Rebel Rebel |harry styles| - ongoing

TWENTY-EIGHT

Bob Dylan: Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

Harry

The rest of our small party had joined us, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't anxious to share the news with them. But at the same time, I knew Ess will kill me if I just blurt it out.

"Tell me, my mate Harry, how did you survive that lockdown?", Ramona and I haven't talked much over the past months, mainly because I knew she'd start asking questions and I didn't want to have to lie to her.

"It was okay, I guess, as far as lockdowns go. We saw films, cooked dinners, filmed some videos...", her mind went to a dirty place and she wiggled her eyebrows.

"Ramona, not those types of videos. Music videos. For my new record, which I haven't heard anything about from you, by the way.", quickly changing the topic was my only tactic and I was really hoping it would work.

"It's a very good one, but you already knew that... you wouldn't have released it if you didn't think it was good.", the woman had a point, if a song wasn't as perfect as I could make it sound then it didn't go on the record.

"Touché. Come on, I'm sure Essie has stuff she'd like to talk to you about, you haven't seen each other in ages.", Ramona was still suspicious, but I couldn't blame her with the way I spilled all my feelings to her a while back. If you get someone invested in a story – you must feed the beast.

Essie stood by the door to the yard, with my sister... they were just chatting about something or another, but the more I looked at her the more I struggled to recall what life was before she walked into my life. I couldn't remember how it felt to have just met her, or how my little ploy to run into her at the pub even came to life. It was scary, realising that this was it for you. My mum told me countless times before that there are situations in which you don't think somebody is wrong for you, but you don't think they're right for you either, yet... that is. She also told me that there is one time, just one, when you know. And I knew.

"Where has your head gone?", Gemma noticed me standing in the middle of the sitting room, staring at them.

"Don't worry about it.", I walked over to them, "Have you told enough embarrassing little-Harry stories?".

"It doesn't have to be a story from when we were little for it to be embarrassing for you, Harry. Remember that whenever you tease me next.", she put on a serious face, but both Essie and I knew she was pulling my leg. And, frankly, whatever story Essie wanted to know – I could tell her myself.

I took advantage of a moment in which everybody was busy with something and called Ess into the kitchen. She had a premonition of what I'd say next, judging by her expression.

"When and how are we going to tell them?"

"Honestly, I've been thinking about it and I know Ramona well enough to know she's fully up to speed in that head of hers. I think we can say that we've got something to share and she'll blurt it out for us. If you don't mind it being like that, that is.", Essie was spot on. It felt like Ramona was just waiting for a moment to trap us in an uncomfortable situation, as if she were catching us in a lie.

"Okay, fair enough. Let's go."

"Let's do the damn thing.", she took my hand and led me into the yard, where everyone was. Bono was playing fetch with Michal, and it was a good sign because Bono didn't play fetch very often. Ramona and Pierce were teasing Becks over some embarrassing Zoom situation that happened in one of her classes and Gemma's laughter could be heard in the background. I missed them all tremendously during lockdown, I hadn't even realised how much.