Gotta Be You.

Harry flipped through the magazine for the third time, finally getting sick of it and slamming it shut. He pushed his hands through his greasy hair before looking up to the TV, where the “One Thing” video was playing silently. He grabbed the remote and clicked off the TV, tossing it to the side.

It had been a year since Tanner left and yet, he still couldn’t manage to get her off his mind. Days like these were the hardest, when the rest of the boys were off with their girlfriends and he was left alone, staring at an empty flat that reminded him so much of the girl he loved.

After months of searching for Tanner, Harry gave up. He knew that if Tanner didn’t want to be found, she would keep it that way. The thing about Tanner was, she was mysterious. She had no family, no friends, nothing. She flinched when you got to close to her and she trusted no one. Growing up in the foster system did that to a person. Harry was one of the lucky ones though. He managed to sneak his way into her heart and in a matter of time, he knew her better than she knew herself.

Pushing himself up from the table, Harry grabbed the rest of his beer before walking back to his room, where he fell like a log onto his bed. Not even caring that he dropped the bottle, he reached over and pulled open his bedside table, retracting a pair of panties and a bra from the drawer. He held them in his hands, like he did every night, feeling the soft lace and silk. They were the only things she left behind when she left, taking everything, even his favorite sweatshirt.

He put the cloth to his face and closed his eyes, breathing in her fading scent. He knew it was killing him to remember her; almost every night, he practically drank himself into an alcohol-induced coma. He didn’t care. He missed her. He missed everything about her. From the way her nose scrunched up when she laughed to the way that her pink lips always tasted of cherries.

-----

Unlike Harry, Tanner had managed to push the boy to the farthest parts of her mind that
even she was afraid to reach into. Though, sometimes, she did get the sudden urge to ring him just to find out how he was doing.

After leaving London, Tanner moved to the United States, where she settled down in a grungy apartment, just outside of Manhattan. It wasn’t a proper place for her to live, with walls like paper and a rat almost everywhere you looked, but she didn’t mind. She felt like that was what she deserved.

She found a guy too. He wasn’t perfect; in fact, he was far from it. He hit her, he cursed at her, he broke her down but she was so broken already, when his hands came down on her, she was practically numb to the pain.

After he was done with her and he was passed out somewhere, Tanner always took the time to reach into her closet and pull out the sweatshirt that she had taken from Harry the night she left. She held it to her nose and it was like she was back in his arms, him holding her softly as he sang her to sleep.