up under the covers pretty early, but instead of going to sleep he was tucked underneath the blanket scrolling through his Instagram feed on his phone. There wasn't much to see, but he did eventually wind up searching up Aubry's name and found her account. Her most recent post was from two hours before, and it was a picture of the ball return at the bowling alley with red and purple bowling balls on it. He went to like it, but he didn't. He scrolled through the rest of her photos instead, careful not to like any and reveal that he had looked back to over a year prior.

There really wasn't much other than artsy photos that looked like she googled them, looked for the best one, and posted it. She didn't, though. He recognized parts of their little town in many of them, and it was just her impressive photography skills that were shining through each of her photos. She didn't put captions on most of them.

One that caught his eye was one that showed a carving in the bark of a tree. It was cliché, something everyone had seen in movies or television shows. It was the initials A and M inside of a heart. He stared at it, taking in every minor detail. A and M.

Captionless, no explanation to what it could mean, no way to tell who's initials they were. The photo left things to wonder. It gave him an opportunity to try to figure it out himself, to decode the meaning. He gave it his own backstory. A was for Aubry, obviously. M was a mystery. He didn't know anyone who's name began with M, so he left it as that. M stood for mystery. Aubry was a mystery to him, so it fit. It made sense to him that way, and though he knew it was almost guaranteed he was incorrect, he didn't care.

He left her page after that, but not before riskily hitting the follow button. Several other social media sites were checked, and each one he found her profile and began to search through everything he could. He liked Facebook most because that's where he found pictures of her. He sneakily saved one and told himself it was to add to her contact in his phone, though it was really just because she was pretty and he liked having reasons to look at her. Then he remembered his mom would probably see it later when she did her random check of his phone and deleted it.

Just as he set his phone down for the night and was ready to force himself to get some sleep, the screen lit up and illuminated the entire room from it's place on his nightstand. The sudden source of light caused him to flutter his eyes back open and he reached for the device, flailing his arm around because it was just barely out of his reach from where he laid. His fingers brushed against it and he managed to pull it close enough to grab, glancing at the screen to see Aubry had texted him.