Part Of My World | H.S.

Don't blame the drunk caller

"I can't believe that you, out of all people, suggested that we'd go on a run this early in the morning", Katie groaned, sounding like a panting dog in yoga pants. I had forced her to go jogging with me at seven am in one one London's many parks on a Sunday. It was chilly outside, the sun was occasionally peaking through the clouds, you could feel that the summer was near. Apart from a few squirrels and ducks, the area around us was mostly empty. There were only a few other joggers, people walking their dogs or party-goes from the previous night, sleeping off the booze in the grass. We were barely twenty minutes in, when Katie started complaining about having cramps and begged for us to take a five minute break, but we kept walking to not get cold "Something to do with Harry's absence? Are you not occupied enough?"

"I need to stay in shape...because of work! I'm starting to get really out of breath by the end of each show and my body isn't used to seven shows a week anymore. It needs to keep up, so it needs to be healthy", I explained to her, realizing I sounded as much out of breath as her. I was not much of a sports person, except dancing and - thanks to Harry - hiking maybe no sport really caught my interest. While Harry was working out regularly, I only went to soul circle a few more times. Katie, as you can tell, wasn't much of a sports person either. "Okay, maybe it also has something to do with Harry's absence, but not in then way you think. Waking up in the cold, empty bed makes me feel lonely.  And I have a show tonight, so when else am I gonna get my workout in?"

"Whatever you say", Katie huffed, taking a sip out of the water bottle she brought with her. Harry had been gone for three nights at that point and I couldn't believe how lifeless his house felt. Him being gone had its perks though. For once, I didn't have to feel bad for practicing my lines or my songs at nights. I also used the opportunity to binge watch the entire two seasons of Fleabag, because I couldn't sleep anyway, which brings me right back to the disadvantaged of being alone. My entire adulthood I had always had a roommate of some sort, in college, in New York, in LA (most of the time), and in London too. Being left alone with my thoughts never really turned out well. "He's gonna be back tonight after your show though, isn't he? Was he actually filming a music video? I've seen a few snapshots from local residents on twitter yesterday."

"We really shouldn't be talking about this in public, but yes he is", I admitted, after making sure that none of the few other people in the park were close enough to hear what we were talking about. "Don't tell anyone though, everything's top secret. I'm sure I'm not even supposed to know about the video, let alone the song itself", I warned her. That there were pictures of Harry on set was unfortunate, but luckily you couldn't see much of the video itself. After Harry and I were done with press for The Little Mermaid, he  had gone completely radio silent, leaving his fans to speculate that he was working on new music. The pictures seemed to have somewhat confirmed those rumors. I was just glad there wasn't any photos of him in sea of hot models. 

To be honest, knowing what Harry was doing on the other side of the ocean while he was away didn't really help with my sleepless nights. I was never one to be jealous and I I had no reason to be jealous whatsoever. Like I had told him it was his job to do these kinds of things. I knew he was gonna be very professional and respectful about it, not just towards me, but towards the people he was working with as well. That's why I had tried very had to seem as cool about it as I could. He was cool about me and Joe and me, well not at first but later, and everything intimacy related about my job as well. I just couldn't get the image out of my head of a stranger touching him how I so desperately wanted to touch him these past few days. 

Taking my phone out of the pocket of my jumper to look at the time, I noticed that I had one missed call and a message on voice mail. My phone was on silent so I hadn't heard the call. Surprisingly, it was from none other than Mr Harry Styles himself.  "Speaking of the devil, I've just received a voicemail from him. Apparently he tried calling me just a few minutes ago", I said to Katie in confusion. It was the middle of the night in Mexico, what the hell was he doing awake? Wanting an answer, I pressed play. I was holding my phone to my ear, but Katie pressed her head against mine and left me no other choice than to let her listen. Harry's voice sounded tired and woozy, like he had had a few too many tequila shots, it was hard to understand a word through his stammer and mumbling. The transcript Apple provided me with helped with that.