Before you go... //h.s

His album

^^pls read the authors note at the end, it's important !!
Mental health warning

Being back at work was good, being busy and not having time alone with my thoughts was exactly what I needed and seeing Ash again was so entertaining; I'd missed his sarcastic humour and smiling presence. He had a lot to tell me, he and his boyfriend were getting married after four years in a committed relationship and I couldn't be more excited for him, not even a small part of me feeling jealous now that I was back together with Harry.

Making hundreds of coffees a day was strangely comforting yet the action of carefully listening to everyone's different orders, something that I had done every day for years, suddenly seemed odd after a month and a half away from work. Like I've said so many times, Ash is the best boss, I was well aware I was fortunate to be so close with him and that not many bosses would let you just take a month and a half off work.

But now I was back in our apartment, Maya in her room asleep after a busy day of shopping. I stared out the window, watching faint gusts of smoke drift past my window into the dark night. After so long in my small town where the stars were always clear, the absence of them was noticeable and I was missing them.

They were still there of course, but I felt like I couldn't see them. And if I couldn't see them, it was harder to talk to them because it almost felt like they weren't there. The lack of them was really making me feel as though I couldn't connect with my Mum.

But as I gazed out over the buildings of New York all I could think about was Fine Line. Harry's album that he'd said was nearly all about me, but I'd still avoided listening to. At first it was because I missed him too much, and then it felt awkward because it had been so long since it had come out and now, I hadn't listened to it because I was afraid of hearing the hurt I'd caused him.

Every time I'd heard any of the songs come up on the radio, I'd deliberately muted it for a few minutes in fear of hearing how much I'd hurt him. And I didn't even want to hear the songs I'd already heard whilst they were in production because I'd been too nervous of reminding myself of how happy I'd been with him. And how dumb I'd been by letting him go.

But now it was up on my Spotify, the list of 12 songs lit up on my screen. And all I'd manged so far was to read through the titles. Some of them had been obscure, I hadn't heard them before, but the titles had scared me from the clear pain that would be in them like To be so lonely. Some of them of course I recognised because he'd sent them to me whilst we'd still been together like Treat people with Kindness and Adore you.

But reading the titles had made me nervous enough that a panic attack had verged on me which was why I was leaning dangerously far out of my high up window breathing in the clear air. I just didn't know if I could listen to these songs.

I'd seen the cover first and the bright colours and Harry's boldness made me smile at the cover than was uniquely him, a cover I doubted anyone else could come up with. A fisheye lens and a black glove in one corner contributed to the pure individualism of the album.

Then there was the title. Fine Line. Although I didn't know what it would mean, the two words stuck together to create beautiful poetry in the title. I had seen a song of the same name at the end of the album, and I had a dreaded gut feeling that it was about me. Us. His pain.

But Harry had already told me that if I wanted to listen, he would want me to hear every song. Every lyric of happiness or pain. Whatever the songs were about, he wanted me to hear them.

So, I clicked on the first song. Golden. But I wasn't scared for this one, I'd already heard this one a few times in various stages of production, so the cheerful summery music didn't stress me out at all and simply made me smile.