Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

8ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                                             8ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

               

     “Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up”

One: get a part-time job to afford uni; (check)

Two: actually get into uni; (check)

Three: graduate and get a better job to raise money; (check)

Four: sell one of my paintings; (check)

Five: get a professional camera; (check)

Six: get my own flat;

Seven: get my own gallery (and throw it at Gem’s face);

Eight: succeed with my gallery;

Nine: sell professional photography; (check)

Ten: a car? (check)

Eleven: travel abroad for work;

Twelve: find someone to share my experiences with; (check) (un-check) (bullshit)

Thirteen: fall in love for real (check) (fuck, I checked it) (just bullshit)

*not necessarily in that order* 

Harry stares at the list he’d made nine years ago for the thousandth time; the paper marked all over for the folding and unfolding several times, edges torn off and appearance old, yellow-ish. His handwriting back then wasn’t one of the best, he reckons (still isn’t, but he can deal with it), and he feels ashamed he didn’t have the decency to write it all over again even after all these years, or at least add few other goals.

On the top of the page it reads ‘things to accomplish in life’, a thin line drawn over the title again and again to be replaced by simply ‘goals’, and, later, ‘I better get to do this all before I become old and useless’. Harry chose to stick with the last one because he’s sure his sense of humour is the best (and he’s probably wrong but he’s decided that he doesn’t give two shits about what others say. He’s funny. He is.)

He feels his heart squeezing, though, when his fingers press against the insulating tape he’d put long ago (three years, oh well, what a surprise) over the two last items of his list. He originally thought of running the pen over the words until there were random enough patterns to cover all of the letters; until none of those were readable anymore, but just when he was about to do so, he’d seen Zayn’s tape left on the floor – he had been previously working at some sculpture that day, then had left for some coffee or something, Harry really couldn’t remember, and he’d thought Zayn really wouldn’t bother if he used a bit of his tape (he didn’t).

And until today, Harry had kept his list. Because he still wants to check the items he hadn’t, and possibly needs to accomplish a few of them again, since he pretty much lost everything.

And even now, he still stares at the last to items with anger boiling inside of himself, scribbling new words of disbelief and disappointment directed to himself right next to the tape. Such as ‘fuck this’, or ‘you’re such a prick’, and some even a bit longer: ‘what did you have in mind when you wrote this, Harold. Really’. And yeah, he knows what he had in mind; tries not to dwell much on it.