In This World (Harry Styles)

Prologue

**The next chapters will help bring a lot into context. They'll be out in the morning!** 

***Please read the exclusive Amazon epilogue to Neon Red before reading this***

I was stranded in the bed

You were listening to "The Dark Side of the Moon"

I could barely see your eyes

Psilocybin in a hotel room

And the light in your eyes

The waves on the ceiling

Brightside | Lumineers

Modena, Italy

I am a failure. Go on, tell me I have no right to complain. Tell me I have it all. Tell me how privileged I am. That my life is a blessing. That I'm the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. That I have white skin, male chromosomes, obscene wealth, global fame. The career of my dreams, the team of my dreams...a future. Doesn't matter, I've heard it all before. It all beads off the skin and falls away. Oil to water. It isn't felt. And when you can't feel something, then it's not your reality, no matter how many people tell you it ought to be. I am white, and I am unhappy. I am rich, and I am unhappy. I have an amazing career, exclusive Gucci, massive houses, garages full of exotic cars in two countries, and group chats full of supportive friends. Still, I am not alright.

No twelve steps were going to rescue me. I was done for. I stared at my innumerable creations from art therapy, littering the walls in colors I'm no longer capable of seeing. They had become muted. I could no longer tell the difference between black and white. Blue and orange. Yellow or red. All seemed to have evaporated from the pages, leaving the walls blanketed with the chaotic linework of big, empty flowers.

I am not recovering well. It keeps getting worse. Why didn't anyone tell me it could get worse? Worse than spasming on the floor next to a puddle of my own vomit. Worse than piercing pains splitting my head in two. Worse than pissing the sheets and having to be spoon-fed by perfect strangers. Unable to choose my own damn socks or what time of day I woke and ate. No matter what I did...no matter what I tried...I only got worse. I have failed myself in every capacity. Hope didn't float, it plunged...into a deep, dark, communal nothingness. The abyss. Let me rest. Please, I just want to rest.

No, no...rest wasn't enough apparently. I needed to be up and active. Conscious—my worst nightmare. Meditating, exercising, drawing, coloring, speaking about my feelings without end all day, every day. Thank God I was a celebrity, as it was the only thing that spared me the torture of sitting among a circle of junkies and telling them how hopeless I was. Telling them how much I related to their plights. Telling them I was also among the worst this world had to offer.

I dreaded to imagine the material this would've provided for rumors and gossip about me the second they were discharged. Harry Styles, pillhead. Harry Styles, alcoholic. Harry Styles, closeted. Harry Styles, anorexic. Harry Styles, delusional. Harry Styles, self-harming. Harry Styles, insane. Thank god I got to keep to myself most days. And although it couldn't buy my health, money bought me privacy, and an airtight alias throughout my stay here. For all intents and purposes, I was no longer Harry Styles. I was documented on paper as a female half my age. That way none of the nurses or staff members who weren't assigned to me would have access to my medical history or sensitive details. Career-ruining details.