Harry Styles One Shots

Home by @chanmapan

I softly press PLAY on the remote just after I have unrolled my purple yoga mat. Deanna's mat is right next to me. I have been trying to get her to the gym for ages but the closest she ever gets is my personal studio at home following the instructions of the speaker. The smooth voice of the girl on the CD echoes in the room and I lower the volume just a tiny bit. I pull my hair up in a pony tail and steady it with an elastic band. He loves my hair up like this. I smile at the thought and fix my yoga pants and sports bra while the introduction plays. I'm at a comfortable seated position. I sit tall and exhale. I should relax, I need to. His eyes though make that impossible. They haunt me constantly, every minute of every waking day, windows of his beautiful soul.

"Earth to Anna. What are you thinking about woman?" Deanna says and I chuckle as I see she is already sweating in her yoga pants before we have even started properly. My sweet, loyal friend.

"I am here"

I feel my shoulders relax. I close my eyes and my mouth and I begin to breathe in and out through my nose just as the sweet voice instructs. As I become more connected to my breath I listen to her voice on the surround system again:

"Let go of any bad energy, negative vibes, of things you have to do, other engagements, troubles". My mind travels to him instantly like he is the end and the beginning. I empty my lungs and fill them again. I make my inhales and exhales of equal length. I know the drill. I can't help but feel his soft velvety lips on me while I try to numb my brain. His kisses, sweet nectar, my addiction to them undeniable. What am I going to do? I flutter my eyes open and Deanna is following the exercises to perfection unlike me who cannot seem to focus. I try to loosen up and follow her lead.

I can feel the oxygen running threw my blood stream. This exercise is supposed to help me. All kinds of anxiety should dissipate. Just like I feel when he drives me to my peak, when his hands claim me, when he and I become one, when all sense of reality escapes us and it's just me and him in the world. I shake my head to rid of the thoughts and listen to the next instruction.

I extend my arms out while my knees are still on the mat. I nimbly come to a sit up position. I bring my arms to hug my knees. I rise up and bring my arms to my hips. I stretch to my left, come back to the centre and then to my right. I repeat a couple of times.

There was this one time we had a picnic by the river close to Holmes Chapel. He brought a kite with him, a huge hand-made kite that Robin helped him built made from old newspapers, bamboo canes and tiny colourful pieces of paper tied on a long string serving as the kite's tail. He was so proud of it, his smile wouldn't fault. Although there was not enough wind he was so insistent to make it fly, it was adorable to watch. I stood there with my arms resting on my hips just like now as he was running around with those damn brown boots. I advised him to wear something more comfortable but he wouldn't have it. He was adamant about it. I was watching him torturing himself when all of a sudden he let the kite go, ran towards me, picked me up and I swear to God the whole village heard me squealing.

"Sit in all fours and take a breath" the calm voice continues.

I look to my right and Deanna is so committed. It seems funny that she fought me on this and now she is so enjoying it. God I need to focus. I let my head hang down as I take the all-fours position.

I stretch my left arm and extend my right leg. I spread my fingers and line everything up. I get back to the centre and then I stretch my right arm and extend my left leg. A wave of calmness swims in my body after I repeat the exercise a few times and then I relax. I come to a fetus position before I follow the sweet voice's guiding words. Deanna is silent as she too wants to rid of her own demons. She has been under unbelievable stress daily with work and family matters and she needs this just as much as I do.

I plant my hands shoulder-distance apart at the top of my mat, spread my fingers, and root down through my knuckles. I lift my hips high and step my feet to the back of the mat. I separate my feet hip-distance apart. I ground down through all four corners of my feet and press my heels toward the mat. From the skin to the muscle to the bone, I hug in, and firm my legs and arms. I set my drishti between my ankles. I picture him there his eyes hungry, his expression wild right before he pounds into me making me scream his name. Before he tells me he loves my body and the way it reacts to him, before I hear his guttural growls, whispering curse words in my ear as he connects his body with mine.

I come to tabletop on my hands and knees, with my hands rooted under my shoulders and knees under my hips. I tuck my toes to help me stabilize, lifting my low belly up. I look to check Deanna and she is doing the same. With an inhale, I relax my belly down, open across my chest, and lift my gaze into cow pose. With an exhale, I round my back in cat pose, arch my back to the sky, press the ground away, and tuck my chin to my chest. I repeat until the instructor softly says that we should lie on the mat to begin the relaxing drill part of the meditation techniques.

"Breathe in, breath out" the calming voice says. I do just that as I look at the light peach ceiling.

"It's not light peach baby, it's saumon" he said in perfect French accent a few weeks back when he came to my exercise studio to practice yoga with me but we did nothing of the sort. He would tickle me or I would open my eyes after a pose and find him hovering over me. He would slid his arms around me while I was stretching. He would drag me by the ankles all around the room and laugh hard. He would steal my elastic band to use it himself trying to tidy his messy chocolate brown curls. And again he would laugh and I would follow him. You know which laughter? The one that makes his chest vibrate, the one that make his swallow tattoos seem that they will really fly, the one that comes from the heart, the one that he really enjoys, the one that forces his eyes to close and become teary, the one that is my drug, that laugh!

"Close your eyes" I do and he is still there. Watching me, observing me. I can't count the times I have woken up to find him doing that.

I hated it that we fought. I hate that I am so unbelievably stubborn. My independent nature is quite uncontrollable. I mistake his love for me as a way of him to tame me, to be in command of me. When he first suggested it I was unwavering. "I am not moving in with you. I can't" I said and his face fell. Brows furrowed, arms crossed, lips in thin line. He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. His disappointment was there. After all we had been through, the chase, the doubt, the rumors, the pain. We made it through. Why did we have to argue on this?

"Go to your happy place, the place where you feel comfortable..." he is my happy place. His arms, his embrace, his soft kisses on my hair as I cry when my beautiful dog died. His chuckles when I try on his awkward shirts with floral prints and pretend to catwalk. His feet that tickle me when I fall asleep on the other side of the couch. His awful chicken soup that I pretend to crave when I am sick with the flu.

"...and safe" his image is there tattooed on my most valuable organ, my heart that I would gladly give up for him.

"Find your happy place and stay there" the sweet voice chants. And I realize it as the ache finally flees. He is my light, he's the one I want to hold tonight.

"Why are you crying?" Deanna's words wake me from my trance.

"I didn't realize I was" I whisper and sweep them with the back of my hand as I stand up.

"Where are you off to?" she asks again surprised by my awkward behaviour.

"Home" I answer in a simple word.

"But you are home!" she exclaims shrugging her shoulders.

"No, I'm not" I smile and rush to get my keys to really go home, to go to him, to Harry.

*Italics refer to yoga terms.