Mixed Up // Harry Styles

Prologue

                                                       PROLOGUE

     “Smile sweethearts,” The photographer coos just moments before the first camera flash of many more to follow goes off in the young flower girl and ring bearer's face.

 

     Their chubby fingers were locked with one another’s with their palms pushed firmly together as neither of them wanted to let go of the others hand, protesting when anyone tried to separate them apart, even if it was just for a moment.

 

     People could guess that it was partly the parents’ fault that at the minor age of five and six, these two children were so close. Maybe it was all the play dates that were set up for them in the younger years that made them so comfortable with one another. Or maybe it was that accidental first kiss – that even until this day, nobody knows about – that they shared underneath the table at the birthday party of the child in their class they never actually got along with.

 

     Being the flower girl and ring bearer was only their first taste of walking down the aisle. There were a few more times after that but each time, their once tight hold on one another began to fall loose as the both of them drifted apart.

 

     They were maturing. The boy with the once sleek straight hair experienced getting his first curl, at first just passing it off as a bad hair day or a simple flick in his hair that would annoyingly stay throughout the day after sleeping funny for a few hours. He slowly became lazy, not socialising as much as he used to, instead staying indoors and playing on computer games even on a cloudless day, the familiar pale blue bedroom walls becoming more settling for him than daylight. It got to the point that even when the girl from many years ago, who had always been there for him, knocked at his house door – number thirty-three on Hilton Road to be exact – inviting him out, he’d still refuse to move, knocking all the hope she had that he would want to spend his free time with her. The years progressed, she still had hope, but he never did spend any more time with her and always claimed he was busy already with somebody else just to get out of time alone with the girl.

 

     As for that girl, the flower girl that once held on so willingly to that boy's hand, drifted away from him too. But when she always got too far out to sea, out of the comfort of his friendship, she would always go springing back into his unwelcoming arms, regretting it more and more each time.Every time though she would reassure herself that she was ‘done with him and boys in general’ and claim she was not ‘in love with him!’ to her mother.

 

     Although it sounds bad, he was attempting to push her away. Trying desperately to shut off his true feelings for the girl he was truthfully and still is, hopelessly in love with, all while she was trying to catch his attention until eventually, she gave up on him. All the effort gone and wasted; lost in the blink of an eye because of all the stupid excuses he told and the foolishness of her believing each and everyone of them.

 

     She focused her attention and aims on different matters, getting good grades and preparing her future at college and university without him. Meanwhile, he was failing school rapidly and had no future mapped out. The only thing on his mind was getting the girl but giving up immediately when he settled on the idea of her not being interested, blaming her for being the reason for his endless report of poor grades at the end of the school year although he never admitted such a thing to another soul.

 

     But fast forward a few years when these two are at the age of nineteen and twenty and no longer clinging to the other for backup. Not until recently at least. It was only when he felt prepared to pop the question to a pretty American model. Finally realising he had wasted his years chasing the wrong girl. At least, that’s what he thinks and has been telling himself for a few months now.

     And that girl only has one option: to watch. To watch his life unfold into new life experiences without her, like a repeat of her watching him on television every Saturday and Sunday night battling for a chance in the finals of the X-Factor with his four newfound friends, his band – if you’d like to call them that.

     It’s like that all over again, remaining in silence and just watching, waiting almost for her friend to crack under pressure.

     Now is her chance though, her one way ticket out of everything and to move on just like he has even if the feelings do remain at what appears to be an endless pit of emotions for the both of them.

     Yet she can’t.

     She could have done, if only she didn’t get dragged into it all with him. The emotions and feelings revealing themselves over time, more overpowering than the first time, and still the pair of them oblivious to the others feelings even though everyone else around them can see the way they look at one another. Even though they always end up in the others bed as a source of comfort, finally feeling some love and passion and a sense of lust, their craving for the other finally being met.

     The question is: Will they be too late to notice?