Rebel Rebel |harry styles| - ongoing

SIXTEEN

Harry Styles: Watermelon Sugar

Harry

Essie waited for me at the front steps of her house, with an enormous suitcase next to her. She looked distracted, as if her heart weren't in it, and I hoped that would change by touchdown in Los Angeles.

"Hey stranger, are you ready?", she jumped into the car, barely letting me finish my sentence and I put her luggage in the boot.

"What's up?", it was strange that she still hadn't looked at me, "I'm only tired, can we go please?".

"If you are still upset over what happened two weeks ago, I'm willing to apologise and make it right- ", she interrupted me, "No, Harry, you were right and I was wrong. Can we go now?".

Without saying another word, I drove us to Heathrow, and we boarded the plane in complete silence. At least we'd have 11 hours for me to try and figure out whatever was going on in her head.

"Hey H? Would you mind coming over for a second?", Jeff called out from his seat.

"Yeah mate, what's up?", he motioned for me to come closer, "What is wrong with her?". I burst out laughing. How the hell could I know that?!

"The answer to that question requires the basic understanding of a female brain, which I do not have so I couldn't tell you. But we can sit here and be clueless together.", he snorted, and I went back to my seat next to Essie. Her headphones were already in, Stevie Nicks' voice clearly filling the air around us. It must be something serious if she pulled out the big guns.

The entire flight I felt our balance being off... Essie would look at me, as if she were getting ready to say something, and then she'd back out at the last minute. I was no better, constantly stuttering and tripping over my words, in the search for an interlude to this conversation we needed to have. Craziest thing was, I didn't even know what we needed to talk about. I just knew that, at the end of the day, this was essentially a work trip and I couldn't have either of us off balance.

"Listen, we can't be like this the entire week.", I followed her into her hotel room, "Like what?".

"Essie let's not play dumb here. I won't press you to tell me whatever it is that's bothering you, but just tell me this – is it connected to our fight or is it a completely unrelated thing?", then she directed me this look... one her eyes had never before produced for me. It was hurt, guilt, a bit of shame and a whole lot of confusion.

"It's both. I promise I'll be as professional as they get, and the video will turn out incredible. I can't talk about this now, it's all very much up in the air and there would be no point. I will tell you, though, when there's something to tell.", there was rawness and honesty in her answer, so I decided to drop it and put my faith in her one more time. There wasn't a doubt in my mind she'd direct and shoot the video flawlessly, I just hated when I couldn't read her.

Essie

My fight with Matt still haunted me because it was the last thing I could have seen coming. He never presented himself as the jealous type, so I just assumed he didn't mind me and Harry being as close as we are. I cannot condone his behaviour, the only thing I can try to do is understand. Understanding doesn't come easy in these situations, especially when the only reason for him to be jealous would be if he didn't trust me, and I never once gave him reason not to. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. It was completely unfair of him to attack me like that, and incredibly sexist at that. He never had an issue with me being close to Becks and Ramona because they're women. But when I'm close to a man, who's as much a friend as they are, it suddenly becomes a problem. Granted, I did sleep with Harry, more than once... but Matt didn't know that.