Falling | h.s

forty-three

HARRY'S POV

I drum my fingers against my thigh anxiously as I will for the flight to go by faster. The flight was less than five hours, but each minute felt longer than the last. I wanted to see her. I needed to see her. 

I'm a hopeless romantic. I love romantic comedies and I believe in soulmates and fate and that you don't meet people like Janie every day. I believe in running after the people that you love and that grand gestures always help you get the girl and that,  hopefully, I'll return to Los Angeles with Janie beside me. 

A combination of excitement and anxiousness stirs in my stomach as I watch the clouds float by aimlessly. I need a distraction, something to pull my attention away from what awaits me on the ground. My mind floats to my songwriting notebook, sitting in my bag, waiting for me to express this blissful uneasiness. 

I dig my notebook out of my bag and pull down the tray table. I uncap Janie's favorite pen, a pen I was sure to pack to bring back to her. I'm sure it's been difficult for her to write without it. I flip open the front cover and shuffle through pages and pages of our conjoined lyrics, stopping when I see the words "SUNFLOWER (???) #1" on a page. 

The song she wrote about Charlie. We had talked about it in the car, right before he showed up to break up with her. There were only a few lines and the words "FUCK CHARLIE" in bold written on the side. I chuckle lightly, remembering her drunken anger that night. I flip a few more pages until I come across "sunflower 2" and "Sun Flower #3." The two new versions were better, but still not flowing the way it should have.

"Sunflower" -- the song we never quite got right. It was named after Janie's favorite flower, a fact that Charlie never remembered or even cared to learn. Sunflowers, the golden flower. It was supposed to be a breakup song, a pissed-off song about our exes. We had tried five times. Five different melodies, five different sets of chords and lyrics. And yet, it never worked. It was too cheery and bright to work as a breakup song.  

I squint my eyes in concentration, scanning over a few of the lyrics we worked on together. Then, impulsively, I flip to a clean sheet in my notebook. At the top, I write out "Sunflower #6" with a smile. This song was never supposed to be a breakup song. 

Sunflower

Sunflower, my eyes want you more than a melody

I didn't care about the music. About the album and the songs. It was never about just the music. I would give up every song, every melody or harmony or chord progression we ever came up with just to hold her again. We may have started as colleagues, fellow songwriters, but not anymore.

Let me inside, wish I could get to know you

Why did she run? Was she scared? Was she hurt? Did she really believe that I had only needed her for the music? Or was she just scared to find out?  

I don't wanna make you feel bad 

But I've been trying hard not to talk to you

Sunflower

This had been the hardest month of my entire life. I couldn't even count the number of times I picked up the phone to call her. I couldn't even count how often I would look at her spot on the couch in the recording room, wanting her input on something, or how many times I pulled out two wine glasses instead of one. It was killing me; not hearing her voice, not seeing her smile, all of it. I needed to see her, I needed to go after her, even if she was furious with me for it.