The Timeline

46.

January 7th, 2017:

Claire had two problems: Harry Styles had kissed her and she couldn't stop thinking about their kiss.

Her best friend - former best friend? - Harry Styles had kissed her and she couldn't stop thinking about it. It hadn't even been a simple peck on the lips - like the one they had shared outside of his house after his 20th birthday party - something that she could've downplayed and played off like a little bravado on his part.

No.

It had been a full on kiss, with tongue and all. She felt so juvenile thinking those things, let alone saying them. But it had been a real kiss. It had started like a peck on the lips. Then his hands had been all over her face, holding her cheeks as if he was afraid she'd disappear, and he had kissed her. Really kissed her.

Now, Claire had been kissed. Many times. By different people. She had been kissed by her best friend Jacopo, by guys that meant nothing and she had met when she went out and she was still a teenager, she had been kissed by a girl and she had realized she liked girls as well, she had been kissed by her girlfriend Fannie, she had been kissed by Josh, she had been kissed by other guys and girls in clubs as she navigated her first year at LAMDA and in London in general. She had been kissed by an older man. Then she had gotten pregnant and she had stopped kissing people. In general. She had never gotten there with Dale, either, because he had panicked and flaked out on her during their date. Besides the point. That's to say, she had had many kisses in the course of her short life.

None of them compared to the one she had shared with Harry.

He had kissed her like he had been starving for it. His lips looked soft, and they were soft, but he had almost hurt her with the urgency in which he kissed her. Like he had already seen the end of their kiss. Like he had anticipated it.

And hadn't he?

What had he said about it? "Have you ever wondered what it'd feel like? If you and I... If we kissed."

Oh, Harry, if only you knew! Claire had wanted to laugh hysterically at him. Had she wondered? Had she?! No, she had simply been pining over him for the good part of last year, once she had understood that she had a big, ugly, fat crush on him that seemed to want to go nowhere. She had imagined way more than just a kiss with him. She had felt guilty about it, but she hadn't been able to help herself.

And then Harry had to go and ask her that damned question. And he had had to act on it. For fuck's sake!

And of course, it had to be the best kiss that Claire had ever had. Everything she had ever wanted and wondered about and everything she had ever dreaded.

There hasn't been a day in which she hasn't replayed the whole scene, frame by frame, as if she's inspecting a film reel, looking for mistakes and errors she can fix by retaking it again. Except there's no retaking anything, in this case, because this isn't a dream nor a movie. This is real life. Her real life. And in real life she has kissed Harry, she has kissed Harry back because he was the one to initiate the whole thing. And she has regretted every second of it, ever since. Almost as much and as bad as she has wanted to do it again, and again and again.

She has wondered, many times a day, about what would've happened if she hadn't stopped him. He had literally been in the middle of dragging her on top of his lap when she had left the rational side of her brain - the one that had to keep their frayed and tormented friendship alive - win and drag her back, forcefully, breaking the kiss with a gasp, both their lips swollen and their breaths altered.

She will never forget the way he looked at her, when she did. The way something in his eyes, electric and alive, shuttered and flickered down. How a part of him that she would never understand, closed off forever.