15 Years // harry styles

chapter one

B

The bustle of the street below my window is hardly noticeable to me anymore. After 19 years of life in New York City, that was to be expected. Yet, the taxi horns and voices all seem to melt together, meshing and blurring into a quiet buzz, an annoying bug in my ear that just won't go away. I don't want to hear it. Not today.

The sound of my text tone startles me out of my trance. I sit down my hairbrush on the small bathroom counter. I hadn't realized I'd been holding it, but apparently my routine didn't fail as all of the kinks and knots are worked out of my long black hair. I glance down at my phone with a sigh.

I love you bailey. know I'm thinking about you today. they're looking down on you, always.

I type my reply quickly, realizing I've been in the bathroom for over an hour.

love you too kelsey. see you soon

I swipe some make up under my eyes. No need for anyone but myself to know I was up all night.

Coming down the stairs, I can tell things are different immediately in the little apartment I call home. The usual, basic clutter has been cleared and everything is in its proper place. A stranger wouldn't know anyone lived here if they didn't see the short, brown haired woman standing over the stove, flipping pancakes expertly in the air with ease.

"Hey Aunt Lydia," I murmur, making my presence known. I know she can hear the raspy tint to my voice, but she doesn't say anything. She just turns and gives me a gentle, sympathetic look, still flipping our breakfast in the air. I silently thank her with the best smile I can muster.

"I'm making chocolate chip pancakes. Your favorite," she reminds me, as if I don't know. I can tell she's a bit flustered, but I don't blame her. Today is a hard day for her too, and I have to remind myself of that.

"Thank you." My throat is still tight, raw from a night full of crying. She pushes two pancakes onto a plate and brings them over to me as I sit at the tiny table that we barely fit at.

"Of course."

I eat them, and they're good, as always- she is a chef after all- but I don't really taste them. It's quiet for a while, and the buzzing bug sound has returned, though it's fainted now that I'm away from a window.

"Bailey I've gotta go to work, but if you need me, at all, today, just call me okay?"

"I will. Anything you want me to take with me?"

"I packed you a sandwich, and I left some flowers over on the coffee table. The purple ones, not the white. She hated white."

I can see a tear swell in her eye as she looks back at me with another one of those "I don't know what to do to make this less shitty for you but I'm trying" smiles before grabbing her keys and heading out into the hallway.

I can't make myself go just yet, so I cozy up in my favorite spot of the apartment. A tiny little nook, just big enough for two if you snuggle close but cozy enough for one with some blankets added, with a beautiful view of Downtown Manhattan. I grab a book from the massive shelf beside me on the wall, but once I sit down I end up watching the tiny droplets roll down the window from the light drizzle that had settled to rest over the city instead.

Once the rain clears, I know I have to go. I'll regret it if I don't. I grab the sandwich I know I won't eat from the fridge, throwing it in my bag along with a blanket. I slide my boots on, followed with a rain jacket just incase the clouds decide to spit again, filling my pocket with some change for the taxi and my keys. I head out the door before going right back in, grabbing the flowers I almost forgot, finally locking the door behind me as I head towards the elevator, and my 18 floor decent to the streets of New York.