Before The End (One Direction)

16. Annie meets Harry

The song for this chapter is Absolutely Smitten by Dodie Clark. I absolutely love this song and I think it describes the butterfly's of a new relationship really well. Enjoy :)

Harry's POV~

The first day of recording wasn't something I'd looked forward too. I was only 11 days clean, I had only barely gotten my emotions in check, and I was still very ill. Louis had suggested trying to get it postponed another week, but I figured that it would only be harder the longer I waited.

I woke up earlier than everyone else that morning and laid in bed awake for almost an hour. It was still dark outside. I had started to sleep a couple hours each night again. It was inconsistent and troubled, but better than nothing. Once I accepted that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, I peeled back the covers and decided it was time I took a much needed shower. It had been a while since I'd taken one.

The warm water felt good on my soar body. All my muscles were tense and painful from many sleepless nights and my body's unfortunate desire for cocaine and pain pills. I washed my hair twice trying to remove the greasy homeless look I'd been sporting for quite some time now. I stayed in the shower as long as I possibly could, letting the water run over my body in a sad hope that it would wash away everything bad attached to me. Somehow, standing there actually made me feel better.

Finally, when the water was too cold to stand in and the skin of my fingers were wrinkled, I shut it off.

I stayed in the bathroom for a long while, staring at my naked appearance in the mirror wondering when I'd decided to screw myself up. My ribs were somewhat visible and I had more tattoos than I remembered getting. There was a giant butterfly on my torso for God's sake. When did that even happen? The more I thought about it, the more tattoos I realized I'd gotten without noticing. Part of me wanted to call up my old friends and ask when I'd gotten them. I decided to stop paying attention to my unexplained ink and instead grabbed the clothes I'd brought with me into the bathroom, pulling them over my body.

It was the first time I'd worn a complete set of clean clothes in quite a long time. It made me feel lighter. I had a genuine and unstrained smile on my face for the first time that week.

I decided to keep my positive attitude going and migrated to the kitchen to make breakfast for the boys before they woke up. By the time they all made it out of their rooms, I was nearly finished and the sun was well up in the sky.

Something about that morning made me incredibly happy. I was almost optimistic that recording wouldn't be so bad.

Louis POV~

Harry walked into the recording studio with a happy, though somewhat nervous, bounce in his step. He'd clearly spent a great deal cleaning up that morning and for the first time since before Emma died, he almost resembled the young 16 year old Harry that was so full of life and humor.

When we were sat down for our briefing, it immediately got hard. Harry had never liked the long and depressing confrontations management loved to give us about stepping up our game. Now in his recovering state, he was visibly uncomfortable and whenever he was addressed specifically, he cowered back and gave the most generic non-controversial answers that he could.

During the first segment of the actual recording was when things took an unexpectedly interesting turn. Harry was struggling to set his mic correctly and so the studio aids young and attractive trainee was sent to help him.

She appeared to be close to my age and walked with the charming bubbly personality that Harry had when he was in a good mood. She was pretty in a way that was different than most pretty girls. She didn't look as though she tried to be pretty, she simply woke up that way. She had long tangled brown curls that she'd thrown back in a messy pony tail, and light olive skin. She had a small splatter of freckles dotting her nose and cheeks, and brilliant blue eyes that were attractively large and wide.