the quarantine diaries | Narry Storan AU

day 40

"Hi, Theo.

So, today is a landmark day for all of us. It's the 40th day of our quarantine, our self-isolation, our lockdown. Call it what you want to. This was supposed to mean that, at the end of 40 days — hence the name quarantine! —, we should all be free to leave our houses and live life in the outside.

But, as I said, it was only supposed to mean that.

In reality, things were never worse. Life was never worse — at least for me. The quarantine is still not over, the COVID-19 disease is still a thing around the world because some ignorant people refuse to stay at home in times like these, the authorities still have no answer to when we can all stop locking ourselves in our bedrooms and Harry is still not here with me.

OK. The last topic seems fucking small compared to the other points I made. I know I'm being selfish. I know I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch when I put my ex-boyfriend at the same level as a worldwide pandemic. But, different from Harry's song To Be So Lonely, I admit when I'm sorry.

Even if I take a long time to realize how wrong I was.

We're not talking as much as I thought we would these days. Of course, I should've expected that, because we had a beautiful past, but the beautiful past is not the moment we're living now. Doctors are trying to find a cure — or a vaccine, or something like that — for the coronavirus disease, musical tours are canceled for a while (including mine and Harry's too), movie theaters are closed and many albums are being postponed to some day when all this shit is over. And, of course, I should've expected the lack of conversation, not only because of the world's moment, but because he's still hurt by the things I said, and I'm still hurt by my own anger, the one that I had when I called things off with him, the one that took control of my thoughts back then.

But I swear to you, Theo, I'm trying to make things better. Today I called him via FaceTime, and when he said "hello", I picked up my guitar and I started playing Drink You Away — one of his favorite Justin Timberlake songs. There was some sort of smile in his lips when I sang the first lines ("bitter sweet thing... could this be a dream or just the same nightmare that keeps me awake?"), and when I came to the chorus, he started singing with me in a lower tone.

And I swear to you, Harry Styles's low voice gives me chills, mate.

We both basically screamed the post-chorus at the same time ("now tell me, baby, don't they make a medicine for heart break?") — even if those lyrics are, in fact, kinda sad and relatable to the moment we're living in our relationship. But that's how we work: we laugh in the weirdest situations, we remain silent when we shouldn't, and we step away when we should stay closer than never before. And you may think it's strange. But we are strange, somehow.

Once the song was over, we were still smirking to each other and taking quick seconds to blurt out some laughs over what we had just done.

"I miss singing with you", he said.

"I miss singing with you too, Harold", I said back.

Now I'm here, writing this letter, hoping that Harry thinks of me when he goes to sleep tonight. Because that's what I'm gonna do, probably. Unless bigger things happen or something like that.

Love, Niall."