The Collection- Harry Styles

{baby honey} i: Don't Let Me Go

His phone rings at 2am.

Harry's made it a habit to keep the ringer on; he'd hate to miss a call. In case it's her. Eyes still closed, he fumbles across the empty stretch of bed and wraps fingers around the smart phone. Doesn't even spare a peek as he answers.

"'Lo?"

"Hey."

His eyes peel open; he exhales. A voice he's heard for years and it still manages to send shockwaves through him every time. Breathy, rasped, like she's always got a tickle in her throat. It's part of the reason she's a star. Not just in his sky, either.

"Hi." He's wide awake now. Any piece of sleep now rolls away to be forgotten until tomorrow night. "Up late."

"Speak for yourself." She sounds exhausted. Has she been awake the entire night or asleep like him?

"Woke me up." He informs her. Not like his sleep was peaceful anyways. He's not sure the last night he got a good night's rest. When he can sleep, he's plagued with tosses, turns, and unmanageable dreams that won't go away.

She apologizes in a soft tone. "You don't have to answer every time I call, you know."

He knows. Even the suggestion of it leaves his mouth dry. Makes his heart slow and then gallop. Maybe she's trying to rip the Band-Aid off once more. If he stops answering, she'll stop calling. The last thing he wants and the first thing he needs.

Which is why he replies with, "Yeah, I do." There are twenty-four hours in a day. The only ones he cares about are when she calls. The hours wedged between night and day, always between midnight and six. When the sky is beginning to burn with a shy sun, midnight blue fading way into streaks of amber and gold.

Maybe these are his best hours because they remind him of her eyes.

She stays quiet for a long time. An indicator there are words she wants to say, words that lie on the precipice of her tongue, heavily debated in her head. "Has he been there?" The words don't want to leave his mouth but there they are.

"He just left."

That's why he should stop answering her calls. Stop his own late night/early morning rings. She's got someone. They both do. His own is an arrangement, something that doesn't include any set of strings. A way to numb the loneliness, which, by the way, never works for him. It just leaves him feeling worse. And he's okay with that.

He isn't sure what her own looks like. From the outside, it looks like a nice relationship. They look good together when they're photographed. She looks happy when she smiles.

"Still good to ya?" It's the same question every time her boyfriend is brought up. Maybe he's not her boyfriend. All Harry knows is they spend a lot of time together, the media loves them, and sometimes he stays at her place. She never stays at his.

"Not like you were."

Were. One word to encompass four years of them. They had been. They aren't. They were. They're not.

The reason he can't sleep. Why he drinks more than he used to, dabbles more than before. Can't write a new song to save his life. At least, not one that isn't about her and his broken heart. You'd think after three months he'd start to feel better. But no.

All because of these damn phone calls.

When he first heard of people who got addicted to drugs, he couldn't comprehend how they knew it was bad for them and still did it. Turned to it every time, around every corner of the day. And then he met her.