Your Creation • Zarry

59. Cherry

July 2017

As Pat Benetar once said, "love is a battlefield" and it felt like I was constantly at war. Even though Zayn told me that he never stopped loving me, it didn't fix everything. It did provide me with a sense of comfort that he was back in my life, that he still knew my heart, and it made me happy, but being with him had diminished into such a small fraction of my life that with every passing day I was becoming jealous again, which lead me to feel increasingly lonely, and by the end of May I had started casually dating someone else.

Her name was Tess Ward and she was cute, older than me, a food blogger with blonde hair, blue eyes and someone that was not interested in fame. I had hung out with her once before in London after we were introduced by a mutual friend and I thought that it would be good for me to find someone to date since it had been quite some time. So we gave it a shot, but by the end of June my life had come crashing down on me.

Tess broke up with me after just a month because she realized she still had feelings for her ex, not to mention the fact that she was struggling with all of the hate she was getting from One Direction fans, which was usually the sad case for anyone that I dated or was ever seen with. Nothing was ever easy for me. I wasn't exactly heartbroken that she dumped me because it wasn't that serious, plus I was dealing with something far more painful, and that was the passing of my stepfather, Robin, who had been battling cancer.

Despite the great things happening in my career, my personal life was always a different story. I was starting to feel like I was out to sea on some ship in the middle of the ocean, just trying to navigate the waves through a storm but I couldn't see and I was getting absolutely nowhere.

I got a call from Zayn on the night of my stepfather's funeral and he apologized and offered me his love and sympathy, which made me feel better. I still hadn't seen him since the beginning of May but he had made himself available as much as he possibly could and we spoke quite often on the phone and through texting, and it made me happy to know that he was still there for me. Zayn also made it a point not to ask me about Tess and I made it a point not to ask him about Gigi and that's the only way that we had ever learned how to operate our relationship, by keeping everything separate.

It became quite obvious that even though Zayn still loved me, he also loved Gigi and sharing his love with another person was nothing new in my world, but what I hadn't had yet was the luxury of experiencing that same situation for myself. I also yearned for a real relationship and I knew that I deserved it. No matter how much I wanted that person to be Zayn, it still wasn't possible at that point.

I met Camille Rowe one night in early July after being set up by my friend Alexa Chung. I sat at the back of this dimly-lit little blues club in London waiting for her to arrive, already on my second gin and tonic and for some reason I was feeling nervous.

She was five foot seven with sun kissed skin, long dirty blonde hair and this cute button like nose and I saw her walk in wearing these red flared trousers, a white crop top, cherry earrings paired with a smile that could have lit up the room - and she already had a drink in her hand.

"Bonjour, you must be Harry," she said as she slid into the seat in front of me at the table and took a sip of what looked like vodka and cranberry.

"That would be me," I replied.

"I adore your shirt," Camille said, pointing to my white Fleetwood Mac t-shirt.

"Yeah? What's your favorite album?" I asked.

"Rumors is the only correct answer."

I smiled, and she was right.

"Have you ever been in love?" she then asked, which took me by surprise considering that's not really the kind of question you ask someone on a first date.

"I have," I answered honestly.

"Did he break your heart?"

Who was this girl and why was she so direct with me? How did she even know? I had never met anyone like her before and I found her to be both unusual and intriguing at the same time.

"How did you know that it was a man?"

She smiled and took a long sip of her cranberry vodka.

"A lucky guess."

I peered at her, wondering what her deal was and I was interested in finding out.

"How do you feel bout sexuality?" I asked, deciding to stay on topic since we had already crossed that line within the first five minutes.

"I think it's fun," she answered immediately.

"So you've been with a woman?"

"Plenty of times."

"Have you ever been with a guy who was also into other guys?"

"No, but we haven't had sex yet."

I decided that I liked her straight away. We spent the night talking quite a lot and she was probably the first model I had ever met that was also really interesting. She was quite quirky, Parisian, she spoke multiple languages, was well read, loved art, music, and just so happened to be incredibly open minded. The conversation was effortless and we covered a number of topics through the course of the night. I never felt judged by her once and she also never once asked me about One Direction, my career or fame.

When I took her back to my house in London around two am the first thing she did was seek out my record player and found Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album in my collection and without even asking she put on "Landslide."

At first I didn't know why, but I started to feel emotional. I watched as Camille acted so comfortably in my space that she started singing and dancing around like a gypsy right in the middle of my living room as if no one was watching.

I took my love, took it down. I climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills till the landslide brought me down.

She reached her arms out and motioned for me to join her, so I did. I grabbed hold of her waist and together we started slow dancing.

Oh mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides, can I handle the seasons of my life?

She smiled at me warmly, her arms draped around the back of my neck and as I looked into her eyes I became incredibly overwhelmed with too many emotions, but Camille just kept singing, being completely herself.

Well I've been afraid of changing cause I've built my life around you. But time makes you bolder even children get older and I'm getting older too.

I hate admitting this but I started tearing up just then. I quickly looked down at the floor, feeling extremely embarrassed because it had nothing to do with her and had everything to do with me. She stopped moving for a moment and lifted up my chin so that she could look at me and Camille crinkled her brows, looking a little concerned.

"You still love him, don't you?" she asked as the guitar solo drifted off in the background.

I pressed my lips together and nodded slowly, hoping that I hadn't just ruined everything because I was actually starting to like her.

She smiled softly.

"It's hard to un-love someone, I know this very well. You have a big heart, I can tell and that's a beautiful thing. I admire your vulnerability, it makes you human."

I don't know what came over me but in that moment I just really wanted to kiss her, so I did. When I leaned in and felt her soft lips touch mine it was the first time that I felt anything even remotely close to what I felt with Zayn. It wasn't quite the same, but it still felt really nice. I felt good, and I really needed it.

She pulled away from me slowly and smiled softly again.

"I like you Harry," she said. "And if you have some room in your heart for one more, I'd like to get to know you better."

"I think I can squeeze you in."