Haunted

Harry's Prologue

TRIGGER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF RAPE IS A TRIGGER FOR YOU.

Harry's Prologue

Have you ever watched a movie and you get to a certain point in the plot where you can just tell the main character is about to do something stupid? Sure you have, the movie director makes it very easy to tell when someone has made a wrong decision. Don't you look back at certain events in your life and wish that you could have known that those decisions would permanently affect the rest of your life? It's pretty easy to tell when a main character in a book or a movie has made a mistake that would undoubtedly affect the whole outcome of the book. In real life, however, the task of easily predicting the outcome of your choices becomes much harder. What if you hadn't sold that book or what if you hadn't worn your mother's ring to school that day? Would you still be best friends with the owner of the book; would you still be living in that posh house uptown instead of in a rundown apartment in the ghettos of NYC? It's only until after your life has taken a turn for the worst and you're playing the past couple of days, weeks, or even months that you start to see exactly where you went wrong and by then it is already too late to do anything about it.

That was the case for Harry Styles, one-fifth of the most famous boy band in the world. It all started seven months ago, on a typical Tuesday in March. The day started out innocently enough; Harry woke up, got dressed, went to yet another interview (the millionth one they've had in the past year and a half). It started to go south, though, when Harry decided to blow off rehearsals. In his defense, Harry hadn't meant to blow rehearsals off; he just needed to get a drink (or two... or twenty) to get his mind of the horrible interview earlier that day. See, during the interview, one of his band mates confirmed that he was no longer single, which came as a surprise to Harry since this particular person told him everything so, surely, he would have told Harry he was dating someone, right? So, in order to get rid of the hurt, anger, jealousy, and betrayal he felt, Harry did what any normal teenage boy would do, he went to a club, got drunk off his ass and picked up a random girl he'd spend the night with. Looking back, Harry admits it was probably not the wisest thing he's ever done. But, Harry was drunk and upset, so he ended up sleeping with this stranger who, to this day, he still doesn't know the name of.

By the time Harry made it home, it was 2:30 in the morning. He barely had any time to get into the flat before his flat mate started to reprimand him for being so irresponsible and idiotic. In retrospect, Harry should have just let the issue go and gone to his room to sleep off the alcohol that was still in his system, but at that time, he was too drunk to think clearly so he started a fight. That was his second mistake. Somehow, the fight went from reprimanding Harry for his childish actions to both of them throwing in random (and completely untrue) things they hate about the other. Now, Harry should have stopped. He should have just let the fight go. He should have told the other boy he was tired and gone to bed. But Harry wasn't thinking clearly, so he fed the fight the fuel it needed to keep going. For every insult the other threw at him, Harry threw one just as horrid back. Then, the older boy took it too far.

You know, if I knew just how difficult you would be to look after, I would have never taken the offer to be in this forsaken band.

That was the final straw; that sentence lead Harry to make his third, biggest mistake that day. Now, if it was anybody else, Harry would have told them to fuck off and gone to bed. But, it wasn't just anybody else, this was his supposed best mate, the only person who knew Harry better then he knew himself. The only person Harry has ever had serious feelings for just told him he wished they had never met. The sentence caused a sudden burst of indescribable pain to erupt in his chest. That was when he made his final, biggest mistake; Harry turned and ran out the door.

Harry couldn't have possibly known that his running out of that door would affect the course of his life so greatly. It's impossible to tell what the impact of our decisions would be; it's only when you look back at them do you realize, almost regretfully, that maybe what you thought was the right thing to do wasn't so right after all. If we had the supernatural ability to pick the good decisions from the bad ones, Harry wouldn't be sitting outside his door only three hours later, crying his heart out. He wouldn't be rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around his shivering frame while the rain pelted down onto his soaking wet clothes. He wouldn't feel so utterly worthless. If only Harry had just gone to bed three hours earlier, none of this would have happened. Harry wouldn't be the hallowed out, broken boy he would no doubt turn into.

And when Louis opened the door the next morning, he wouldn't find Harry Styles, the lovable flirt. No, he would open the door to find a hollow shell of the once vivacious seventeen year old boy, arms wrapped around his torso as if that would provide some sort of comfort to the fragile boy, clueless as to what had taken place just several hours before and unable to do anything but try and comfort Harry, not that it would do much good to the latter for he was too wrapped up in the relatively new events that would forever be sketched into his mind as if burned on with a white hot stick.

No, in life, people can't tell which decisions were the best to make until it was too late. It's a shame, for if Harry had known running out that door would bring about such horrid consequences, none of this would have ever happened. If only...