What we become

24. Adore you

Jess burst into my room in a panic.

"Courtney is sick and now I have no one to go to the concert with."

I opened my eyes groggily and sat up. "What?"

"I hate going alone. I've already tried calling Sara, but she won't answer."

I glanced at the alarm on the bedside table. "It's 6am. Give her time wake up."

"How can you even sleep on a day like this?"

Because Harry would be landing in Brisbane and travelling to the Gold Coast today for his concert tonight. Last time he had landed on the Gold Coast I had picked him up from the airport and then... no. I wouldn't think of that. It felt like a dagger to my heart. Even the thought of a dagger to my heart reminded me of Harry on Christmas Day. Stop thinking about him! 

I groaned and pulled the sheets back over my head. I had stayed up much too late watching Harry Styles YouTube videos last night. It would have been considered obsessive enough for a fan, let alone an ex-girlfriend, or whatever I was.

Was it not enough that he would be in the same country as me, but that he was going to be in the same city as me? I planned on throwing myself a glorious pity party involving block-out blinds and my blanket over my head, protecting me from the big, nasty world of adulthood and breakups and everything awful in between.

Jess ripped the blankets straight back off me and pouted her lips, giving me her best puppy dog eyes. "El, I can't go alone. I simply can't."

"I'm not going with you." I groaned through my Harry-induced-lack-of-sleep-hangover.

~

Somehow, thirteen hours later, I found myself sitting in the car as Jess drove us to the concert. I never really stood a chance against her.

There was an excited energy to the crowd, but all I felt was physically sick as I took my seat right up the back of the concert. 

Then they came out on stage, he came out on stage. Even from this distance, I could pick him out. The camera panned to a close up on him and he was suddenly projected not the two huge screens on either side of the stage. He smiled and winked right into the lens and the crowd went wild. 

My stomach dropped and I caught my breath. In that moment, I knew I still loved this boy with all my heart. I always would. But I couldn't fit into a world where I had to share him with this band and all these fans. And I would never ask him to give that away. Jess squeezed my hand.

"We can leave," she said, concern in her eyes.

"I'm okay." I said, but I really wasn't.

The boys started playing their set, the songs I was used to. My personal favourite was 'drag me down'. I loved watching Harry as he belted out huge, powerful, almost impossible notes with ease and precision. It always gave me goose bumps.

Then the set changed. A piano started playing a familiar tune, then Harry vocalised over the top of it.

Niall started singing. "Treading the ground, I once used to know. People are strangers, same as before. Streets look familiar. I remember the park where I buried my head, so deep in my hands, all around me was dark."

The Temper Trap.

They're singing The Temper Trap.

Is this for me? Is he hoping I'm here?

Then Liam took over. "This here city is for the lonely ones. Won't find no angels, selling maps to the lost. This here place is too small for two, it took one to realize when dreaming's this hard it's not meant to come true."