Tokyo Drift || HS

38 || Cold And Sterile

HARRY LEFT EARLY THE next morning. He's off to do a set of listening parties for fans around Europe while he prepares for his next single, Adore You, which is coming out soon.

I teased him lightly about how other people are hearing the album before me, but he insisted I needed to wait. He told me to steer clear of the posters and promotion. He wants it to be a surprise.

Before he left, I explained to him how after a week of thinking, I came to the conclusion that I need to visit my father.

I know that I've shut myself off from people for so long, but at the end of the day I keep coming back to Harry's words - I have to stop living in fear of the past, because if I do, I'll miss out on the present.

I want to give my dad the benefit of the doubt. I want to be strong enough to try. Because if something is really wrong and I neglect him, I think I'll end up regretting it for the rest of my life. And I know I need to live out what I've ignored all along. That facing it - not running away, is the only way to heal.

I call back the hospital on Monday morning, making a plan to go and see him after work. I try to ignore the flood of anxiety that pools through my body after I hang up the phone.

When I walk into the Rolling Stone headquarters, I roll out my chair from the desk, immediately turning to find Jalen approach me from nearby.

"Hey," I smile. "What's up?"

I shuffle the stack of papers on the desk. Anne's requests for articles and reviews have nearly doubled in quota over the past couple of months.

"I think something's fishy." He squints his eyes, peering around suspiciously as he sits on the corner of my desk.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Anne's acting weird."

"Uh, okay." I turn my attention back to the papers. "Why does that matter?"

"I don't know, I got a sixth sense about this shit Indi." He looks toward her office skeptically. "She kept looking at me this morning like she was disappointed in me. Like hell, what'd I do? I ain't do nothing."

"Mhm, whatever." I nod. "You're probably just reading into it."

As I finish speaking, Anne exits her office door. She walks toward me in her black stiletto heels, wearing a matching blazer and fitted pants. She stalks the cubicles like a determined lion on the prowl. As if she's the only predator in a lonely open field and we are the prey.

"India," she stops a few feet away. Her unreadable gaze slowly switches between Jalen and I. "Can I have a word?"

"Oh, yea. Definitely." I scramble, setting my papers down on the desk before I stand and follow promptly behind her. I look over my shoulder quickly, eyes wide. Jalen gives me one distressed glance from the corner of his eyes before he turns and walks back in the other direction toward his own office chair.

"Please, take a seat." She gestures to the spot opposite of her leather throne. The air in the room is automatically stifling. I feel my palms become clammy as I try to think through what the purpose of this meeting could entail.

"Now, I don't intend to make this a bigger deal than I ought, but can you please explain this." She slides forward a piece of laminated paper over her desk. Her manicured nails stop when the article lands in my line of vision.

I lean forward, my mouth falling open as my eyes immediately pull to the large picture in the center of the text.

It's Harry and I.

Standing in the white gallery in England. His hand softly holding my hip in the room full of statues. In the picture, I'm looking up at him. And sitting here in the office, it's the first time that I see it - see the fact that the look in my eyes spells out that I'm completely enamored.