Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

ELEVEN

It had started when he was sixteen when he was still baby faced and cherub cheeked and girls loved him. Not just girls, women, moms, grandmas, aunts, they were all crazy about him. Harry had just become a celebrity, he was coming up in the world, and of course, at sixteen he didn't mind the attention. Not at sixteen, not at seventeen, or eighteen, or nineteen even. He loved girls, he just loved them. Now don't get him wrong, it was just that there was nothing like that soft touch or that fragrant skin or that delicate giggle. At his age, it was only natural. But people didn't see it that way. Harry was, and probably forever will be, the womanizer of the band. The only thing that could be said is that labels really do stick.

Harry though, does not understand why he holds such a grand power over women. He does not understand what makes him this large enigma that has supposedly taken over the world. He used to think that he deserved, that he should just live his life without questioning it, but now he's come into a phase where he can't help but wonder why him, what makes him so special? And he ponders it for days, thinks that perhaps it's his voice, raspy but smooth, or perhaps it's his brown curls disheveled across his chiseled face or his mossy eyes that change color with his mood. Maybe even his witty comments—yes, really—or the way he spoke in a slow drawn out British drawl—he's heard accents are rather sexy. But it had always been this way, he had always gotten the girl yet felt impossibly lonely after realizing he was only sought after because of his fame, because of his looks, because it was him. He just felt that he was more than his name, he was a person after all, not just a product, not just a womanizer. It took him a few years to realize that, and even though he hasn't gotten it all figured out yet, it's okay. He's okay. Reagan doesn't have it all figured out either, and really, that's what he liked about her.

He watched as she held the banana in her grasp and wondered why she hadn't eaten yet. He thought that maybe she was just too shy to eat in front of him, and that now that he had thought about it, she never had eaten in front of any of them. Whenever food was delivered to the studio she would be the first to say she needed to go to the bathroom and wouldn't come back until they were done. Suddenly, he felt a tinge of worry for her and wanted her to eat the banana. Not for him, but for herself. He didn't want her to feel so bad about herself that she couldn't eat a fucking peace of fruit in front of someone.

"Hey." He said, staring straight ahead at the traffic before them.

"What's up?"

"You gonna eat that?"

She looked down at the banana on her lap and then at him, "Seriously? I said I would."

"Well, you're not."

"But I will."

"How about you eat it now?"

"Why?"

"Because you probably haven't eaten."

"So?"

"We have a long day before us, Rae, you should eat."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she continued fumbling with it, and he sighed, "If you don't want it, I'll just have to eat it."

Her face fell a bit, not because he said that but because she really didn't want to eat it in front of him. But then, she didn't understand why she cared so much either, he was just a stupid guy who shouldn't be the reason why she was starving herself, but she was.

It didn't start out that way, she wasn't always like this. It was just that Harry had made her so nervous that she couldn't really eat anything around him. It started that first day they were in the studio and Niall made them order pizza, she felt the other boys just gawk at her, waiting for her to eat. She couldn't do it, she just couldn't. She had felt like a zoo animal enough times in her life and she just didn't want to do it anymore. She excused herself and went to the bathroom, convincing herself not to cry, that she was being stupid, but self doubt is a hell of a feeling.