kalopsia [harry styles]

34

a.n I listened to Turning Page while writing this song. Really recommend :)

HARRY STYLES 

Guilt was a strange thing. 

I'd never really had a problem with it. Not until now. 

It started small, the way a house fire does. It lights up the rug first; the soft plushy rug that almost dissolves in your fingetips. The smoke flowing out of the small fire is the only indicator that something is wrong. You smell it–you feel it... but it's ignorable. 

It's dealable–if put out in time. If not... well the fire spreads to the couch. It catches into the curtains, licking up into the roof. The smoke thickens, darkening. It fills your lungs, climbing down your throat, suffocating you. The wood of the house catches on fire, and before you're able to put it out it has spread all over and up the second floor. There's no stopping it now. 

It's too late. 

You should have stopped it when the rug caught on fire. You should have stomped on the small fire. You should have poured water all over it. You didn't. And now you gotta watch as the entire house burns down–with everything you love in it. 

Guilt becomes so unbearable you can't sleep. You can't eat, you can't breathe. Everywhere you look it's there– a big dark shadow looming over you, waiting to catch up to whatever it is that you did. 

I'd never felt guilt before. I wasn't that type of guy. I didn't care whether I broke a woman's heart, or if I beat up the papparazzi. I lived life how I wanted, no regrets.

I'd waited too long, and now everything was on fire.  

I look down at her. Her eyes were closed, her hair spread out around her face, glimmering under the faint moon light coming from her window. I could hear the soft, steady breaths coming from her. She was asleep. She'd fallen asleep almost immediately. Today had taken a big toll on her, it was her first Christmas without her sister and her family. 

I was grateful that she didn't have to do it alone. At least she had me. 

There it was. Guilt. It burned at the bottom of my stomach, flaring each time I thought about Fallon finding out. About what would happen then. 

I had to tell her. 

I needed to. 

It wasn't fair. I'd been clear the other night at my apartment, I would end up hurting her. It would end up wrong. Still, she'd kissed me then, and she'd kissed me just a couple of hours ago right there in the middle of the living room as it snowed. 

She'd looked so happy in that moment–so at peace. I'd pushed back all the thoughts about everything that was going on, willing to keep the moment happy and pure, just like her. 

She amazed me in ways no one ever had. No girl had ever looked at me this way... and I had never looked at a girl this way either. Each time she laughed or smiled or scrunched up her nose my heart found itself skipping a beat. 

I didn't have the guts. 

I was a coward. A selfish coward. I wanted her so bad it hurt. The thought of her being with someone– kissing someone, sharing the things she'd said to me with some other man beside me made me see red. 

She was mine, she just didn't know it yet. 

But was her suffering for my own selfishness worth it? The longer I kept it from her the more she'd end up hurting. I didn't want her to. Not after her sister and her family.