The Timeline

8.

August 15th, 2013:

The text came on Claire's phone during the early afternoon.

H : "Heading to LAX now. Will be back by tomorrow. Is that invitation to see the house still valid? Xx"

It had been almost a month since their Skype chat. It had been a month since their friendship kept alive by conversations through texts had reprised, but with a different aura, one tinted with something bitter and unsaid, and Claire knew it was all her fault. She had mentioned Paige - still to that day, Claire did not know why she had done it - and his entire demeanor had changed. Everything was going fine up until that moment, Harry had been smiling and acting like he used to before and then she had opened her mouth and ruined everything.

Now they talked, he hadn't disappeared, but their conversations weren't as carefree as they used to be. He hadn't mentioned the invitation Claire had made for him anymore, and Claire hadn't either, because something told her that he would've straight up said 'no'. For some reason, she didn't want him to say no. For some reason she wanted to see him, for she had missed him. So she was waiting for him to bring it up, but he didn't, not even when he asked about how things with the house were going - fine, David was still doing grown-up stuff for contracts and whatnot.

By the beginning of August, Claire had gave up on Harry ever mentioning the invitation again, and she was going to make her peace with it.

It was silly, she thought, to think that he might've wanted to see the house. He didn't care about them all like that, he was a famous popstar who was swarmed with work and when he got back to England he probably would've wanted to relax and have a small vacation.

It was also silly, of Claire, to miss him and want to see him. It wasn't like they were the best of friends; they spoke (even though lately their conversations were strained, at best) and Harry had invited her to a concert and she had invited him to her year-end show (and he had come to her house at dinner, and then he had comforted her after her parents had been assholes to her), so one might think! But it wasn't like that. Perhaps, as Claire had theorized over and over, their weird relationship was coming to an end, and those were the last bursts of attempts to keep it alive. But even those would've stopped at one point, Claire knew that.

She wished she wouldn't have minded as much as she did. Had it been before everything (everything being the dinner, the concert, the backstage, the year-end show, the moment outside the restaurant), Claire wouldn't have minded. But now it was after, after all those things had happened and Claire had known a bit of Harry not only as a funny guy on her phone she texted, but also as a person who had done things for her, and she had found that she liked him. As a friend, of course! Ending things with him would've been sad.

But still, she would've accepted it and moved on with her life, because it would've been pathetic of her to try and keep alive a friendship that was long gone, and one sided.

She had come to terms with all of that, and then, on August 15th, Harry had decided to re-flip the coin and message her and tell her that not only was he coming back, but he was wondering if the invitation to see the house was still up.

When she got the text, early afternoon of August 15th, Claire was lying down on a beach towel, pale skin carefully shrouded under a beach umbrella, as the pale sun shined over her and Anna and Richard. The three of them had went on a little vacation, because it was the middle of August and Richard had closed the coffee shop for a short week and Anna hadn't taken any appointment for that week, and finally Claire had chosen her university and they all needed to celebrate that achievement.

Richard and Anna saved a small sum of money all years, to allow themselves a small vacation in the month of August, and each year they went somewhere different. That year, it was the first time Claire went with them: she had told them she could've stayed back, because she wanted to give them the time alone, as a couple, knowing she had discombobulated their lives by permanently moving into their house, but they had both protested, telling them they wanted her with them, it would've been a small family vacation.