Code of Ethics

I should have known that sneaking around with Harry would have led to no positive consequences. I should have been cynical enough to know that nothing truly stays hidden in the world, no matter how much we want it to. Who were we to think that we were sneakier than the paparazzi, the vultures that always seemed to find out every sliver of dirty laundry in every celebrity’s life and expose it to the world? It was only a matter of time before they discovered us, and after a month and a half, they did.

HARRY STYLES, EXPOSED, it declared over a picture of Harry walking out of my flat building, in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head, his pants still undone. He’d been late for an interview, and he’d been rushing. He’d gotten sloppy, not having slept much the night before for obvious reasons, and he’d been distracted.

Underneath, there were two smaller pictures encompassed in bubbles, one of him kissing Meri full on the mouth at an award’s show, the other of him looking up with a small smile on his face, my blurry form in the corner of the shot and clearly in his sight.

The relationship that never ended! The betrayal! Meri River’s reaction!

I swallowed and threw the money into the hand of the man who worked at the kiosk. He exclaimed in surprise as the coins tumbled to his feet, but I didn’t stop to apologize. What I needed to do was read what the reporter had written about us, how much they knew, and call Harry to let him know before he got caught off-guard.

And, according to the article, they knew about everything. They’d been taking pictures and stalking us since the beginning, trying to gather up as much evidence for the reveal until their case was sealed so solidly that Harry’s whole team wouldn’t be able to cover anything up. Ever.

The only thing they didn’t know, it seemed, was that his relationship was Meri was fake. Even Meri herself had played along, giving a statement through her rep that was something pathetic like, “I had no idea about the secret relationship, and I’m really hurt that Harry would do something like this to me.”

Yeah, well, that picture of him kissing you isn’t exactly making me feel like a princess. I rolled my eyes and kept myself from ripping her picture out of the magazine as I turned the page, which just had more pictures of Harry arriving at or leaving my place, always with a small smirk on his face like he knew something no one else did.

I swallowed and dialed Harry’s number quickly, only to get no answer. I left him a short voicemail, hopeful that he’d call back in a minute, just like he always did. Maybe he was in the bathroom or finishing up a talk show or doing a mic check. Something that wouldn’t take long.

But after five minutes of staring at the pictures in my lap, I called again. And again. And again and again and again until I lost count of how many times my thumb had dialed the familiar numbers, my muscles cramping, and my heart deflating.

I finally got up to walk back to my apartment, rolling up the magazine and shoving it into the purse I had, feeling marginally satisfied as the shiny pages tore and crinkled with the force.

When I made it back to my flat, I threw my purse on the glass coffee table Harry had bought me, flopping onto the couch I’d found on the side of the road in a nearby suburb to be thrown away, and placed my phone next to me.

Three hours passed without me hearing a word from Harry. Which meant that he was avoiding me, of course. There was no way he’d not look at his phone for that long or that he’d go so much time without checking in with me.

My stomach started to ache with anxiety as I dialed his number again, hearing it ring, ring, ring in my ear.

Finally, I heard his deep voice. “Tara, I can’t talk right now.”

“But there’s a story-” I started to explain, but he quickly cut me off with a tone so sharp and brusque that I almost had to wonder if it was really him.

“I know. That’s what this whole thing is about. I’m in a meeting with my management, and they’re trying to figure up how to clean up this whole fucking mess.” I could hear the exasperation he felt, but the second I opened my mouth to comfort him, he said, “So just leave me alone. You’re making this worse right now. I’ll call you later.”

I wanted to pout at the fact that he’d snapped at me, but I understood that he was stressed. The lord knew that I’d be a mess if my world had been ripped out from under me like his had been, and I had to give him his space. And try not to hate Meri for making things worse for him.

After all, it wasn’t her fault. She had to do the same thing, save her ass in order to save her reputation. I understood. It was even possible that she’d never said those words, that they’d been planted by her representation to make it seem like she was heartbroken. Maybe she was relieved that the whole act was over, that she could associate herself with someone who wasn’t as self-destructive, media-wise, as Harry Styles.

I hit my head against the back of the sofa and waited for Harry to call again, switching on the telly and letting the sounds of some shitty reality show ease me to sleep until I had to go to work.

And for the next week and a half, I sat around and waited for Harry to call, just like the stereotypical teenage girl sat in her room and waited for the boy she fancied to set up a meeting. And just like that dumb boy, Harry stayed silent, keeping me on the edge of my seat.

I kept telling myself that there was no way he would be angry at me, since it wasn’t my fault we’d been found out. In all the pictures, they showed him, and I had always laid low if we ran out somewhere we thought was private, not standing too close to him and give the cameras something to question. It was just a matter of time, and we’d been caught. That was it.

So if he wasn’t angry, then why wasn’t he calling? The mystery haunted me almost constantly as I struggled through my schoolwork and real work. Toward the end, I’d been so preoccupied that I almost fell during my routine, and my boss had screamed at me so hard backstage afterward that the veins popped out of his forehead and his spit couldn’t be contained in his mouth.

Then, finally, two weeks after I found the magazine, I got the call. But the only thing the voice said was, “I’ll be there in ten.”