Pieces // H.S

Chapter 23b: Harry: It's not what you think...

Jane led me into her tidy living room, where she explained some terms and conditions. She inferred that she would make my life a misery if I lied to her. She would make my life a misery by simply not being in it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. It was like nothing I had ever felt about anyone before. I pointed to the couch and she allowed me to sit on it.

“I have that stuff on my phone because your life is so much more interesting than mine. When the court case ended, I tracked down pieces of information on you so that if we met again, I could defend myself a bit better. Then, like, your life was going so well for you and my life was going so bad for me. You were like a cure for my life. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any harm or creep you out or anything like that. I… I just needed you.” My explanation made me sound even more weird than I already appeared to be. She folded her arms and turned away from me. A short deathly silent pause filled the room.

“I don’t know what to say… You’re a grown man, you can get help from psychiatrists for stuff like this.” She turned to face me again and dropped her arms by her side. “I’m not a drug. I am my own person. Why me? What makes me different to any other person in the public eye?”

“I guess… You’re not so different… I just liked your life better than my own. You lost your parents, so the press felt sorry for you. You were talented and could perform every time perfectly, unlike me. You came from an average background, so you were ‘everybody’s girl’.”

“STOP IT!” She snapped at me. “I have what I have for what talents I have. I don’t make money from my background! Don’t judge me by my past, I don’t live there anymore! Besides, it’s MY past!”

“I’m just saying that you have everything going for you. I didn’t mean to say…”

“I know EXACTLY what you meant! You’re just past it. Done. Finished. You enjoyed the benefits of fame for too long, now you just have to deal with it! Plus, it wasn’t as if you didn’t have anything going for you when you were starting out! You left school at sixteen, from a state school. You worked in a bakery, and you came from a broken home. The fact that you were pretty and just happened to be able to sing well on occasion meant that everyone loved you. You represented the nation. You were everyone’s hero.”

“ON OCCASION! PRETTY?! LEFT SCHOOL! Are you saying that I can’t sing? Because I could sing better than you any day! And are you inferring that I’m thick or something? Just because I wasn’t a freaking child genius, doesn’t mean that I don’t have brain!” I completely lost it. She backed away from me with an expression of fear. She gripped the top of a desk chair, as if ready to defend herself with it if I came anywhere near her.

“I didn’t… I… Well, you don’t exactly have the evidence to prove any of that. You froze on stage tonight, and I had to cover it up.” I was wondering when she would bring that up. “You had to steal my GCSE song to make another hit. That proves that not a lot of musical capability was knocking around in your head! I mean, you can’t even read music, for goodness sake! That’s how you make money through music! It’s like employing an electrician who doesn’t know how electrics work!” That hurt me. I wanted to cry but I had show her that I wasn’t going to give in to her again. I felt like slapping her, so hard that she would fall over and forget all about this.

“Get out of my house and I never want to see your face again!” She shouted about to call security.

“I’ll show myself out.” I muttered making my way to her front door. I lifted the latch and turned to look at her face one last time. She just looked down at the floor. I left closing the front door behind me. She clicked the lock and I walked down the long path to where a car was waiting for me.

**Coming soon: With or without you...**