Wanderlust

It felt almost disorientating to find myself back in London, in my apartment, on my large white sofa. It was as though Paris hadn’t happened, like it had been a perfect dream. But it wasn’t a dream, that much I was sure. For one, I had received the confirmed prints of my Vogue pictures, the ones they had chosen to publish with the article, as well as the one for the cover. One in particular had caught my eye, a photo of myself sitting in Jardin du Luxembourg Park with the enchanting fountain as my backdrop. My head was tilted only slightly, my waves of hair falling over one shoulder as my eyes crinkled with my smile. I was smiling at Harry, I knew. It had been the very last picture Jamison Lange had taken of me before deciding we had finished and I was entirely happy that the photograph had made the cut.

Speaking of Harry, he was true to his word and ended up transporting himself back to London by car. I believe Kara’s words were something close to “absolutely not” when I had suggested I travel with him instead of flying with her, which I didn’t bother arguing with because I was still slightly positive that she was behind Harry’s surprise visit in the first place.

Also, I wasn’t in a very argumentative mood once Harry and I arrived back at Hotel le Bristol, having to say our goodbyes fairly quickly in the confines of my bedroom. With the promise to reunite on home ground - and a few very long kisses - we parted, and I was immediately jetted off to Charles de Gaulle where Kara and I boarded Flight 2213 straight to London, England.

However, Harry and I hadn’t reunited as we had hoped. It had come to my attention that I had been rather ignorant to the fact that Harry was a very busy person. For the time that I had been in London, and known him at all for that matter, he had always been available to me. Whether that be coincidence or not, it had made me accustomed to just popping by or calling whenever I wanted a chat. And now, as I sat in my very quiet apartment with the television playing a muted re-run of Scrubs, I found myself bored and wanting to converse with my boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

Just thinking the word brought an irregular thump to my heart. It was still a strange concept to me, an official relationship. I was rather thankful that despite being noticed in Paris quite a lot, our hands linked and all, no papers had published a photo or article about Harry and I. When I had mentioned this to Kara, all she had said was "yet," before berating me for holding hands with Harry in public before consulting her.

It all felt so long ago, when in reality it had only been a week. One week back in London and I was already going crazy with the silence consuming my household.

Not even William was here to distract me with an argument or two. He was out; God knows where doing God knows what. I still felt that bubble of rage thinking back to our heated argument and those words he had shared with that girl. Paloma had advised me to discontinue the use of her name after I had caught her up on the event; a very long phone call spent under the covers of my bed with a bag of Doritos.

Paloma had also told me to tell ‘Curly’ that he had “taken his sweet time,” but I instead told her to shut up.

Speaking with my best friend while she sunbathed on location in Queensland had me feeling entirely bittersweet. I loved talking to her, but just the sound of her voice had me itching to book a flight back home. I hadn’t spoken with my parents in weeks, only tweeting back and forth pathetically throughout our days. With my brother constantly away, leaving me in our large flat all alone and Kara now back in our hometown of Sydney, I was feeling more homesick than ever. I had visited the studio overbearingly, no doubt annoying Michael with my constant updates and requests for playbacks. He continued to assure me that everything was fine and that, despite my efforts, coming into the booth five seperate times a day wasn’t going to help at all.

Just as I was letting my mind wander uselessly, thinking of everything that was getting me down, the one person that very often lifted my spirits decided to send me a message.

My phone beeped and buzzed from its spot in my lap, alerting me immediately and displaying a text reading ’Hellooo beautiful, are you busy at all? Xx’ which brought a rather massive smile to my face as I hoped it meant what I thought it did.

’Not at all babe, you?’ I typed back quickly, watching the bubble appear in the screen.

Before my message had even been confirmed as sent, a series of knocks fell against my front door. I didn’t have to check the peephole to know who was on the other side of it, so I called out that it was open and watched as my boyfriend strolled through with his mess of chocolate brown curls hanging about while his eyes stayed glued to his phone.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, peering up with a happy smile on his beautiful face, “good. You’re not busy.”
He proceeded to kick off the brown leather boots from his feet and make his way over until he was falling down onto the couch with his body sprawled out over every inch and his head in my lap. His lids stayed closed, hiding his gleaming green irises, while his lips pouted obviously up toward me. My cheeks stayed hot as I leant down and pecked his awaiting lips quickly, watching the playful frown take over his features as his eyes finally opened.

“Long day?” I asked, my hands falling into his soft locks and running through them absently.
He hummed, his eyes shutting once again, “Very. How’s your day been?”

I didn’t bother to sugar coat how boring my day had been; I woke up, had breakfast, and proceeded to sit on my sofa where I had been for several hours. Hell, I was still in my sweatpants and BOY LONDON sweater. I felt particularly underdressed as Harry laid out, tight jeans and a loose white button down covering his slender frame.

“Sounds perfect, if you ask me.” Harry told me, reaching up to twirl a strand of my hair that was resting against my chest. “Feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

I laughed, leaning down to kiss him quickly once again, “I believe it’s only been one week, Haz.”
Harry’s face lit up instantly as he sat upright and pulled my closer to him by the waist. “Our one week anniversary!”

I laughed loudly as he showered my face with kisses, my cheeks, my chin, my neck.
“Happy one week!” He continued to exclaim, laughing with me until finally he stopped kissing my face and started kissing my lips.

I had only kissed Harry a handful of times - in his flat, in a café, in a hotel room – but, it was still perfect. As his hands tightened on my midsection and my own found themselves lost in his tousled head of hair, I couldn’t imagine myself enjoying anything more than sitting with my boyfriend on a lazy Friday afternoon, kissing him endlessly without a care in the world.

Until, suddenly, I did have a care in the world. And that care was my brother barging through our front door, coat midway off before he halted abruptly with eyes the size of saucers.

I couldn’t remember a time when my face had felt so hot. It was an extremely inconvenient habit I had, growing red in times of intensity. Harry had even mentioned that he liked me more when I was blushing, but I’m sure at that moment, with our limbs still entangled and my brother still glaring right at him, he wasn’t entirely taken by the rose adorning my cheeks.

Harry took it upon himself to hastily remove his tall body from the couch, straightening out his clothes quickly and shaking his hair out as he so often did. I could tell his mind was running wild with possible words to say to my statue of a brother. He took a quick step forward, raising his hand toward Will.
“Y’alright, mate?”

Will didn’t bother to shake Harry’s hand, which no less than infuriated me, and looked past him to stare at me.

“Want to explain yourself here, Lucy?”

Harry lowered his hand and looked back at me with a desperate look sweeping his features. I stood quickly and joined Harry’s side, facing William with nothing but an unimpressed attitude for him to accept.

“No, not really. You’ve met Harry.” I gestured as Will shut the door a little too forcefully.

“Yeah,” my brother confirmed, “he was just leaving?”

I couldn’t believe my ears, nor my eyes when I noticed Harry hesitantly begin to follow William’s suggestion. I grabbed Harry’s arm, pulling him to me pointedly before zeroing my gaze on Will.

“No, he wasn’t.” I said lowly, “You were.”

William looked about as unimpressed as I was, flicking his blue eyes between Harry and I as his arms folded sternly.

“What?”

I walked around him to reopen the large white door, looking at him expectantly.

“You heard me. Get out. Go to that girl’s house, for all I care. Maybe chat about how I’m using you or how I’m getting a bad reputation.”

The room was silent for a very tense minute. Scrubs was still muted and poor Harry looked like a small child watching his parents fight, his hands now buried deep into his pockets as he tried to cast his gaze anywhere but at the two disputing siblings in front of him.

“Shut up, Lucy. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Will spat defensively, looking about the apartment similarly to Harry.

“Get out.” I repeated firmly.

Finally, he gave in. I watched with my face still increasingly hot as my brother exited our flat, muttering and fuming as he went. I shut the door quietly, letting it click shut softly before turning to face the tall Brit embarrassingly.

To my surprise, Harry wasn’t looking around awkwardly anymore. Instead, he held his stare directly on me with an urgent look of sympathy to him.

“I didn’t know it was getting this bad.” He admitted sadly, encasing my body in his hold and kissing my head softly.

I knew Harry was so saddened by Will and I’s argument because of how close he and his sister were. Family meant everything to him, and while it certainly was important to myself, it definitely wasn’t the strongest concept in my life.

I went weeks without a verbal word to either of my parents, and days on end fighting with my lone brother, but Harry spoke to his immediate family daily, loving every minute he could get with them. I was envious of him for that, and I could tell he knew this by how he held me tighter and tighter as tears finally escaped my sore eyes and I was eventually sobbing into his comforting embrace.