Echo Of Us • Zarry

GQ 1

   Being perpetually happy feels pretty fucking great, Harry's decided. A lot time ago, happiness was never lacking in his life but there was always something that could make him miserable at a moment's notice. Back in school it was grades, not being enough for his dad who left and struggling with as to why does he like boys just as much as he likes girls. He was never depressed because of it, not really. Then after the X Factor and being launched into stardom at rocket speed, thousands of things could make him feel like shit. Hate online, Louis not liking him back, not being a good enough singer, Zayn not liking him back, Zayn not loving him back and the list could go on and on and on. Despite the overwhelming happiness that the band brought, Harry was never truly happy day to day. And while it's normal to feel down in the dumps from time to time, Harry didn't want so many things to make him sad. So he tried to put on this mask, a costume that made him the happiest person around.

Smile, be nice and work hard. That is kind of a motto he created for himself. It did help to fight off the negative thoughts and god, were there a lot of them. How long is the band going to stay together? When are people going to start hating us and we lose all our fans? Could Zayn and I ever be together without all this bullshit surrounding us? It was often hard, play this oh-I'm-so-happy game when he was not. But he managed to keep the act up for years, smiling and making everyone around him too.

After Zayn had left him, it was much harder. That time almost completely broke him. He was more unhappy than happy, more days spent wallowing in self-pity in the confines of his house than out with friends or working. Keeping himself busy was a good distraction from his moods and feelings. The album, Dunkirk, the album again, tour, another tour lined up. It was just work, work, work. When he was with his colleagues he needed to appear happy, like he was on top of the world and nothing could push him down and have him tumbling down the dirt. He needed to be the Harry they had fixated in their minds – with a smile on his face and jokes always ready to be told.

And then it all changed. Just like that. Is it stupid to rely all your happiness on one person? Absolutely. Harry knows it and yet, he could only find the genuine joy and optimism once he and Zayn were together again. Perhaps it's toxic, unhealthy and overdependent. Actually, it is exactly that and while Harry's aware of it, he's not going to change a single thing.

It's been almost two years since they started dating, like normal people do, freely and without restriction. In that time, Harry's sky-high level of happiness has been unwavering. He doesn't have to fake the smiles since they're all real and never chant anything in his head just to get through the day. Nothing is ever perfect and neither is their relationship, but even when they fight, Harry knows they're gonna talk it out, learn from it and leave it in the past. No resentment and no animosity.

This time their relationship is so much unlike what they had before. Back then, they never discussed the problems that happened to appear. They didn't fight about the important things and when they were mad, they just ignored each other for a few days before they "talked it out" with passion, bruising kisses and painful love. So obviously, communication wasn't their forte. When Harry sometimes starts to dwell over the almost three years they spent apart, that convinces him that it was actually a good thing. The time allowed them to grow up properly, like they never had the chance to in the band. To experience new things, meet new people and establish themselves as the people they wanted to be as adults. Harry doesn't like to admit it but he knows they would've teared each other apart if they stayed together after Zayn left.

Some things outside of his relationship make Harry upset once in a while, for instance the nagging he gets from all sided to be careful, his family and friends still paranoid about him and Zayn. Harry often fears it's never going to stop. His mum wasn't this annoying even when she spent almost a week on a yacht with him and Kendall. He's run out of ways to explain to everyone that they don't have to worry about things he doesn't worry about and has a better insight into. They're almost like gossip magazines.