PASSERBY, harry styles

xv. perfectly wrong

real life!

Olivia Wilde is staring at me.

Really, it's what I get for answering Harry's stupid 4 a.m. call to come to his home studio because he'd had some sort of "breakthrough." I'd had an urge to prove that we could still to work together without it being awkward, but I should've known better. Now I'm stuck with her big blue eyes gripping me like she's about to pounce on me and feed me to her dog.

"Hey," I say faintly, smiling.

She stays silent, eyes dramatically following me from head to foot. If I didn't know I'd gotten dressed before I came here, I'd have sworn I was naked with the way her beady eyes are on me.

"Hello," she finally says. "Kavi, is it?"

"And she speaks."

Mouth-running Kavi really just says as she pleases. She isn't as intimated by Olivia Wilde's face as the real Kavi, but I'm feeling surprisingly unsettled with her eyes seeming to be staring into a soul I wasn't even aware I had.

"She does." Her voice is sugary sweet, like a candy lady who's about to rob you. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Just here to work on some music with Harry."

She laughs. "You? You're too pretty to be working in music for basically nothing."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"If that's what you want it to be."

I scoff. I can't believe this is the conversation I'm having at 4 a.m. I could be dreaming about being the world's greatest crime novelist by day and professional puppy rescuer by night, but Harry Styles just had to be working on music and just had to call me to tell me all about it. "Do you know where Harry is?"

The least the bastard could've done is come up to meet me. He's basically left a puppy to go to battle against David, his sling, and his stone.

"Why don't we talk first?"

I draw in a breath, feeling far smaller than I truly am stood across from her, then release it as if it's supposed to puff up my chest and make me a brave enough soul to just get through this moment. "It's too early to get to know anyone."

"I don't want to get to know you," she dismisses.

"Even better. I'll get going then?"

She puts her hand up to stop me. "Yes-or-no question: Do you plan on getting to know Harry on a . . . personal level?"

I hate when people ask about something so complicated and think you can boil it down to a yes or a no. Or maybe I read into things so much I forgot there's such a thing as simple feelings and simple explanations.

My mother is my mother, but she's also a stranger.

My sister is my sister, but she's also the furthest thing from a sister.

My father is my father, but he's also a passerby, as they say.

"We're friends," I tell her.