Damn This Wild Young Heart.

The first time I woke up, Harry’s lips were brushing across the skin of my collarbone. He whispered my name into the skin, lips grazing deliciously as he formed the two syllables.

I shivered and allowed my eyes to flutter open. Harry grinned down at me, looking entirely too happy for how exhausted I felt.

“Time is it?” I groaned, wanting nothing more than to turn over and bury my head back into the pillow (or his chest, whatever) and continue my slumber.

“Noon, which is why I’m waking you up.” He pressed another kiss to my clavicle, before pulling away and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I have to go.”

“Bad choice.” I replied, blinking the grogginess away. I sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to my chest when I realized the level of undress I was still in. We hadn’t bothered to put on clothing, too exhausted to do anything but sleep. “Really questionable decision making skills.”

“I’d like to shower before sound check.” He replied, standing up and padding to the other corner of the room, presumably where his clothes sat.

I’d like to say that I had enough self control to keep my eyes trained on his back, but I didn’t. I whole-heartedly enjoyed the firmness of his ass and the toned muscles of his legs as he slipped his boxer-briefs back on. I may have even smirked a little, giddy with the remembrance of touch.

“Stop staring at my arse.” Harry teased, bending over and reaching for his jeans.

“I would if you would stop sticking it in my face,” I answered coolly, letting my eyes roam to his back. He turned towards me with a smirk, buttoning his pants securely around his waist.

“You have more tattoos than I thought.” I observed, gaze fluttering from the swallows to the smaller doodles by his hipbones. “What exactly does this one mean?” The room was small and Harry had crossed over towards me, so when I reached out a hand, my fingertips grazed the ink.

“Means might as well.” He replied with a cheeky grin, before bringing the t-shirt over his head and pulling it down on his torso.

“And here I thought I was the sassy one.” I muttered, before falling back against the mattress.

I listened dimly as Harry struggled to find his socks and put on his boots, my eyes closed as my body relaxed again. I was only a few moments away from sleep when Harry reached a hand out, caressing it along my neck.

“Afraid I have to go, love.” He whispered, pocketing his phone and wallet from where they sat on my desk.

“No.” I protested, reaching out and grabbing whatever limb was nearest to me, pulling him closer. “Stay.” I curled myself around Harry’s arm, my back hitting his chest as he hovered over me.

“I can’t.” Harry sighed, pressing a kiss to the back of my head as he attempted to extract his arm from my death grip.

I hmphed, but slowly let him have his arm back. He eased the limb out slowly. “Do you have a pen?”

“Desk.” I grunted, word partially muffled into the pillow. Harry pulled away, shuffling about until I heard the distinctive scratch of pen against paper.

“Lola.” I refused to turn over and face him. He let out a laugh and smoothed a hand over my side. “I’ve left instructions for tonight on your desk. Sweet dreams, love.”

I turned over slightly, peeking my eyes open to catch one last glimpse of him.

I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t figure out the right words in the moment. Harry sent me a smile, leaning down one last time to press a kiss against my lips, before heading out the door. I heard the front door close behind him seconds later and let out a breath, burrowing back into the sheets before falling asleep.


The second time I woke up, the sun was glaring through the sheer curtains, my neck was turned in an uncomfortable direction, and Dakota was sitting beside me.

“Time to get up.” She said, pushing against my shoulder.

I groaned slowly, but let my eyes flutter gently, adjusting to the amount of light in the room. Dakota was staring down at me, a large smirk across her face.

“You know, when I told you to jump him, I was kind of kidding. I really didn’t think you’d go for it.”

“How do you know I—,” I started, but Dakota merely looked down at the sheet loosely covering my body. I flushed in embarrassment, instantly regretting my decision to not get dressed earlier.

“Hand me a shirt, will you?” I demanded, struggling to sit up.

Dakota leaned over and plucked a pool of fabric off the floor, handing it over.

“How was it? Is the gossip true? Is Harry Styles a beast in the sack?” She teased as I pulled the loose t-shirt down over my body. I threw off the sheet, stretching my legs before daring to get out of bed.

“I really don’t want to have this conversation without a cup of coffee. I really don’t want to have this conversation at all, actually, but I would at least prefer it with a cup of coffee.”

“I think you’re going to be anxious enough this morning without the added stimulants, actually.” Dakota reasoned, standing up beside me.

“What do you mean by that?”

Dakota hesitated for a moment, her usual calm demeanor stuttering as she stared over at me. Immediately, I thought of the worst.

“What am I missing?” I asked Dakota suddenly. “Was there a natural disaster? Did someone die? Was there a major world event I apparently missed out on?”

“Oh, there was a major world event,” Dakota started wryly, wringing her hands together as she reached for my laptop. “And you were there to enjoy it. I’m going to make some coffee.” She reached over and grabbed my computer, tucking it under her arm before heading towards the door. “Put on some underwear and meet me in the kitchen.”

I stared after her in confusion, before heading towards the laundry basket in the corner and digging around for a pair of clean knickers. After successfully finding both a pair of panties and a pair of boxer shorts, I pulled my hair up into a bun and headed towards the kitchen.

I desperately wanted a shower, the previous day’s makeup and a thin sheen of sweat soaked into my skin, but coffee and Dakota were more important.

My laptop was sitting on the make-shift breakfast nook when I walked into the room. The apartment was too small for an actual dining room table, so Dakota’s aunt had substituted with a desk from Ikea and two small stools. I slid into one of the stools just as Dakota slid a cup of coffee towards me.

I sent her a grateful smile and took a sip, the jolt of caffeine and warmth making me feel better. It was mid-afternoon in San Francisco, the sun that I had watched rise earlier already hidden behind layers of clouds.

Dakota let me get through half a cup of coffee before the assault started.

“What happened last night?” She questioned, body already posed for attack. “I mean, I know some of it, obviously, but please fill in the blanks! What time did you guys get here? Because when I got in after nine both of you were already passed out. How was the sex? Are you planning on seeing him again? What’s going on?”

I stared at her blankly as she continued to fire questions at me, thinking it was probably best that she get them out now then when I tried to actually explain anything to her.

“Lola!” She slapped her hand down on the counter when I didn’t answer her immediately.

“What?” I grumbled grumpily at her tone, eyes narrowing slightly at the look she was giving me.

“Are you going to start explaining yourself anytime soon? Because like, I’ve seen the pictures, but I want you to fill in the blanks.” She demanded, eyes wide in exasperation.

“We hung out—,” I began with a sigh, already gearing up to give her an incredibly condensed version of our night when I stopped short. “Wait, what?” I backtracked. “What do you mean you’ve seen the pictures?”

Dakota looked confused. “The pictures Harry posted?” She recalled, furrowing her brows at me.

“I don’t – I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

Dakota looked straight at me, her eyes searching my face for a moment before her entire expression fell.

“You don’t know?” She asked, her voice gentle.

“I don’t know what?”

Dakota didn’t answer, quickly striding over next to me and opening up my laptop. I stared at her as she brought it to life and typed something into the search engine.

In a matter of seconds, she was pushing the screen over to me.


If you follow the curly-haired heartthrob on any of his social medias (and you so do, so stop lying to yourself) then you probably caught the string of tweets and photos Styles sent out into the web-verse last night, all depicting a very fun and spontaneous evening out in San Francisco. While the photos themselves are interesting, they went viral in minutes because of what, or more particularly who, was in them. Does Styles have a new lady friend? The boyband member is no stranger to being photographed with lovely women, but now the green-eyed lad is posting photos on his own social media website! Cue the heart-shattering screams of millions of teenage girls across the globe.

The first photo of the night, posted around 11:13 PM PST (photo below) gives us our first glimpse of the brunette, who is seen in the photo eating a slice of pizza, pizza sauce smeared ever-so-attractively above her lip. The photos just keep getting more and more interesting from there, from posing with drag queens to (apparent) empty museum haunts. Perhaps more devastating for fans than the actual photos are the captions, which range from light-hearted to downright adorable mush (“I think I understand art now.”?? Clean up on aisle thirteen we are all puddles of jealous goo.)

Now we’re all full of a number of questions: who is this girl? How does she know Harry? And perhaps most pressing – is Mr. Styles off the market?

We’re hard at work trying to find the answers to these questions, but for now, all we can do is religiously stare at these photos and make our own assumptions.

UPDATE 8:40 AM

At 8:32 AM PST on this Wednesday morning the gossip-inducing photos have been taken down. Whether it was management’s doing or if loverboy had a change of heart, we don’t know, but fear not – we’ve screen capped these photos (and the comments! Claws are out!) for your visual perusal.

UPDATE 9:30

We promised you information and as always, we deliver. After some intense Internet-ing, we’ve discovered the identity of mystery girl! The brunette in the photos is eighteen-year-old Lola Knox, an art history major at the University of California, Berkeley. Knox and Styles were spotted together at a party early in the evening, as well as on Baker Beach across the Golden Gate Bridge much, much later the next morning. Photos were snapped of the two snuggling up on the shore and then escaping in a taxi only minutes earlier. A quick Google-search of Lola Knox brings up her Facebook (sadly, private) and her Twitter (link here), which is open to the public and full of hilarious gems. News around our office is that this girl is making it hard to dislike her, but anyone hanging around with our precious Styles is probably deserving of at least one jealous glare.

While we search more into the life of this college student, we’ll leave you with a few screen-capped Twitter gems.

Lola Knox (@lalalola) whoa whoa whoa I bought a fan from bed bath & beyond and it came with a remote. have I reached BEYOND at last?

Lola Knox (@lalalola) i kinda hate people who compare themselves to celebrities but I compare myself to Kirk from Gilmore Girls does that mean I hate myself??

Lola Knox (@lalalola) one day I will explain flea markets to my children as a “IRL etsy, if you will”

The pictures Harry had apparently posted were underneath the article, pulled directly from his account with the captions underneath.

The first one I had already seen – the pizza smear was as unattractive as ever under my chin. Some I remembered taking – the pose with Amber Alert, smiles wide as ever, but in most of them I was completely unaware. There was a picture of me standing in the middle of the empty MoMA, my profile only visible as I stared up at a set of photographs, the caption underneath indeed reading, “I think I understand art now.” The others were little snapshots of the rest of our night – one taken from the top of Telegraph Hill, my curved back visible along with the houses and trees; Amanda and I leaned against the counter at the bakery; the last taken from the inside of the taxi, a shot of the back of my head as I stared out into the bay.

Underneath the Instagram photos were images of Harry and I on Baker Beach, first huddled together watching the sunrise and then in various stages of distress as we trekked to the car, Harry hovering over me protectively. There were hundreds of comments underneath, some of them nice (she’s pretty!, good one styles, she seems funny, etc.) but the majority were inquisitive and downright mean. (of everyone in San Francisco he chooses someone as plain as her?, um ew harry you should’ve passed, at least taylor swift was pretty, etc.)

I couldn’t force myself to exit the browser and close down the laptop, because when something awful happens, you don’t shut the laptop quickly, turn off the phone, and block out the world. I was already logging into Twitter when Dakota was grabbing towards the computer, looking at me warily.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She asked gently, hand hovering over mine.

“No.” I replied shortly. “But I need to know anyway.”

Overnight, I gained more Twitter followers than there were people enrolled in my entire university. There were direct messages in my inbox and more @replies than I possibly could’ve read in one sitting.

“Holy shit.” I breathed as I read the first of the replies, eyes widening at the sudden influx of insults and death threats. I was trying to take them with a grain of salt, most of the generic insults nothing compared to the shit I had to deal with in high school, but a few people knew how to hit me where it hurt.

“Lola,” Dakota said warningly as I continued to scroll, eyes catching on each slut, whore, and tramp as I passed.

I was ready to do more hurtful investigating (check Harry’s twitter, search my name on Tumblr, read more heinous gossip articles) when Dakota snatched the laptop away.

“Hey!” I yelped, already reaching for it back as she closed the lid and held it to her chest.

“Reading them isn’t going to make you feel any better.” She supplied, fixing me with a knowing look. “Just forget about it.”

“Like a thousand people just called me a slut on the internet. How am I supposed to forget about that?”

“Because they don’t know you. They’re fans and they think that they’re entitled to an opinion on every aspect of Harry’s life, women included.” She was standing up and stepping away from me, setting the laptop down on the coffee table before turning towards me.

“Lola,” she started again, in the same overly soothing tone I had heard hundreds of times throughout the year, the tone that meant she wanted me to have a serious discussion about my feelings. I covered things up with dry humor and hiding out in my dorm room, believing that if I ran away from the problem long enough it would eventually go away. Dakota was the complete opposite – she wanted to talk everything out, get the feelings wide out in the open, and she was slowly forcing her method onto me.

I wasn’t even sure if I could “talk it out” because I wasn’t even completely cemented in my thoughts and feelings just yet.

“I need to process.” I told her sharply, holding my hand up to interrupt whatever logical tirade she was about to launch. “Let me just – take a shower and process.”

She looked reluctant to let me go, the apprehension clear on her face, but I didn’t give her much time to protest before I was heading towards the bathroom, ready to shrug off the clothing and immerse myself under scalding water.

I’d made many life decisions in the shower, head tucked underneath burning water as I contemplated pros and cons in my head. I decided to go to Berkeley in the shower of my childhood home. The showerhead in the communal bathroom in my freshman hall at Berkeley gave me the strength to audition for the spring play, ask a boy out to coffee, and settle a dispute between my hall mates.

The water pressure in the apartment was a little lackluster, but the temperature was scalding. I was lathering my hair up with shampoo and trying to reconcile all things re: Harry in the filing system of my brain when the door opened. I peeked a head out of the curtain to see Dakota sitting on the toilet seat. I ignored her and went back to shampooing.

“We don’t have to talk about it all right now,” she called over the water. “But just give me some type of indicator on how you’re feeling. Just one word.”

Trying to condense everything going on in my head was harder than spilling all of my guts, but after a few moments of contemplation and a new layer of conditioner on my head I finally answered. “Overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed.”

Dakota let out a hum, the same noncommittal noise she perfected when she decided to major in psychology.

“Because?” She prompted and I rolled my eyes, because even though she had said she wouldn’t make me talk about it, she would. Her self-restraint was even weaker than mine.

I let out a heavy sigh, resting my forehead against the shower wall. The water was beating down my back, massaging the tense muscles as I thought. There was tightening behind my eyes, the tell-tale signs of a crying session somewhere in my future, but I still sniffed and attempted to answer.

“I just had probably the best night of my life and now it’s been to shit.” I finally replied, speaking quickly so she wouldn’t register the cracks in my voice.

“Why?” Dakota asked softly. “Why has it gone to shit?”

“Because everyone knows! It was supposed to be this great thing and it was mine and now everyone knows.”

“Just because people know about it doesn’t make it any less special.” Dakota reasoned. I heard the clink of her mug hitting the counter.

“I asked him not to post pictures.” I rebuttled, refusing to acknowledge her reasoning. “I specifically asked him not to and he did.”

“Okay.” She acknowledged. “Yes. That was stupid and he shouldn’t have done that, but he did take them down.”

“After everyone saw them!” I cried, jerking my head away from the wall to look at her, pulling part of the shower curtain aside. “Does it matter that he took him down after all the damage is done?”

“I don’t know.” Dakota shrugged, looking up at me pointedly. “Does it?”

I closed the shower curtain again, glaring at her through the plastic. We both remained silent as I finished my shower. I could hear her sipping away at her coffee as I scrubbed yesterday’s makeup off my face. After standing under the water for longer than I should have, I turned it off and pulled the towel off of the rack, wrapping it around my body.

“Just say it.” I finally snapped as I stepped out of the shower. “Whatever it is that you’re just dying to tell me, just say it.”

“I think you’re overreacting.” She said, setting her mug down and staring up at me. “You’re upset that Harry shared your night with the world, which is valid and fine and I get that, but I think you’re getting irrationally upset over it. So he made a mistake? It doesn’t wipe out the fact that you just spent what you deemed ‘the best night of your life’ with him. It’s early and you’re overwhelmed and I get that, but don’t throw yourself into a tizzy just because he messed up a little and now you’re getting some flack for it. If anything, you should’ve expected this, spending the day with a pop star and all. I’m not saying you deserve what people are saying, but I am saying you probably should’ve anticipated the backlash. You did decide to go out in public with him.”

I wrapped the towel tighter around myself, clutching it to my chest. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She echoed as I turned from her and headed back to my room.

“I mean, you obviously think that I’m just being a drama queen and completely overreacting, so okay. I’m being stupid. I’ll go back to being giddy that I just fucked Harry Styles. Okay.” I bit out as I grabbed another pair of clean underwear and started pulling them on.

“I didn’t say you that you’re a drama queen—,”

“You didn’t have to.” I snapped. “It was pretty much implied. Sorry for being such a temperamental bitch.”

“Oh my god Lola do not even start.” She seethed. “Now you’re putting words in my mouth! I just meant that you should’ve let your anger overshadow how great of a night you had! I don’t even know why you’re so upset in the first place!”

“Because now the entire world thinks I’m a slut, Dakota!” I thundered back, aggressively hooking my bra behind my back and twisting it around on my body. “And I can’t exactly tell them that they’re wrong because I slept with Harry after knowing him for like, ten hours!”

I twisted away from her, throwing a tank top over my body and pulling jeans up my legs. My hair was a ratted, tangled mess atop my head and if I didn’t start pulling a brush through it soon it was never going to dry properly.

I was blinking back tears again, trying to think of any type of distraction to pull my mind away. I was wiping away a stray tear and reaching for my hairbrush when Dakota reached over and pulled at my shoulder, forcing me to face her.

“That is the most fucked up thing I think I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.” She snapped, her words sharp as she glared at me. “You practically rioted when Dustin called Lexi a slut last year for sleeping with someone a week after they broke up and now you have consensual sex with someone that you like very much and you can’t even give yourself the same courtesy?”

“It different.” I protested, shaking my head at her. “Lexi actually knew the guy that she had sex with and Dustin is an asshole.”

“No, it’s not different. If you feel bad because you think it was too soon to have slept with Harry, fine, whatever, but feel bad because of your own personal standards, not because some teenage girls on twitter called you a slut out of jealousy.”

“I don’t—,” I wanted to defend myself, yell and scream and try to justify that I was right, but I wasn’t. Dakota relaxed when the fight dropped out of me, pressing her hand now soothingly to my shoulder. I sniffed in an attempt to hold back the tears, but my face crumbled anyway.

“You are not a slut.” Dakota soothed. “Slut is such a stupid word anyway, but it doesn’t apply to you. You’re an adult and you had sex with another adult. There is nothing wrong with that, okay?”

She looked at me straight on until I nodded at her, gulping down a large breath of air.

“Now go brush your hair.” She instructed, her voice now much gentler. “ I’ll make something to eat and then you can tell me all about your night, okay? Just calm down and we’ll talk.”


Brushing my hair out and having a few moments alone made leaps for my rationality. Dakota made a frozen pizza and we sat on the couch, legs pretezeled as we faced each other. She rehashed the events of the party (more champagne, a couple falling over while having sex in the hammock, the uproar that Harry Styles brought to the party) and I recounted my night (drag queens, the amazingness of the empty MoMA, the croissants from the bakery).

When we got to the sex, Dakota seemed a little hesitant to ask me about it, but as I recalled the events of last night, I felt more giddy than guilty. From the beginning of the night to the end, I had been more than happy, verging on ecstatic. We had moved fast, going from acquaintances to friends to maybe something more than that in the span of a night. I felt a little hesitant about the entire situation, yes, but I didn’t feel bad.

I didn’t regret offering to give Harry a tour of the city. I didn’t regret holding his hand or kissing him or doing more than kissing him. If anything, the only regret I had in the past twelve hours was yelling at Dakota and acting like the world was ending because someone on Twitter didn’t like me.

“Do you feel better?” Dakota asked after we had been lounging on the couch for well over an hour, the pizza long since devoured.

I nodded and sent her a grateful smile. “Much. I was overwhelmed and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She replied with a shrug. “It’s my job to call you out on your bullshit just as you call me out on mine. Now I’m looking forward to a lazy night in and recovery. Do you want to order a movie?”

I opened my mouth to suggest we watch anything but a romantic comedy when I suddenly remembered Harry’s departure earlier in the morning, his scribbling down of something on my desk.

“Hold on.” I scooched Dakota’s feet off of my lap and went to the room. Harry had scrawled a note on the back of a receipt, the ink scratched into the thin paper.


He scribbled his number on the bottom of the paper.

Dakota looked up at me curiously when I came back in the room, receipt clutched in my hand.

“What’s up?” She asked, dividing her attention from the channels that she was flicking through and the paper in my hand.

“Wanna go see One Direction in San Jose tonight?” I asked, handing the paper over for her to scan.

She looked the note over briefly before shutting off the TV. “Do you want to go?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“Well, then.” She jumped up off the couch, patting my cheek as she passed me. “Let’s go get your man.”