Finding Finley // h.s

The Friend Request

Saturday mornings were my favourite. It was my one of my only chances of being completely alone in my flat and therefore one of my only chances of solitude. So, despite the fact that I rolled into bed in a drunken state not long after midnight feeling exhausted from walking home from the station, I still forced my tired self out of bed when my alarm chirped at 7am.

In theory, having a flatmate seems like an awesome idea. You have someone to split rent and bills costs, someone to help with the household chores, someone to come home to. In practice, however, it's not so simple. Alice was my flatmate, and calling her intense would be putting it lightly. I found her advertisement for a flatmate in the local paper and on a whim decided to follow up on it. The flat was great, good location and spacious. I signed on to the one year lease with her almost immediately. This is something I would come to regret in the following weeks.

Alice was a clean freak. A no-food-in-the-bedroom, no-drinks-without-a-coaster, no-items-in-the-cupboard-without-a-label type of clean freak. And while it was endearing at first, five months later and I was almost always on edge when I was at home. One thing out of place, and Alice would be shooting me daggers and making my life all that much crappier for the rest of the week. So, that's why I came to cherish Saturday mornings. Alice always worked the Saturday morning shift at one of the local cafés so that meant I had until 12pm to relax around the flat before going to hole myself up in my room for the rest of the week, the only relatively Alice-free zone.

I shuffled into the immaculately clean kitchen and grabbed the loaf of sliced bread from the freezer (labelled WHOLEGRAIN, EXP: 18 OCT 2018) and threw two pieces into the toaster before boiling some water. A good cup of tea would immediately scrub the hazy state my mind was currently in. Whilst I wasn't hungover, the shots last night meant I woke up with a small ache in the back of my head. The lack of sleep probably didn't help either.

Once my tea was sufficiently brewed and my toast coated in peanut butter (EXP: 11 JAN 2019), I settled myself on the lounge and pulled up my laptop. The real reason I loved Saturday mornings so much was that it was one of my only peaceful, distraction-free times to write. Script writing to be specific. It started as a topic of interest when I began to expand my film watching horizons as a teen, and three elective classes at uni later had me hooked. I was completely enamoured with the fact that every great movie started with a great script. Whilst it was just a hobby, I couldn't help but love crafting and blocking out scenes of my wildest imaginations. And whilst writing had become an important part of my life, I preferred to keep my hobby on the down low. This made those few hours of being home alone all that more precious. These past few weeks I had been re-working my own version of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. After spending a lonely Friday night watching it on Netflix I was struck with inspiration and decided to take the characters into my own hands.

Whilst munching on my toast, I clicked through and deleted any unimportant emails, checked my iMessage as I couldn't be bothered getting my phone from my bedside table and logged onto Facebook. I made it a point to check my social media, mainly as my mum insisted on tagging me in as many posts as possible and if I didn't promptly reply I would have a phone call from her asking why I was ignoring her.

This morning there was only 2 notifications. And, to my surprise, a friend request. I clicked on the illuminated red (1) and audibly laughed when I saw who it was. Harry Styles. I pressed accept without hesitation, and against better judgement, clicked onto his profile.

I caught myself smiling as his full profile loaded up. His profile picture featured him grinning cheekily at the camera, his arm thrown around a boy with blonde hair who was gripping a pint of beer. I scrolled down his page, various photos and posts littering his wall. I saw the same three or four faces cropping up with Harry, it definitely looked like he had a close knit group of friends.