Harry Styles One Shots

Stumbling by @hesinstripes

I think that maybe hesinstripes was probably the first or one of the first people I PMed here on Wattpad (Kind of stalked her Twitter too back in the day shhhh 🙈). She is a wonderful soul and a very giving and generous person. She doesn't just like, she adores. She doesn't do things half way. She is passionate and articulate and she is my hippie sister, my sweet baklava. The things I have learnt from her! Her story Green (with more than 200 K reads whoo -hoo) as well as her one shots are amazing so go read them and will certainly love them. This one shot right here is probably one of her best pieces.Sun tan lotion, bikini and flip flops in your suitcase today. California here we come!

I spent most of my life without a home, as in a concrete foundation where I spent the majority of my time. Having left the brick and mortar of my mother's house at 16, home developed a new meaning. It became wherever I found comfort and escape from the outside world. Sometimes I found it in a tour bus. Sometimes it was in the corner booth of diner where the only familiar thing was the laughter of friends and a stale cup of coffee. Sometimes it was the warmth of a women, and I'll admit it, sometimes it was in a drink– or a bottle. I hated that I had become just as cliché as the "You Booze You Lose" tattoo inside my elbow. The teen pop sensation that became a drunk once sales and fans faded. Drinking to let go of who I had become and feel alive. To chase that high I had always gotten from being on stage.

When One Direction took a hiatus, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to recharge and rebrand. We would come back revitalized with a more mature sound to a more mature audience. Well, that was the plan. Instead we came back to find a fanbase that had moved on, critics that couldn't get past our boyband roots, and no direction as a band at all. No pun intended, I assure you. Our comeback album fell flat and the label had found a new cash cow, so we were dropped.
That's not when the drinking started though, that happened later. When I couldn't pinpoint. I can only remember the moment I realized things had fallen apart. Alone in an empty bed with the fitted sheet that had abandoned the mattress corner on her side. Abandoned. To some it may look like Corinne abandoned me when I needed her most. The truth is, as I recounted memories as cloudy as the ice in my whiskey and pieced together moments between drunken blackouts like the shattered picture frame on my nightstand from a stumble into bed, I saw I had abandoned Corinne years ago. She had only just now realized she deserved better than me. Better than the me I had become.
It's a strange thing when you fall in love. When it finally happens you realize everything you felt before wasn't love at all, but just something to help your heart grow and get stronger. To prepare that beating muscle in your chest to handle what love is about to put it through. In all my years as a songwriter and lover of poetry, I have yet to find words that accurately describe love. Words alone aren't enough. Love is seeing the same things in a new way, a new appreciation for life. Seeing them how your lover sees them. I think the closest I ever came to putting it into words was:
The summertime, the butterflies, all belong to your creation.
Funny how you can take new meaning to old words. Likening love to a season seems so fitting now. Changing so slowly over time, almost unnoticed. Then one day you wake up in the cold of winter wondering how you've gotten so far away from the fragrant bloom of spring that held so many promises. And Corinne was such a fragrant flower. The moment I breathed her in I was hooked. Her jasmine and lavender filling my lungs, my chest, my being, until I didn't know how to breath without her.
And that's just how it all went wrong. She became my oxygen, which we take for granted. No one thinks about breathing, we just do it. We trust that our body will continue a steady pace of inhales and exhales until one day we find we've taken in our final breath. Then it's too late. There is nothing more final than death. Any and all promises made are null and void in death. Though I had broken my promises to Corinne long before our love died.
She held onto the good times and the happy years we had behind us. She always saw the good in people, that was something I loved about her. She said she always loved my charm. Ironic how it was both those things that kept her in an abusive situation. I'd never lay a hand on her, and she knew that. Sometimes I think that made it worse. There was no defining moment where she knew she had to walk away. Instead I slowly chipped away at the strength and independence that made me fall for her in the first place.
From what I can remember of the past two years, things would always go something like this: She'd express concern for my health, whether it was the drinking, the depression, or just generally letting myself go. I would get defensive and lash out at her to avoid having a conversation that needed to be had. I'd call her names and tear her down. She claims I threw a Teen Choice Award at the wall once, but with 25 still on the shelf it didn't seem like one was missing the next morning. She was probably right. Looking back she was almost always right. I'd sober up a little or awake to see her crying and my charm would win her over. I'd make her laugh with a joke or a tickle and she'd see my smile start to creep in. She never could resist my smile. My dimple gave her hope that I was changed and happy again. I could see that hope in her eyes, and I would use it selfishly to keep her for myself longer.
But it was just hope, not the truth, which I guess makes it hopeless. Corinne's existence became just that– hopeless. She couldn't take anymore verbal attacks, so she went into survival mode. Her light had faded and she was just getting through each day as unscathed as she could. I think she was only there out of concern for me. She knew no one else would put up with me anymore and the thought of what would become of me if she left was too much for her. She knew I'd be lost without her. Looking back, she was completely lost because of me. Destroying her is my biggest regret. Far greater than the destruction I did to myself.
So that led to today, a Tuesday in the middle of spring where things started much like they always had. She rolled out of bed, though she slept so close to the edge of the mattress now that she didn't have to roll much. Her newly awakened limbs stretched and shakily carried her to the bathroom and I watched her shut the door. I drifted back to sleep knowing she'd be getting ready for the day and I'd have at least another 45 minutes uninterrupted. But today I was wrong.
My world shook as Corinne dropped an already full duffle bag onto the bed, stirring the crisp white sheet from the corner where she lay her head. I sat up and pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to lessen the hangover blaring between my ears. I didn't have to ask where she was going, I knew, but I still protested.
"Baby I love you. Please let me make this right," I uttered the same words I had surely uttered before.
"Harry, saying you love me isn't enough, not this time," Corinne said with the delivery of a mouse. I hated that I had done that to her. I had left her voiceless. Diminished her to a squeak.
"Let me show you it's enough. You're all I need. Baby we could be enough."
"Could we?," her voice was louder and almost angry now. Her fire rising to the surface as she finally fanned the embers of self-worth that I had nearly extinguished. "I've been living in this house with you, but I've never been more alone. You say you love me, but you've done nothing but show me the opposite. I've begged you to change, I've offered to help you, but I can't anymore. I have to choose myself this time. I know that I'm enough."
She was more than enough, but I had let that slip away. I had no argument. Anything I would say or do at this point would be pointless. The light that had been missing from her eyes for months was back. I looked at my own reflection in her crystal blue eyes and knew that the light behind them wasn't from me. It was from the decision to leave me.
I had made her my home, but neglected to maintain her. Now the walls were crumbling and I'd be left in the rubble, no– just the dust. There wouldn't be any pieces of her that remained for me. Just the memory of a once sturdy foundation that gave way to complacency, denial, delusion, and selfishness. I expected her to be my everything while giving her nothing. She was my comfort, and I ignored her discomfort. She was my escape and it left her feeling trapped and burdened with the responsibility of my well-being.
The sun has just begun to set. I haven't left this spot, except to be sick a time or two. I don't know if that's from the twisting feeling in my gut, the alcohol, or the lack of alcohol. This is the longest I've gone without a drink all week. I've sat here long enough to indent the mattress while I replayed the past few years, finally seeing it in a new way, the way she saw it. The way she lived it. I'm not prepared for what it feels like to lose love. It's even harder a feeling to explain than love itself. It's regret, sorrow, and guilt all pulling you into the deepest pit of loneliness. My chest hurts and my heart aches, but I wouldn't dare ask for the pain to go away. It's the last reminder I have that I loved her. Still love her. That she loved me.
I wonder how much longer I can relish in this feeling that she was there. That she was a part of me. That she coursed through my veins and gave me life; a life I was so careless with. A love I was so careless with. No matter how hard I am going to try to appreciate my own in life in the way she had, I know it won't make her come back. Our love has expired in the most morbid sense of the word. Now that she's gone it's not an empty house or home that I fear.
It's an empty heart.