Hidden Secrets (Harry Styles)

Chapter 35

When I was younger I would always sneak out late at night to go to Claire’s house. I figured my parents always knew that I was going to see her so they didn’t really say anything about it.  However every morning my mom would come in and shut the window from the night before because when I came back I was too lazy to close it. I swear I could hear her chuckle under her breath as she left the room. And they knew, because they weren’t stupid. But at the time I thought I was being smarter than them, and that I was tricking them.

Each morning after, I’d walk around with this stupid look on my face, trying to figure out if I was going to get in trouble for what I had done. It was almost like I knew this huge secret and they knew too, but I was just trying to decipher whether they were going to say anything.

I hadn’t had that look on my face in a long time, but since Claire told me I couldn’t look at Harry the same.

Every date we went on, every show of his I watched, every time we fell asleep together, I was always watching him with that look on my face. I think he was beginning to catch on, because the tension between the two of us was really building up. Claire tried to avoid us as much as possible because she was never sure whether a fight was going to break out.

He goes back on tour in a week and I still hadn’t a clue what I should do. I feel like I’m overreacting when he was just trying to be nice. Yet I didn’t want to just let him off the hook for being extremely stalkerish. I didn’t want his money to be the reason I fell in love with him, but without it we wouldn’t be here.

The worse thing is that we don’t have time to discuss this. He leaves in a week for the tour and he won’t be around anymore. I can’t let him leave without telling him everything, but I’m afraid that with this tension that it’ll keep building up and the pressure will win and break us apart. And the last thing I wanted was to be apart from him.

I’m distracted by my scripts that I was trying to edit from a call from Louis. I try to pull myself together, not realizing that I was crying, again, before answering the phone. It was just me in the apartment right now, so I didn’t have to worry about Harry listening in.

“Hello?”

“You know, don’t you,” he asks sternly, skipping the introductions.  

I play dumb, “know what?”

“Everything that Harry’s done for you. The hotel, the apartment. Everything.” He demands.

“Yeah. I do.”

“How long?”

“Couple weeks.”

“Figured. I only noticed recently that look you always give him when you think he’s not watching. He doesn’t know what’s up with you, but it’s driving him mad.”

“Maybe he should’ve thought about that before he did this all.”

Silence.

And now it’s all coming into realization. “Hold on, you fucking knew?” I question.

“About that…”

“You knew this whole time, and you didn’t bother to tell me? Claire knew for a few hours and she had already told me! Good to know where your friends stand, Louis.”

“Why do you think we’re friends?” He says blantly. And it all clicks together. Louis was only being my friend so that Harry could get to me.

“What the fuck is this friendship then? Did you ever care about me?” I scream into the phone.

“Look, Emma, when I first talked to you, and I told you to stay away from Harry, I meant it. He’s manipulative. I didn’t know that you were the girl he was talking about. Once Harry figured out we were friends he kept trying to use me to get you to come over and stuff. I thought it was harmless because I didn’t know at the beginning, and I just wanted you both to be together, I didn’t think it would be like this.” He tries to explain, but at this point I’m beyond pissed at him, nothing he says is going to make me feel differently.