Fine Line || L.S.

Someone I Don't Want to Be Around

Lily watched as Harry finished the last sip of his glass of wine and then looked at her: "That's it, I'm done."

Lily nodded, not believing him. He rarely drank this much in front of her, but even when he was just barely buzzed, 'that's it' rarely meant he was done.

Lily wanted him to finish his story because she knew he needed to. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, this would give him some sort of closure. It probably wouldn't, but maybe it would clear the air. Or maybe it would make him do something about it.

"So did you guys sell your house?"

Harry nodded, "We sold the house in London. That's the house with the mattress." He smiled sadly. "He spends most of his time in London now. I think we both still have stuff in the house here, we never really moved out."

"You didn't sell the house here in LA?" Lily asked, surprised.

Harry shook his head, "Louis told me he would sell the London one and I could sell the LA one, but I didn't want to, so I didn't. He never asked me twice about it."

"So, you guys are not together, barely talking," Lily recapped, "so what next? Anything? Is that the end?"

Harry looked at her, "Well, he wrote Miss You, and then, much later, of course, Don't Let It Break Your Heart. He never reached out to me to listen to them as I did with my first album, I heard them on my own. I think they're both about me."

"He hasn't told you?" Lily asked.

Harry shook his head, "We don't really talk. I never doubted Miss You, but for a while, I was unsure about Don't Let It Break Your Heart. He and Eleanor had a place in New York, and I know there were genuine feelings there. But then, I remembered the Valentine's Day trip we took when we were like, 17 and 19.

"We stayed at this beautiful hotel, in this huge suite that looked over the city, and I had left my journal under the bed, and by the time I realized, we were in London and the hotel couldn't find it, so it was gone.

"That journal had the beginning of our relationship in it—all my writings from when we met and fell in love and first got together. I was almost horrified that I had lost it at the time, and the loss only feels greater now.

"It kind of feels like it never happened sometimes."

Lily looked at Harry as he spoke his sadness into space, not looking at her, but looking somewhere deep into the fire.

"So, that's how I knew," Harry said. "I left a piece of my heart there, for sure. It felt too specific."

Harry paused, smiling without humour. "I never called him. I loved every single but could never call him. I would get drunk instead, and then try not to think about him."

Harry looked away from the fire for the first time in a while and met Lily's eyes. "That's it. That's the story."

Lily's face contorted, confusion sprawled across it, "That's it?"

Harry nodded.

"You guys haven't talked since... over a year ago?"

Harry nodded.

"God, Harry, I had no idea," Lily told him.

Lily didn't know where the story was heading, and she didn't know why she expected closure. Why would there be closure? This was real life. This wasn't a fairy tale. She felt the most deep-seated sense of disappointment. She couldn't believe Harry hauled around this shit, all the time. She couldn't believe he had been so in love, and then not.

Harry shrugged, smiling, "It's ok. How would you have an idea?"

"Do you want to talk to him again?" Lily asked.

Harry shrugged again, "I don't know."

Lily kept her eyes on him, wanting an answer, "How often do you think about him?"

"A lot."

"How much."

"Every day. Most hours."

The way he said it, the matter-of-factness of it, made Lily realize how much of his reality it wasn't. It wasn't sad to Harry, it was life.

The two sat in silence, until Lily said quietly, "Harry, I know you're my boss, and I don't want to sound rude."

Harry laughed and shook his head, "Lily, you're not sounding rude at all."

"But you need to talk to Louis," she stated. "I know that's easy for me to say since I wasn't the one in love with him, but I don't think you can live your life like this anymore."

Harry nodded, his eyes becoming glossy.

"Just call him. Call him when I leave. It's still early, it's only 9. He's still up."

"What if he's in London?" Harry asked, genuinely.

"Then it will go to voicemail," Lily told him. "He went to voicemail last night. He wants to talk to you."

Harry nodded and smiled at his friend. "Thank you for listening."

Lily, with a light in her eyes, maybe a painful one, said, "Of course."

"Lily," he said, quietly, as if it was his epilogue. "Don't tell anyone, ok?"

The words broke Lily in two, not because she was planning on telling anyone, but because he still couldn't have full disclosure with it all. How to live like that, she pondered, how to even survive.

Harry walked her out to her car in the cool LA night, hugging her and watching her drive out the gate.

His pouring out, his reanimation of this pain, left him feeling more confused, more conflicted, and drunker than he had been in a long time.

He wasn't sure if he was still in love with Louis. He didn't know if Louis was still in love with him. He thought maybe it was just because he was drunk, or maybe it was because he was lonely. Maybe he didn't really feel like this.

But beneath every maybe there is a definite. And it could not be ignored. The definite was that he needed to call him. Tonight. To not think about it too much, to not become obsessed with the notion of it, but to just do it.

He picked up his phone.