Joy of Missing Out

Chapter 11: Baby, we're perfect

Coming up with the idea for it and staging rainbow teddy bears on stage were among the least difficult things of 2014. Our private lives were more hectic than ever. I was going to be a dad. Well, for the media. The management came up with a (read with sarcasm) brilliant idea to make me a dad. They got me acquainted with this club promoter, Annas, who took me to clubs to eventually get photographed with Briana, the girl The Sun just announced was having my baby. And so everything started falling apart. It was mid-July and One Direction announced going on a hiatus, my mom started treatment for her illness and yeah, I was having a baby with an American girl.

With One Direction, we were recording our last album before the big break we agreed on a few months after Zayn left the band. And all while touring the world. It was difficult to find time to record but it was also hard to get over Zayn. On concerts, Liam and Harry compensated for most of his singing parts but we couldn't just find a new member of the band to replace him, let alone such a friend. Zayn and I had a big falling out. I wanted him to be happy, as did Harry, Niall and Liam. However, it was so sudden and quickly done that it also made me kind of angry. Not only was his contract ended in such a short time and without many consequences but he went on to release new music really soon, as if he had started his solo career months before, behind all of our backs.

Harry and I insisted on having both of our names in the 'Perfect' credits. We had written some tunes together in the past but they always pressured us into choosing who to credit. We knew Made in the AM was our last album in a while and we weren't going to tour it. It had more ballads than the previous ones which was really great because, with what was happening to us, I only wrote sappy songs. 'Perfect' wasn't one of them, but it was also written on Harry and I's first engagement anniversary, possibly the height of our love at that time. Amazingly, our management and producers went with it. They didn't have much to criticize on other songs we wrote separately.

One July night, on our day off from the tour, we went to an actual studio, rented for two days so we wouldn't record in hotel rooms. We were finalizing 'Perfect' and rerecording Harry's vocals and Liam's vocals for 'I want to write you a song' and I was there in case we needed to adjust the lyrics. I had more solos on this album and I co-wrote loads of songs, but they didn't always need me in the studio. Sometimes, I had to go clubbing with Annas and couldn't be in the studio even if they needed me. This time, Harry insisted I came along.

He was talking with Julian as this one was putting on his jacket. Niall and Liam were waiting for him on the door, occasionally rushing him, but Harry wouldn't let him leave. Finally, Harry and I were left alone.

"Alright, what's up?" I asked him, seated on the couch behind him.

He was messing up with the control board looking like it was his first time in a studio. "Okay, Julian showed me how to... do this."

"Do what?"

"I want to play you something," he said, touched a button and sat on the floor in front of me.

I started crying a few seconds into the song. It was the first time I heard his demo for 'If I Could Fly'. I don't know what hit me first nor what hit me hardest – the lyrics, his voice or the fact that everything was changing and he still regarded me the same. His lyrics told me that as much as his eyes fixed on me while we were listening to the song. By the end of it, I still couldn't come up with words to say. I think we sat in silence for at least five minutes. Eventually I took his hands to help him get up and come sit next to me. Maybe I mumbled some words of love when I hugged him tightly.

"Is it okay? Are you okay?" he asked lovingly.

"I'm not. In the best way possible."

"Oh, so you're sobbing in a cool way?" he joked.

"Right."

One Direction wouldn't have worked if we had ever become disorganized. The schedule leading to the hiatus was also packed with promo and meetings and we had a tour to finish. We were months away from it but I dreaded the day when I stopped seeing Harry daily. We unwillingly agreed to take a break from us at the end of the year. Not break up. Not end our engagement. Just start seeing each other less in order to adjust in advance for the months to come when we won't have an excuse to be seen together. 

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The photo is my poor edit of their Apple Music radio interview and approximately around the time when Louis said 'I cried', referring exactly to 'If I Could Fly'. I also didn't want to write a lot about babygate, it's too complex and most of us know all about it. I briefly mentioned Johannah's leukemia battle because a later chapter will talk more about that. We don't know when her illness developed or when she started treatment. Harry and Louis writing more than one song for the albums together is also a speculation of mine which doesn't sound so unbelievable.

Q: Have you started emotionally preparing for a Larry duet when the time comes?