Soon, My Friend (Currently Editing)

Overwhelmed

An afternoon a few days later, I threw the black bag over my shoulder, and went up the short staircase to Loftus Road with the sun blazing in my face. I stretched out my neck while I paused on the pavement outside the flat, was by finding cigarette package in my bag so I could wander over to the tube station smoking.

But I startled when I heard: "There she is! Miss Hampton! Billie Hampton!"

I turned to the left in the direction of the sound and noticed three low men in oversized clothes. They held big, digital SLR cameras and other lenses hanging around their necks. My mouth went wide open.

What the actual fuck.

They approached me with a few steps, took dozens of pictures every second and shouted things at me to make me react. But I just stood there as if I was getting Punk'd or something - had no idea what to do.

The paparazzi stopped moving about 20 metres away from me, one of them sat down on his haunches as he flicked away. Probably, they'd been standing out there, hoping I'd come out of the flat at some point. And they'd probably also believed that I would pass them.

But I was supposed to go to the right, toward the White City Station, through Hammersmith Park and past the BBC studios.

That's one of the times I've been actually scared, since they stalked me to a certain extent - as if I was a fucking rare type of bird and they were a bunch of David Attenboroughs.

I finally stood outside Harry's house in Hampstead and waited for him to open the front door some time later. I was tottering on my toes, breathing nervously with my eyes closed. I wasn't able hear him come, a lot of thoughts went through my head, and it took me a few seconds to realize that he suddenly stood facing me with a worried look and the door wide open.

"Hey! H-hey, what happened? You look veryyy..." But Harry couldn't find the right words. He moved to the side letting me enter. I dropped my bag down on the floor, having just stumbled into the long and bright corridor.

I looked at him with my mouth open, trying to collect my thoughts.

"You, or y'know, it's. I - "

"Calm down, love, what's going on?" Harry asked laughing nervously. His nostrils widened. It wasn't until then I looked at him more closely, and noticed that he was wearing gym clothes and had boxing gloves on.

"Oh, no, I'm coming bracin' in, just in the middle of your workout..!" I said, as if I had already forgotten everything from the episode outside of my home.

"Yeah, no, I.. But..." He shook his head slightly, scanned me with his eyes looking pretty concerned.

I took a deep breath, wriggled off my white Converse shoes and looked at him again.

"'K, so.. When I left my flat I was suddenly overwhelmed by these paps standing ready on the pavement and I just.."

I couldn't finish the sentence, just shook my head with my stupid mouth open. Harry pulled one of his hands out of the boxing glove and wiped it down his face, but stopped it by his mouth. His hand almost covered both his cheeks, lips and chin. He looked at me with big eyes without blinking, breathing deeply and heavily through his nose.

"Like.." I shook my head once again, looking up at the ceiling. "Like - hello!" I said to someone up there, as if it was their fault.

"I am.. truly sorry, I -" began Harry, who most certainly misunderstood and assumed I was blaming him.

"No - no, it's not your fault!" I had to drop out a grin. "Harry, this is how it is, it's OK - it just shocked me a bit there and then, that's all."