Like Clouds Cross Skies

I awake to a sudden depression in the mattress, something digging into my side. I hear the whir of a fan, the incessant clicking of keys.

Lianne has brought her laptop to my bed.

“It's like five in the morning, Li, what are you doing?” I protest, burrowing further into the nest of warmth I've created in the duvet.

“Actually,” she says, “it's nine in the morning.”

I couldn't get to sleep last night. I spent about two hours tossing and turning, my back knotted uncomfortably in every position, my skin burning like I had a fever.

“Why aren't you at work?” I ask her, still refusing to open my eyes. Maybe I can kid my brain into thinking I'm asleep just because my eyes are shut.

“I'm working from home today.”

“Since when do you do that?”

“What?” she says. I repeat the question, shouting the words a little louder into the duvet. “Since we're printing the March issue tomorrow, so I really need to start writing this thing today. Plus I'm seeing Harry later.”

There's a frantic stabbing of the keyboard. Each sound is like someone's knifing my eardrums.

“Well do you have to write it here?” I say.

“I'm keeping you company,” she answers matter-of-factly, like I asked her to do so. Lianne is a morning person and it defies everything I know about her.

The insistent tapping stops abruptly. I can't hear anything but the sound of two sets of lungs inflating and deflating. Then the duvet is thrown from me, a rush of cold air having every hair follicle standing to attention.

I groan, curl into a tighter ball.

“Get out of the foetus position and talk to me,” Lianne says, like a reprimanding mother.

“I'd rather not.”

She starts tugging on my arm, pulling on the limb like she's dragging a sack of spuds. Her tight grip on my skin starts to feel like those Chinese burns everyone did at primary school.

“Lianne, let go,” I tell her, aware of how much I sound like a whiny little kid, but she does as I ask with a heavy sigh.

I grab the covers and pull them over me again, curling up under them. I'm staying in bed till the last possible second.

When I got back to the flat last night, Lianne was already home, Harry's driving faster than the tube. But there was no sign of Harry himself. My oblivious brother tried to ask me what was wrong, but Lianne cut him off before he could put his foot in it. Neither of them bothered me after that.

The room descends into silence. The fan in the laptop thrums. Lianne continues her typing. I can hear the shower running in the bathroom across the hall. It's so quiet I can even hear Nick humming tunelessly. Nothing affects Nick. He gets down about a break-up or an argument for a day or two, and then he's back to his normal self. He can take comfort in the fact that any problem he buries will stay buried. I just worry about mine resurfacing. I don't know why Nick got that good gene and I didn't. The DNA lottery didn't fall in my favour, obviously.

“Why did he say sorry?”

My words hang in the air. I realise that question has been dogging me all night, sat at the edge of my bed, watching me as I tried to sleep. I don't know why Harry apologised. Yeah, he's been a bit of a nuisance, but in the end it's not his fault I got suspended from work; it's not his fault Aaron's wired to act the way he does. Harry's just a pawn in the chess game of my life. And just like I can't make sense of chess, I can't make sense of my life.

Lianne sighs again, stops typing. “I think...” she falters, searching for the right words. “So I know I've only spent a week with him, but I've asked Harry some pretty probing questions. I was surprised at how much he opened up, to be honest. And then I realised why. All week I've been trying to see him as Harry Styles, the nineteen-year-old guy, and the life he leads; not Harry Styles, one fifth of One Direction, and the life he leads in the limelight.” She pauses again, then asks, “Is this making any sense?”

“Yes, actually,” I say. “Keep going.”

“He's used to girls going all giddy in his presence and asking for a picture with him, or batting their false eyelashes at him. You haven't been doing that. Instead, you've been snapping at him and yelling at him. But instead of acting like that because he's just another guy who's got on your bad side, you've been acting like that because Harry Styles, one fifth of One Direction, has been pissing you off. I think it's made him realise that he won't ever just be a normal guy again. And from how he's been answering my questions, I get the impression that.... I'm really not explaining myself well, am I?”

“No, no, I get your gist,” I say, and I do. I drag myself into a sitting position, finally looking at Lianne. “Okay, so what you're saying is that he wants to be treated like a normal nineteen-year-old guy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you've been doing that.”

“Yep.”

“But I haven't.”

“No.”

“I've been getting pissy with him because he's Harry Styles of One Direction, and his fame has been making things hard for me. It's got me in the shit with Aaron and it's got me in the tabloids.”

“Exactly,” Lianne says. “I think... I think he apologised because just by being himself, he's caused trouble for you. Like... his fame defines him. And from what he's been saying, he doesn't want that to be the case. He wants people to like him and hate him because of things Harry the normal guy has said and done, not because of the fact he's in One Direction.”

I groan and let my head loll back against the headboard. “Too much thinking for nine in the morning.”

“Tell me about it,” Lianne grumbles. “At least you don't have to write this article before the deadline tonight. Not to mention I'm actually out tonight.”

That's how I've been treating him, isn't it? Treating him like shit because his fame has been getting in the way of things. A fame which he can't control. My chest constricts. Now I can add guilt to my list of crappy feelings I'm experiencing this morning. Guilt, anger, resentment, self-pity. I know I've been unnecessarily harsh on Harry; I knew it while I was doing it. He just appeared at the wrong time, and that's not his fault. Now he just needs to step back, let me sort out my life, because while he's still around the storm of fame follows him and drenches me.

He's been nothing but nice to me, and there's an emotion I can't place flitting about in my chest.

“Are you seeing Harry later then?” I ask Lianne.

She's typing away on her laptop again, tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she concentrates. It's a few seconds till she speaks. “Yeah. One Direction are on Alan Carr Chatty Man tonight. I'm going along.” She looks up at me then, grinning. “I think I'm gonna wee myself with excitement.”

“Not in my bed, please.”

“Seriously, though, I might cry while I'm there. Next week they're on The Graham Norton Show, and I told Harry how me and you have tried to get tickets to be in the audience before, and he said he should be able to get us some.” She lets out a shrill squeal, and I can't deny my heart is beating a little faster.

Lianne and I watch The Graham Norton Show every Friday religiously. Sometimes we don't even care about any of the celebrities on it that week, it's just that Graham Norton is too funny.

“Still angry with Harry now?” Lianne asks, nudging me.

My face warps into a smile. I shrug. “Maybe not as much.”

She laughs, a strand of her dark blonde hair falling into her face. “Just be nice to the boy until next Thursday, deal?”

“Deal.”

Well I wasn't planning on being nasty to him anyway, but who knows what I might say if Harry turns up in the wrong place at the wrong time again. I might just stay in my flat till Thursday. I am suspended from work, after all.

The flat intercom buzzes, long and loud.

“Shotgun not going.” Lianne practically trips over the words in her effort to get them out.

“Bagsy not going,” I say.

The intercom buzzes again. Neither of us moves.

“Nick!” I yell. I can hear the shower has stopped.

“What?” he shouts back.

“The door!”

“I'm in a towel!”

“Don't care; door!”

“Kailey!” he protests.

“It's your flat!” I answer, and Lianne smirks. He shouldn't be sharing a flat with two girls who can pull the 'your flat' excuse on him all the time. I don't know why it makes him do what we want, but it works every time.

After a second, the intercom buzzing for a third time, the bathroom door opens and we hear Nick's heavy steps trudging down the hallway.

I can just make out his muffled, exasperated, “Yes?”

The reply from the other end is indistinguishable, but Nick answers with, “Alright mate, come on up.”

Another buzz as Nick lets the visitor in downstairs. He waits for whoever it is to make it up here, and once there's a knock on the door, he opens it, his greeting being, “Sorry about the towel, my sister and her insufferable friend are sloths who won't even answer the door.”

How am I related to that thing?

The other person laughs, their voice low. Must be one of Nick's mates.

But then my brother shouts, his footsteps heading back to the bathroom, “Lianne, you have a visitor!”

Lianne pulls a face, but whoever it is suddenly pipes up, “Oh, I'm here to see Kailey, actually.”

Lianne claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Is that...?” I begin.

She nods and whispers, “Harry.”

I sigh. “Talk of the devil.”

The first thing I did today was talk about Harry, now I have to talk with him.

Then I start panicking. “Shit, Lianne, I'm not dressed.” I wipe a hand across my forehead. It comes back shiny. “I need to wash. I didn't even shower last night.”

Lianne leans closer and sniffs dramatically. She wrinkles her nose at me. “You do smell a bit pungent, not gonna lie.”

Footsteps start down the hallway.

“Uh, hang on a minute!” I call out.

The footsteps stop. “Are you wearing boys clothes again?” he answers. I can hear the smile in his voice. Even after I shouted at him last night, he still has the audacity to crack a joke like nothing happened.

But isn't it better this way?

“Yes, as a matter of fact, now... just wait there.”

I scramble off the bed, about to dash across the hallway to the bathroom, hoping I'll just be a blur of colour to Harry, when I realise Nick is in there.

“Nick's in the bathroom,” I hiss at Lianne, and her mouth twists as she tries to stop a smile from forming. She fails horrifically.

If Harry is here to apologise again or something, he's still retained his excellent bad timing.

“Yep, boys clothes.”

I whip around. Harry is leaning round the doorway, smirking as per usual.

“Do you mind?” I snap. I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, hot and pulsing.

I know for a fact I look worse than that time Harry found me crashed out on the sofa, and I haven't even looked in a mirror yet. I just know.

I can't help it, I feel a swell of anger. I may have promised myself I wouldn't get pissy with him again, but he's the one taking the jip now. I barely know him and he thinks he can just waltz in and play peeping Tom. For all he knew, I could have lied and actually had nothing on.

“Why are you here?” I ask, attempting to keep my voice level. I tell myself it's too early in the morning to be angry.

Oh yeah, there's another thing. What's he doing at my flat at nine o'clock? Shouldn't he be sleeping till midday or something? It's not like he has an office job.

His smirk softens into a smile, and he moves his whole body into the door frame. There's an air of awkwardness about him, and I feel the same. “You know how we talked about owing each other drinks? Well, I thought about it, and seeing as we don't have a good track record when it comes to going out for drinks, I thought I'd take you out for breakfast instead.”

“Breakfast?” That's an odd one. People normally eat out for lunch or dinner, not breakfast.

Harry's eyes flit to Lianne before returning to me. “Lianne said you only eat pop tarts. I thought you could do with a proper breakfast for once.”

I look at the two of them in turn. “Pop tarts are breakfast.”

Lianne rolls her eyes. “No, they're a heart attack in a box.”

Harry chuckles at Lianne's joke, but I sigh. This is the part where I'm meant to make a decision.

Deal or no deal? Well, Noel, I think I'm going to have to go with...

“Fine, breakfast it is then. Just at least let me have a shower first.”

Harry's smile grows. “Alright, sounds like a plan.”

The bathroom door opens, and out steps Nick, fully clothed. He coughs, but I don't miss the word embedded in it. “Date”. I could throttle him. He grins at us all as he vanishes into his room.

This is most definitely not a date. This is me grudgingly accepting a kind offer so as not to hurt anyone else's feelings.

Harry steps aside, and as I disappear into the bathroom he calls out, “Don't be long!”