Meet Me In The Hallway

Just passing through

That was all I wanted to do. I just needed to pass through. That was the whole fucking point of a hallway, right? To get from point A to point B? It didn't have to be damn metaphor for being stuck, being unable to move on. I was there, and I wanted to be, now I'm not and I can't move to the next place, so I wait in a long lonely corridor and wish for yesterday.

Yesterday and Tuesday are gone with the wind though. And I was glad of it. It had been years since I'd seen his face, and frankly, that was better for me. It's how I had gotten better. I'd even managed to avoid nearly anything and everything about him. That was easier out here. The east knew his name, but it was not the brightest nor the biggest.

It was almost like when we started. His star was ascending, but his name didn't come with a trademark quite yet.

I'd toured with his openers, someone's little sister cum make up artist. But I was actually good, and I didn't mind being around a bunch of gross boys either. That was what I'd grown up with, and so my brother and his band and the biggest band, idiots all, brought me right in. Gave me a spot, a job, a family, a goddamn complex with all of their teasing.

Except for him, Harry. He had not immediately seen me as one of the boys, despite the jeans I hadn't washed in many many moons, and the vans someone had puked on, and the t shirt I'd found on the floor of the bus between stops. I expected to be one of the boys, but he made me feel like the only girl.

It started in a hallway, but of course. I'd gotten kicked out, well, shoved out, by a groupie with a killer bod and a rep for head. The sock was on the door and I knew the rules. It was late, everyone was drunk, and I was homeless.

I sat down in the hallways and laid my head upon my knees and hoped I'd had enough beer to put me right to sleep. I had not.

I sat and played music, as loud as I dared, to drown out the sound of my brother getting off. Gross. But so fucking familiar. He was just old enough to be in charge of me and young enough to know better but not care. And we were close enough in age that it wasn't that weird. Except it was always my friends. Let me tell you, the last thing you want to hear is your best mate screaming your brother's name.

But the girl in the hotel room was far away from my mate, she'd looked at me like she couldn't figure out where the fuck I came from and what I was doing hanging with baby rockstars.

"Who's she?" She'd asked like I wasn't able to hear as my brother pulled her into the room.

"My little sister."

"Oh," had been her disinterested reply as I'd been dumped in the hallway. Lovely.

It was an auspicious start. I should have known with a beginning like that, an end was inevitable.

Something started that night in the corridor. I think it all started for me that night. After our first hallway rendezvous, I gave Harry years of my life. Always meeting him in the hallway, sneaking into his sheets, and trying to work it out. It ended in a hallway too. He left me and I stood there hoping we could work it out for too long, years maybe. But then, I walked away, and I got better. Seeing him here, tonight, another sparse but posh place that wasn't, felt like I'd walked into a time machine. Like I'd just left his bedroom. His hair was short, like it had been when I fell for him. I thought I had gotten up, but I know now I was still on the floor.

I watched him, his back was to me, but I could tell by the loop of his stride, the set of his shoulder, the occasional smack of his gum, that it was him. He has yet to see me. If he did he must have been disinterested. Apathy is the worst, I hate it more that hate.

Harry had never shown disinterest in me, though I guess he wasn't interested right away, polite and kind I'd say. But busy and charming and rolling in girls. So, imagine my surprise when he fell for me. Though it would be lie to say I didn't fall first.