Harry Styles - The Album

Meet Me in the Hallway

I grab my coat and slip it over my arms, then letting it settle on my shoulders. Taking a few steps, I turn to the full length mirror; littered with small lights; and look at myself. My hair is a mess, long and messy. I throw it to one side and run my fingers along my chin. I reach for the door handle but turn back for a glance before I leave the room.

I see her, lying in the king size bed I could never afford. Her leg is swung over the duvet while the other hides under it. Her hair lays in every direction, a mess, like mine. There is drool coming down her chin. She looks so different, more at peace, than her usual days. Its a side no one sees, except me. Me and her husband.

The thought of him provokes me and I remember the words she whispered to me moments before she fell asleep again, "Harry, he'll be here in the morning, you have to go now". She doesn't even love him, much less want him, or else she wouldn't be doing this shit. I wish she'd just ask me to stay tonight, maybe then her husband can finally know the truth and we can be happy, but that's a ridiculous fantasy and I couldn't possibly dwell on it, so I move on. I leave her bedroom but I still make sure to grab the money she left on the dresser for me. Every time I pick up the cash a wave of regret flows through me, not because of the night, but because the money lets us both know that I'm a transaction, never really acknowledging the truth we share together.

I walk through the rest of her apartment and leave into the hallway, shutting the door quietly behind me. Glancing at my wrist, I notice the silver hands reading 3:45am, it's late but I despise not being able to wake up next to her in the morning like usual. I feel myself preemptively missing the smell of her hair and the touch of her fingers on my chest as I watch the sunlight climb the walls of her bedroom. Six months. Six whole months we've been having "casual sex". We both know it's more than that, she can have anyone she wants and yet I'm the one she chooses, so it has to be something more. Why doesn't she just leave him? He can't make her happy like I do. Well, yes he isn't a drug-fuelled dead beat but he can't make her smile like I do. He can't make her laugh like I do. She knows that, she's told me before. She's so much happier with me, I know that... I sigh heavily and take a long look at her apartment door before I push onward.

My feet drag down the hallway until I come to a stop at the elevator. I'm tired, but past the threshold of sleep. Ding. The elevator calls me and I step in, my fingers flow over the numbers and settle on the 5th floor, so far away from where I am now. I take the corner of the elevator and wait for the doors to close. I think about her, and the previous hours flash in my mind, the best sex I've ever had and will ever have. Closing my eyes and lifting my head from my pocket, I try to imagine my fingers pulling on her hair and the feeling of her soft, wet lips all over me. The way she screams and moans and tells me I'm better than her husband ever could be. The way she grips on to any part of my body she can get a hold of, as if she never wants to let go. "How couldn't this be real?" I ask myself.

The elevator chimes and I'm back to pulling my feet against the carpet as I aim myself toward my door down the hall. My fingers dig into my pocket and pull out some keys, along with a few key chains: a small silver laser gun, a sandal, a flower. I insert the key and jiggle the difficult lock, the door opens and the least welcoming room to ever exist greets me again. My mattress is a mess, my whole room is a mess, my whole world is a mess. I throw my coat onto a near by table, kick off my boots right after, and take my jeans off. I unbutton the few buttons done up on my shirt and take it off, adding it to a pile of dirty clothes on the floor and throw myself onto the mattress, which, like the clothes, is also on the floor.

Beside my bed lays my spoon, needle, and lighter. I don't want to do it, who really wants to be an addict, huh? But I cannot control myself and so I do and I already am filled with deep regret, but euphoria quickly takes over. I can't even feel my body, but I can hear my mind. Who needs to sleep anyways?