Race

Chapter 35

You will never be able to unlearn the habits of a person that you have once been madly in love with. Neither Harry nor I had unlearned each other's in the past seven months. In some ways it made our friendship easier, seeing that we could remember activities the other person would like or avoid conversation topics that we knew we would widely disagree on. But at the same time, it made everything so much harder.

It was during our third hang out as just friends that Harry told me he had given up car races. We sat on high chairs, our cups with artisan coffee and a cinnamon bun that we were sharing standing in front of us on the wooden plank that had been fastened in front of the coffee shop's huge windows in true London fashion. Harry told me about his job between sips from his coffee.

"You have a job?" I repeated in disbelief.

"Yes, and it's even a proper one that does not endanger any lives – least of all mine. In fact, it is much the opposite of my previous... occupation. I mostly just sit behind a computer in an office."

I had known that Harry had studied Art History and Philosophy at a university and even graduated. I had never anticipated, however, that it would lead to a job in that area. I had simply assumed that he was a typical rich boy, knowing he would never have to work a day in his life, pretending to be a university man and keeping up appearances of trying to fit into a society, in which a majority of people had to actually gather up education and experience to survive. I had imagined him enrolling, never showing up to any of his lectures and seminars, somehow miraculously passing all his tests by winging them and then graduating with a 2:2 or 3 as final result. And though it did appear like he had gotten his job as the personal assistant to the famous curator of an important art gallery through contacts and acquaintances of his father's, this was also the first time that I found out that he was actually passionate about art and had actively partaken in all his courses and seminars. As it turned out, I may have not known him as well as I always thought I did.

"How come we have never been to a single museum or art gallery during our relationship if you're such a huge art geek?" I asked him now, playfully.

"Well, to be quite fair, I don't think we really made it out of my house too often," he replied, a smug smile visible on his face, but his eyes avoiding mine and watching the people passing by on the street outside instead. "I've been meaning to ask you, though... we have this big gala next week. It is an annual event, always taking place in the last week of January to inform our sponsors and members of our successes, events, purchases and programmes of the previous year and plans for the new one. Would you want to accompany me to it?"

He had turned around to face me when he had asked that last question and from the uncertain look on his face, I could only assume what mine had looked like when I fully registered his question. I felt surprise, both a happy and an uncomfortable one, at the same time. The truth was that a part of me wanted it to be a date. Harry and I had never been on a date before. We had hung out when we had been friends, had had some more or less uncomfortable meetings by ourselves, when we had been less than friends, and we had gone places together while in a relationship with each other. But we had never gone on an actual date. And albeit the rather awkward and uncomfortable dates I had had with Adrien, I couldn't help but wonder what an official date with Harry Styles would be like – and one at something as interesting as a gala at that. So a part of me was enticed and excited about this suggestion.

The other part, however, knew that we were walking on thin ice. After all the drama, it still sometimes seemed impossible that we were making this friendship work. It was a fragile thing that could break any time. We had almost kissed that day at my flat and crossed the line. And then, when I had come back to him sitting on that chair and no longer the couch, I had felt rejected. In that moment, our friendship had felt utterly impossible, like a scenario you imagined and dreamed about all the time and therefore thought could be reality, before seeing it play out in real life and realising that it had been nothing but an unfeasible figment of your imagination. No matter how hard I tried to deny it, I still had romantic feelings for Harry and I strongly doubted they would ever leave completely.