Body Paint (Harry Styles AU)

**** sequel to Note To Self.

Paint my skin with yours, make me new. Make me beautiful, make me art. Make me whole.

A runaway, some would say. New York City, big, noisy, and filled with so much opportunity one could get lost in it all. Harry finds himself sleeping in past noon in southern Manhattan when he escapes home in a desperate attempt to discover himself, and to get a true shot at love with a strawberry blonde that, sometimes, still wants nothing to do with him. In a sequel to Note To Self, Harry struggles to push himself into true adulthood after spending a lifetime never once being left to figure things out on his own. With sleepless nights from too much city light and noise, spending too much time indoors, he finds himself frozen in time when it becomes obvious he'd left home to pursue a future that doesn't exist in a big city. Pouring piping hot cups of espresso for tired NYU students and serving New York's most delicious blueberry muffins, he becomes complicit with merely existing alongside someone who, still, does not love him back, and eventually, even that isn't enough to make him feel whole.

This is the story of how a stubborn, hotheaded green eyed girl learns to share, and how Harry learns it's okay to be selfish.

"Maybe we'll grow, maybe we'll learn, and maybe it'll be okay, but it won't be home. Home is comfortable. We aren't here to be comfortable."

Twitter // @hydratedharries

Written: May 2019 - June 2020