Trace of Innocence | Sweet and Sour (Book 4)

Chapter 53

(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 53 - Show Me You Care)

"Three and a half?!" Jess echoes, her eyebrows raised as she runs her hands over her face and smudges her eye make up. "You've written three and a half songs about me?"

Ha. If only she knew the real extent.

"Well, they're just the ones for our album, yeah," I reply. "I've been writing a lot of stuff over the summer. Some for One Direction, some for potential solo stuff. You've been a pretty heavy influence."

"Oh my God, Harry..." She stares out of the window, her eyes focussing on a point in the distance.

"I couldn't get you out of my head, so it makes sense you're in my songs," I mumble quickly, feeling more than a little exposed by this unexpected revelation of my songwriting.

"Can I hear the others?" she asks tentatively, and stupidly I feel shy and embarrassed at the thought of her hearing the depths of my heartbreak while we were apart.

"If you want," I shrug, as nonchalantly as I can.

"Of course I do!" she insists eagerly, and my heart warms at her enthusiasm. "I want to hear everything you write. Will I need to pull over again though? I am best waiting here while I listen to them?"

I smile in spite of myself. "The others aren't as sad as If I Could Fly. I think you'll be OK."

"What are they called?" she wants to know.

"Um, Olivia, and Walking In The Wind."

"Olivia?" She's confused, understandably.

"Yeah... it started off as 'Jessica', but, uh, it didn't exactly fit," I explain awkwardly. "You'll understand when you hear it." 

I hope.

"John - he's one of our songwriters -" I begin to elaborate, but I had momentarily forgotten whom I am talking to until she jumps in -

"I know who John Ryan is."

I can't help grinning as I roll my eyes at her and her One Direction knowledge. "Course you do. Well, he didn't think the name 'Jessica' worked, and we all agreed. Plus, you and I weren't together at the time - it was when you thought I'd been cheating on you with Taylor." Bad times. "We wrote it literally the day before I flew back home for the Big Weekend. I wasn't sure how you'd react if there was potentially a song on the album called 'Jessica', especially as you'd been struggling with the world knowing our business. It would have been as good as confirming our relationship."

"Wow," she chuckles, with a slight shake of her head.

"I still think 'Jessica' in my head when I sing it, though," I am quick to reassure her, as she starts the car again and backs out of the parking space, in case she is uncomfortable at the idea of me singing another girl's name - although Jess isn't exactly the type to care about things like that. 

I flick through the songs on my phone until I find Olivia, and hit play. Apart from changing every 'Olivia' to 'oh Jessica', to which she gives a nod and a smile of acknowledgement, I keep quiet to let her listen to the song. I don't think any of the other tracks I've written about her will cause an emotional breakdown like If I Could Fly, and she seems to enjoy the tempo and arrangement of Olivia. 

"I like it," she announces once the song comes to a close. "Was that the half-song you wrote, or the whole song?"

"The whole song. Walking In The Wind is about missing someone, but a lot of it was written by Julian. And John and Jamie co-wrote it, too." I glance over at her, raising my eyebrows and wondering unnecessarily if I need to explain who John and Julian are, but she gives a brief nod that I take to mean she knows. Of course she knows.