The Hotel - H.S.

Chapter 32

Harry's POV

I didn't care. I didn't care about the MSG show that was rapidly approaching, I didn't care about the new album. I didn't care about writing or playing or talking or singing or eating or listening. I could not care less, in fact, about most things.

I spent my days angry, drunk, and hurting worse than I had ever hurt before in my life. At first I stayed in contact with May, but she never had any new information after Zoey went into the hospital again. Time passed, slowly, and I stopped calling. I fought with myself all day, every day. Go to her, be there for her. No matter what happens, put her first and be there while she goes through this awful and painful thing. But then....was it selfish to be in her face for my own comfort if she didn't want me? She never reached out, May said she didn't want us to reach out to her. I paid for her family to stay as long as needed, so I knew they were still in Chicago because that bill kept coming. But I knew nothing else.

I decided after the first few months of grieving that if she wanted me, I would know. Being together might just make this so much harder for her. And even though that in of itself was harder for me, I had accept it. I did know that she loved me, and I meant as much to her as she did to me, but maybe facing what she would be losing would be too hard? 

After a while, without me having noticed, my grief turned to anger. How could she not tell me? How could she let us fall in love, knowing there was an expiration date? Fuck that, it was selfish not to make me aware her circumstances.

But then again, in my mind I had started our affair knowing that my time in Chicago was our expiration date too. In the beginning  I never intended anything to come of our time in the long run and when that started changing in my heart I started freaking out a bit in my own mind. I couldn't imagine how hard those developing feelings must have been for her. I remembered the countless times that sadness or apprehension or pain crossed her features. I remembered the tears I didn't understand and the vetoed questions and watching her try to work through something she wasn't sharing with me. 

She probably tried not to love me, she probably tried to keep it casual in her head, like I did. She probably gave in when the love eclipsed the common sense, like I did. We were just supposed to have fun. Our first conversations, on the floor of that elevator, she explained that she was going to have as much fun as possible, live as much as possible, and try anything she wanted to do. Now that spirit that I had admired so much made so much more sense. She didn't know if she would make it.

Today I sat in a coffee shop in Los Angeles, we had gotten back to California about 6 weeks or so ago. I stopped working on the album or trying to create with the band. Mitch understood what was happening and helped me handle the band's questions and the labels anger. My management was at a loss, but luckily they were giving me the space I needed to figure out what the hell to do with myself. 

I sat in this coffee shop, hood up and hat on, looking out a window and trying to accept the fact that I didn't even know if she was still alive. I had a feeling she was, I thought I would be able to feel it if that changed. I pulled out my phone to look through my pictures of her, as I did a few times a day at least. Most of them I took, some she took with my phone without me even realizing. Those ones were a surprise in the form of a dagger to the heart when I came across them. 

My chest heaved with a wet sigh and I hiccuped down my small sob. As badly as this hurt, I knew I would rather have had that month with her and feel this incomplete for the rest of my life without her, than to not have met her at all.

Harry's Pics of Zoey