The Great Pretender

The Prologue

Harry had always been unreasonably tall in stature, and was a horrendously gauche boy. Instead of dwelling on this fact he embraced it, jesting when his clumsy legs would fail him, and offering cheesy jokes to his peers. During the boy's school years this earned him many laughs, alas his schoolmates were not laughing with him they were laughing at him. Harry ignored this distinction, because he found it immensely gratifying to be the cause of smiles on an otherwise monotonous day.

Harry recalled a memory, from when he was a small child, of his mother making him promise to find romance in what made him happy. These were the last words the woman, whom gifted him life, spoke before she was ushered away into a surgery room. Harry never saw his mother again. Harry found her burial to be cliché, and it irked him still to this day. Rain poured down onto the chestnut casket as it was lowered into the earth, his Aunt encouraging him to toss soil onto the coffin. When he refused and stuck his tongue out, something that had always made his dearly departed mother laugh, he was awarded with a brutal thwack to the head. Harry knew then that everything was going to change, and this made his heart feel as desolate as a great desert. The young child was uprooted from his home, and moved to an entirely different country.

Instead of allowing his life become static, Harry took refuge in his mother's words. Shorty after the tragedy he learned his first, and most cherished, trick. Juggling. Over time he had turned the simple hobby into an art that, to his dismay, was unappreciated by his Aunt. Harry spent many years hearing snide remarks that he could juggle any object given to him, but couldn't walk straight for the sake of the world.

Harry's acquired a plentiful amount of other talents as well. He was pushed in hallways, and harassed for being a gymnast. What Harry couldn't understand was that yes he practiced gymnastics, but he was phenomenal at the sport. Why was he not admired for this as the top football players were. Harry was also a born painter, and everyone praised him for his work, but Harry found blank canvases to be too simple a feat. Instead of commending him for his skill with face paint, he was vilified to no end.

So the boy spent his youth days alone, dehumanized, his only solace in his act he choreographed for a crowd that didn't exist. When Harry turned eighteen, he applied to rigorous colleges per his Aunt's request, and was not alarmed when he received a surplus of acceptance letters. Harry considered different majors, and with each one that came to mind he pictured his poor mothers disappointed face. Harry hadn't a romance for law, biology, nor economics, or mathematics. He loved to pretend, but the notion of living a falsehood disheartened him.

So Harry fled...

Harry spent six months, eight days, and thirteen hours living in the streets of New Orleans, and he had never felt so animated. Working as a street performer provided the young chap with very little money, but he didn't mind. Children and adults alike loved his face paint and quirky, handmade, floral suits. Tourist were left astounded by his act, that was only improving as the days drifted on into weeks and weeks into months.

On a rather chilly fall day, Harry was performing his act per usual. He was quite displeased to notice that due to the autumn weather the streets had begun to clear, and the tourists had went back home. Opposed to fretting on the lack of a crowd, Harry diligently performed for the few whom did pass him by, and soon peaked the interest of a rather short and stout man. The man watched Harry curiously with and intrigued smile on his face.

This man was named Juliano Jefe, and he was the ringmaster of the local circus. Juliano took Harry under his wing, and introduced him to something Harry had never been acquainted with during his strict upbringing. The circus. Harry had never thought himself a clown before, but Juliano's praises and encouragements made him excited to become one. The circus' ringleader gave Harry something that he had been searching for since the death of his mother. He gave Harry a place to call home.

Harry was complemented by his fellow clowns for his quick wit, colorful attire and precise makeup. The young man was celebrated by the acrobats for his agility, and ability to glide through the air in a way that only a gymnast could.

What made Harry feel the most accomplished though was the praise he received for his astonishing juggling act. The motorcyclist called him daring when he would take knives or torches, and toss them into the air. Never dropping the objects, and always ending without a single cut or burn to his flesh. The crowd laughed with the boy instead of at him, and gave Harry a standing ovation after each performance. While unorthodox, Juliano had no qualms with making the clown his headliner, and continued to bring in more money than any circus in the country. Because of one special green eyed boy named Harry Styles, who dominated almost every act in the circus.

Alas Harry's cruel upbringing left him with a fear that haunted him to his every core. With this fear, the fear of everything, Harry found himself still stuck in an abyss of isolation. It was as if each individual, the entertainer encountered, was a droplet of water that made up a raging river, and Harry was sat alone on the bank watching them all pass him by. Harry envied the river's ability to be one, he wanted nothing more than to be a part of the whole. Alas Harry was acutely aware that if he were to jump into the water, each droplet would make effort to engulf him, force the lad to the bottom with the rage only a river could hold, intrude his lungs with their presence, and then... Nothing. Harry's stagnant body would be carried away until they decided to discard him on the shore, once again making a home of the desolate river bank. So Harry remained alone. Keeping his coworkers at arms length, hoping that one day, someone would join him on the river side.

Harry thought he had found someone to join him on the banks only once before. Sabrina Tomlinson eyed the curly headed man like a hawk, stalking her prey for months. Something about snatching the innocent misfit for herself, and showing him how euphoric the mind can feel in the gutter, enticed her. Sabrina watched him glide through the air, and juggle every Saturday for months.

So one night, after a particularly successful show, she snuck off to his dressing room. The twenty year old man was baffled to find the ginger headed woman lounging on his couch, heels pointed towards him as if she were challenging him. The blue eyed woman was beautiful, Harry couldn't deny this, alas Harry was debilitated in the art of socialization, and was unaware of how to approach the woman.

Sabrina expected nothing less from the sheepish boy, and felt powerful stood in front of him, even though she was nearly a foot shorter. Harry gave her everything he had. Time he would usually spend practicing his bits, his virginity, and his beating heart that beamed for the circus groupie. No one had the heart to tell the poor lad that he wasn't the first circus act she seduced. All they could do was glare at the woman as Harry presented her with white Calla lilies every time he saw her.

Harry was in love, and Sabrina made Harry feel appreciated. His eyes were a lighter shade of green than they had been before. Harry's only unfulfilled wish was that his mother could have met Sabrina, and that he could take her hand in marriage. The circus gave Harry everything.

But when Harry spent all of his savings at the age of twenty one to buy her a blue diamond ring, he had his heart broken. Harry went to the house he had dropped his love off at so many times, and stepped to the door, white calla lilies in one hand, a small ring box in the other. Harry was nervous, but he was confident in how he felt. Harry was sure that a woman would only make him feel this way in the name of love, and nothing less.

Harry knocked on the door, and was met with a shocked Sabrina. Harry was confused as well when he heard children playing inside the house. Sabrina scolded him for coming to her home, and her horrors only worsened when he presented her with a ring and a lopsided grin.

Sabrina took the ring and threw it into the bushes, moments later her husband Louis Tomlinson came to the door. He eyed the boy who was at least ten years younger than him and his wife. Harry looked to Sabrina who he now noticed was wearing a ring he had never seen before, and his emotions hit him like an earthquake. The flowers dropped from Harry's hand, and he ran before the two could see the aftershock and tsunami caused from his shattered heart.

Harry only loved the circus now. Many more circus groupies approached him, but he would hide in his dressing room away from the woman. Not even Harry's mother's death nor his Aunt's abuse had made him feel so neglected, and terrified of the world. Harry loved the circus and the circus loved Harry.

That's all Harry needed.

The scene is this set.

Act One: Scene One of The Great Pretender to come next.