CHRYSALIS

12.

My yelling woke Nicki. She was not pleased about that, but she became worried quickly when she noticed the color had drained from my face.

She asked me two million questions with her eyes but I didn't have any answers for her. My hands were shaking as I opened and closed my hand at her in a frantic state, asking for her phone.

Frankie was still in my ear, telling me how his Twitter feed was full of photos of Harry and me out yesterday. Photos of us laughing, photos of us eating, photos of his arm around me on the way back to the car after yoga, and each photo was accompanied by a caption wondering who Harry's new girlfriendwas.

Frankie was also so kind as to point out that everyone noticed I was wearing his clothes.

I think I'm gonna hurl. Harry is never going to want to see me again and certainly never in public. Our friendship was brief but so good.
RIP to that dream.

"Oh shit, Jo. What the fuck have you been doing the last two days!?" Nicki asks as I watch her scroll through photos on twitter.

I scramble off the floor, tossing my phone and Frankie's voice into a blanket while I make a b-line for the bathroom. My knees hit the flooring roughly, shooting pain through my back, but it doesn't phase me as I empty the mix of alcohol and anxiety into the toilet.

I can feel my body starting to get clammy, like the stress of this situation is manifesting into physical illness. I take a few minutes to breathe once I'm done and wipe my face down with cool water. When I come out of the bathroom Nicki hands me a glass of water and a piece of toast, bless her. We make our way over to the kitchen stools and sit for approximately 4 seconds before my phone rings again.

This time it's Harry. I feel the bile rise in my throat again as I stare at his initials on the screen. "You have to answer," Nicki says before squeezing my arm and retreating to her bedroom.

I take another drink of water and swipe the phone screen to open the call. I put it to my ear but I can't make words come out of my mouth. "Jo?" Harry asks but he doesn't sound angry. He sounds more worried than anything.

Of course, I'm making this up because he literally just said one word so how the hell am I supposed to know how his mood is!?

"Hey." I manage to squeak out, clutching my water glass too tightly.

"There's a bit of a situation." He says slowly.

"Yea I received a very loud phone call about it a few minutes ago," I answer while I sip at my water, trying not to hurl again.

"I'm so sorry, Jo. I shouldn't have been so careless, I should have known this would happen."

HUH!?

"What? Why are you apologizing? You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything I'm the one who's sorry! It never really crossed my mind that pictures would be taken of us and definitely not they would jump to that assumption but I guess I'm not surprised I mean you are a literal rockstar and hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are obsessed with you so of course they're gonna take pictures when they see you with some random ass lad- "

"Jo," he interrupts my anxious ramblings, "are you okay? I know how overwhelming it can be to see yourself and your personal moments plastered around the internet like that. "

I huff out a breath before answering, "I think I'm okay. It is weird, definitely weird to see them though. I mean I didn't notice any of them being taken, we were just having fun, I was just hanging out with my friend and now they're all over the internet and everyone assumes we're dating. Oh god, we're not dating, right? That would be just my fucking luck to not know. They would HATE ME."