Sweet Tooth [HS]

EIGHTY

It was two months to the day he left that the album came out.

Max didn't listen to it at first, of course. Was actually blissfully unaware of it because she left the room if his name got mentioned or turned the page of a magazine - or, actually, threw the whole thing away - if she saw his name.

But a week or so after, a customer, Zoe, came in to the studio and everything was unextraordinary until she pulled out her phone. Max was bent over her back, adjusting the position of a template, focusing solely on the blue lines she had sketched only moments before - when that familiar voice rung out.

She stopped what she was doing, felt a shiver down her spine, and peered down at the phone screen.

It was Harry. His hair had grown longer, was what she noticed first. And that he wasn't smiling. But then the camera panned out and she saw he was sat up on a stage, had a guitar in his hands, a microphone in front of him.

"This song is for you, Addison," he was saying. "I love you."

Even though it was fake, it didn't hurt any less.

"This is when he debuts the single on his album," Zoe squealed, and turned the phone towards Max so she could see the screen clearer. "I've watched it like a thousand times. It's so romantic he's written this for Addison."

But Max was not listening to her. Because Harry had started playing a melody on the guitar, and Max thought the world could be ending.

It was her song.

He was playing her song.

All Sweet Creature and You bring me home and memories of that moment in the studio, all those months back, when she had loved him and he had loved her and then there was the sunshine and playing chess by the pool and making love in his bed and him coming to her flat for six years, her loving him for six years.

Max could not breathe.

She felt like Harry had reached through the phone screen and had ripped through her carefully stitched up world and exposed the infected, pulsing red tissue that she'd thought was healing.

And when the song finished and Max thought her heart might give out, that her whole body might collapse - Harry said, "I love you, Addison. My sweet creature."

Zoe sighed longingly, "How romantic," and Max had to excuse herself to throw up in the bathroom.

***

When she got back home that evening - Max was furious. Her hands were trembling, her mind was white hot with rage. She hadn't been able to focus on anything else all day - she'd been completely distracted, unable to think about anything other than Harry's words that he had made for her and given away to somebody else.

And call her a masochist, call her stupid - but she couldn't help but find his album on Spotify (which wasn't hard, it was trending number one in 26 different countries). She stopped when she saw its title.

Sweet Tooth.

He'd called the fucking album Sweet Tooth.

Was he taunting her? Was this some kind of fucked up mockery? A message?

Max was shaking. Felt like an earthquake was tearing through her anatomy, ripping apart pieces she had spent so long putting together.

So she hesitated a long time before pressing play on the first song. Decided to pour herself a glass of wine, decided she was going to need a cigarette. It was a whole hour later that she finally plucked up the courage to press play, feeling a mixture of absolute terror and sickly intrigue.