KNOCKOUT (Harry Styles: Dark Sequel)

Chapter 9

I wake to comfortable warmth, one that has me wanting to lounge in bed all day and procrastinate any worries. With a contented sigh my legs extend, unfurling my sleep heavy limbs before curling up on my side. My fingers catch the top of the duvet before the room comes to me in blinkered vision. I sit up quicker than I should and now I'm fighting an inevitable head rush. It's not my room and it's certainly not my bed. Truths from the night before rekindle in my mind and flush my cheeks a heated pink. My legs are bare against the sheets.

It's a good job Harry isn't in bed because the way I furiously pat his side of the tumbled mattress would have given anyone a start. It's empty, apart from me. From the coveted security of my cocoon, I can see the bathroom is vacant and the bedroom door is shut. Alone then. I lean back on my elbows, huffing the stray pieces of hair from my face.

It's breaking all common sense to abandon the mountain of sheets, and I do so with a shiver and disgruntled moan. My toes curl against the chilled floor before I stand, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and padding across the room. There are pictures decorating the top of his chest of drawers, his sister, his mum, distant friends. It's good he's held on to these little memories, I'm pleased. If anything, it shows he's not completely lost to the new world he's found himself part of.

I smile. What I've not quite found myself familiar with yet, is the abundance of hair Harry's now sporting. And testament to that is the amount of abandoned hair ties littered around his room. I grab a black one from the side, collecting my hair into a pony tail as I meander around the lived in space.

The curtains remain drawn but do a poor job of keeping morning at bay. I open them, the material heavy with remnants of stale smoke. I've not asked him about it yet, but from what I've seen of Harry I'm pretty sure he's not chain smoking his way through the day. Regardless, he should break the habit.

The room reflects the rest of the disorderly flat, an unorganised whirlwind of clutter. The items of clothing that tangle my feet on the floor are collected up and thrown into the washing basket just inside the bathroom door.

When growing up, I was taught to respect peoples' belongings and that it's impolite to rummage through possessions that are not your own. But I've always been like a magpie to something pretty and shiny.

A chain dangles from the open drawer by the bed, as if neglected in hasten to hide it. My head gives a curious tilt as I make to draw it out of the darkened confines. When its entirety is revealed to me I almost drop it again, as though suddenly it scorches with an onslaught of lost memories. They surface in my mind like bubbles of air in water, a flurry of evocative flashes, all containing Harry. All the occasions we spent together between him gifting and securing it around my neck, to me wearing it for the very last time.

A little paper plane on a silver chain. He kept it.

My heart thumps a little harder against my ribs, swallowing the lump in my throat.He kept it. I sit back onto his bed as if my legs have been knocked out from beneath me. The pendant swings, letting the paper plane sail in a haphazard circle before landing in my palm. And it's like finding something lost. A small comforting weight that my skin used to warm when it was mine; now it's cold.

My intrigue in the discovery is sharply cut short by what I can imagine is a closing door and movement in the living area. I drop the necklace and it clatters into the drawer before I shunt it closed.

"Harry?"

My plea is left unanswered and hanging in the silence that follows. I rise from the bed. The slim possibility that it isn't Harry the other side of the door stops me from daring to call out a second time. The fact that he's had trouble before now isn't much of a reassurance, in fact, it has me jumping to the horrendous conclusion that some homicidal maniac has broken in.