New York [harry styles au]

12

12.
It was now mid-October of 1972 and things were running their course really smoothly. Nothing extraordinary had happened and I was still based in New York with Harry's group. I think it's evident that time staying there was wonderful for me; otherwise, I would have escaped to another county by now. Something about Harry was keeping me firmly situated. It wasn't like I hadn't had small relationships with other fellows along my way across America; though I emphasise the use of small. It was different with Harry. He almost seemed to suck me in, like one of those machines that you see in the movies. Any friends I made always seemed to think I had commitment issues, I always laughed and told them that I was merely adventurous.

I remember a layer of fog falling over New York one day as I opened the curtains of Harry's bedroom. He groaned, still lying in bed with his eyes firmly closed, and turned around to face the other way, pulling the duvet sheet far up to his chin.

"Oh, how the tables have turned. I'm awake earlier than you for once." I state with a small sense of pride.

"Oh, shush." He chuckled lowly before moving the duvet even further up until it was over his face and mop of curls.

I took this as my queue to leave the bedroom. Maybe I could prepare breakfast for him, since he did it so often for me. The idea made me smile as I grabbed a pan and some pancake mix from the cupboard, after spending a few minutes looking for it. I tried my hardest not to let them burn; I wasn't the best at cooking. My mother always reminded me of that whenever I offered my hand in making the Sunday dinner and had burned the vegetables among other items of food. However, the pancakes seemed to hold a strong guard against the threatening pan as they finally glistened a golden brown. I began to put the pancakes onto the plates just as the bedroom door opened and a sleepy Harry stepped out.

"Just in time."

"What's all this?" He questioned, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing nothing other than navy boxers and didn't seem to hold any intention of changing into something else either.

"I made breakfast." I said with a smile, of which he found with his eyes and returned without thought.

As we sat and ate breakfast together, a chill had found its way through the apartment until it finally ran down both of our spines. Winter was in the road ahead and it seemed so melancholic to think of Summer as a passed memory. Harry immediately moved to grab the dark blanket draped over the back of the sofa for decoration and gestured for me to move closer to him, so I did whilst clutching my plate. He then made sure that the blanket covered both of our shoulders. It immediately caused the top of our bodies to warm, but not so much our bottom halves.

It was 11am when Harry had had enough of the chilly breeze after all and decided that the only thing left to warm us was whiskey. I know what this seems like now, that we were purely lonely alcoholics and drug addicts, but you need to understand that things were different then. Though we could have definitely been lonely alcoholics and drug addicts who only found comfort with each other, I can assure you that almost everyone I had known were also lonely alcoholics and drug addicts or had been at that point in the past. Thinking back to the '70s, it surprises me just how much we had gotten up to without even thinking of the consequences or any bad aftermaths. Although this may seem like I would ever want to change anything about 1972, that simply isn't the case. I make an effort to relive the experience every night when I go to sleep, but it never works; that is the reason why I am writing this as a memoir of some kind. It's my only way to return to the depths of my memories that are now so so unattainable.