Harry Christmas to You!

December 6

This morning you arrive at work in your usual dungarees, with tendrils of your hair framing your face with most of your hair in a long, simple ponytail. You've put back on the cute ankle boots your sister bought you, telling yourself that they are more comfortable than your rubber boots, and you almost convince yourself that this is the reason you are wearing them. But then you put on some lip gloss and look at yourself in the mirror. That is when you know you are lying to yourself, and you rub off the lip gloss frantically before leaving the house.

You are barely in the door of the school when Samantha stalks towards you, wearing a low cut blouse that barely hides her nipples, the top button conveniently unbuttoned. You look pointedly at her cleavage, but she ignores you. You've never really been friends, but you've had a congenial working relationship up to now. Moving close to you, invading your personal space, Samantha glares at you and hisses, "He's mine. You might think that you're the one who has dibs on him, but you don't. I'm the sexiest one here, and he's going to ask me out. I can tell." With that final comment, she turns on her heels and stomps back to her group of friends. You sigh. You and your colleagues have never really been friends per se, but you've not been at each other's throats before either.

Attempting to shrug off Samantha's comments, you head for the staff room to put away your coat and add your frozen meal to the freezer so it's ready for your lunch time. There's a group of teaching assistants sitting at the table with a magazine in front of them. They're pointing at the pictures and talking excitedly. "Here he is on their last tour. So hot!" One of the assistants squeals.

You're not sure what they are talking about, and you really don't have time to find out, so you put your items away and head to your classroom to see your students. They are excited to see you as always, and Catherine in particular, one of your students with Down's Syndrome, wants time to cuddle with you. You pull her close to you as you read a book to all of the students in your classroom, adding the voices of the characters to make your students giggle. Sometimes you pretend to forget a voice so that they will tell you what the voice sounds like. You laugh to hear your phony voices coming out of their mouths as they attempt to recreate the accents you make.

Harry and Anne have come back to Ash Grove today to determine whether the auction can be held in the gymnasium. They've brought a party planner with them, a professional, and she is babbling on as the three of them walk down the hallway. Samantha hears them approach and steps out of her classroom two doors down from your classroom. She makes sure to smile really big and adjust the collar of her shirt so that her cleavage is shown to its best advantage. Harry nods at her, but he doesn't smile. He knows he made a mistake yesterday when he encouraged her by signing an autograph for her. If given the chance, he's confident that she would ask him to sign her boob, and that's where he draws the line these days. Sure, it was exciting the first time he got asked to sign a boob, but after all of these years, signing boobs was on the list of "never agains".

As the three pass your room, Harry hears your laughter, and he holds back a beat, as his mother and the party planner keep walking. He's never heard such lovely childlike and contagious laughter before, and he wants to know from where it comes. It's likely a student, and he wants to get a glimpse of what makes the child laugh so freely.

When he arrives at your classroom door, you are part of a circle of children, and everyone is laughing. Your laughter rises above theirs, though, and you are clutching your stomach as tears roll down your cheeks. It is obvious to Harry that you are enjoying your work so much more than Samantha does, and he is intrigued. Is this the same woman with the axe? The same woman who gave the other teachers that look yesterday? The same woman who was listening so intently to a child yesterday? Who is she? He can't pin you down, as every time he sees you, you appear to be so different.

He hears a throat clearing and turns around to where the party planner and his mum are waiting. Anne has a smile on her face, as she has noticed which room he was standing by. Harry rejoins the trio, and the three continue their journey to the gymnasium with you none the wiser.

When you get your lunch break, you head to the staff room where you heat up your microwaved lunch. While the microwave is sending waves into your food so it becomes edible, you join some of your colleagues at the table where you listen in to the conversation already in play.

"He's so handsome," one colleague says.

"I saw One Direction on tour when they were here last year," says another, "And he was the most dynamic of all of them on stage."

"Did you see that interview he did?" says another, "The one where he cursed? It's on the internet. I've watched it on replay multiple times."

It takes you a few minutes of listening in to realize that they are talking about Harry. The picture becomes more clear when you hear one of the teaching assistants say, "Harry Styles is the dream. He is so perfect!"

You absentmindedly get your food from the microwave and return to your seat, your back to the door. His name is churning in your brain. Harry Styles. It sounds familiar, but you don't know where you've heard it before.

Cautiously, you ask, "What is he most known for?"

Another teaching assistant chimes in, "Well, mostly he's known for being a member of One Direction, the most popular boy band on the planet."

The first one responds with a smirky look, "But he's also known for being sexy as hell." The rest of the table giggles, even the older women.

You take this in for a moment. Before this conversation, you had no idea he was anyone really important. I mean, Anne had told you he was a celebrity, but what that meant was abstract to you. Hearing these women talk about him in this way made you anxious and nervous.

"Isn't he amazing?" someone asks, and you look up from your thoughts and your food to see everyone at the table looking at you.

"He's okay," you snap, "I'm not sure he's anything special." You dig into your lunch, "I mean, he's only helping us because his mum is making him." You don't know what has made you so petulant. Usually you're very gracious about other people's efforts to help out the school.

The room is suddenly completely silent. You glance back up from your lunch to see that your tablemates all have their mouths open, gazing at the doorway behind you. A sense of dread lies like a dead weight in your stomach. You know what you're going to see before you even turn around. And when you do turn around, there he is, framed in the doorway of the staff room. Harry Styles.

The look on his face is one of guilt and incredulity and....hurt? Could he have been hurt by your words? Without a word, he turns and walks away from the staff room. Your colleagues glare at you until you no longer feel hungry. You throw away more than half of your meal and head back to your classroom.

That afternoon, you are slightly off. The students know it, and they are irritable too. You wish you could blame the grumpiness on your period, but it had ended yesterday, so this touchiness had a different source. You keep telling yourself that you didn't say anything wrong. Everything you said about Harry was true, so you gather your self-righteousness around you like a cloak. It wasn't your fault that he was only doing this because his mum told him he had to do it. That night, you sleep restlessly, tossing and turning as the look on Harry's face churns in your brain.