Meet Me In The Hallway

Missed Connection

I knew I'd never be over Harry even the first time I'd been under him properly all those years ago. Though I tried to run from it for a time. Eight days specifically.

"Who keeps texting you? Your fucking phone sounds like a slot machine and we haven't even made it to Vegas yet."

Michael continued talking and I knew he didn't really need an answer when he was this amped. I was very thankful that he was so excited about going to the place he kept calling 'Sin City', like he was so pious in other cities, or he may have noticed my melancholy.

He may have also noticed that my phone had been going off with alarming frequency for nigh onto a week. And that I was more than a little bit pissed at him. The bitch of the thing was that I couldn't even tell him what he had cost me without revealing what Harry and I are, were...

He also hadn't noticed that I had been sleeping in our hotel room. Or he had and didn't want to discuss it.

He was still excitedly going on about all of the plans he had for Vegas.

"You sure you don't want to celebrate your birthday early there?" He'd mentioned this, more than once.

I rolled my eyes, affectionately, he loved me and was a goof, but his self-interest was massive. "I'm not even turning 21. Don't think Vegas is a really great place to celebrate a 19th birthday. Seems like it would just be a night where I was more aware of what I still can't do in this bloody country." I was painfully aware of all the things I can't.

"Not when you are touring with One Direction! Somebody somewhere will forget to look at our id's!" He raises his arms above the hair I had just dyed green and fell onto the couch next to me throwing an arm around my shoulder. "Can you believe they asked us back for next tour? You're gonna come with me again, right?"

I bit my lip to keep the tears at bay, this was not a conversation I wanted to have again. I needed to distract him. "I dunno." I deferred. "Who would know where we can get me in?"

And he was off and rambling and I was choking over Harry's lack of excitement about us joining tour again.

That wasn't fair, but I wasn't feeling especially charitable after our conversation. I was feeling ill-used and tender, and it was so much like the last time I had gotten intimate with a boy that Harry was the face of my twice-broken heart. Which is why I hadn't spoken to him in seven days.

My heart had dropped into my toes the minute 'we need to talk came out of his mouth'. It didn't seem possible that I could fall for two boys in a row, be relegated to best friend status twice, hook up with them while under the influence, and have them give me the 'just friends' talk the next day.

That wasn't fair to Harry either. Jack, the boy of my high school dreams had been much crueler and less thorough when he crushed me years ago. I think when I kissed him with my liquid courage rushing through my veins he had just been teenage boy caught up in the physical sensation. He had been opposite of Harry in every way how he approached our hook up. I can still feel his hand on the top of my head pushing me down. Thankfully, I can't still taste the spunk he didn't ask to leave on my tongue.

The next morning I had woken up to him scrambling around on my bed, that was the first and last time I let Michael convince me to throw a house party. He was putting clothes on quickly and that was all I really needed to know. It wasn't all I got. He came back round later that day to step on my hair a little bit more. "Look, you know I love you, but I just don't see you like that. I was drunk. Can we just pretend it never happened?"

Sure, I didn't get off, but you came in my mouth and left me alone and mostly naked the next morning and then broke my heart.

We pretended it never happened. I lost a lot that night, not limited to my first sexual experience or my best friend. I changed then, ran into myself and didn't come out until Harry met me there.