Perfect Teeth

Aftermaths are always too quiet. Maybe it’s to make up for the chaos during, maybe it’s to try and bring some peace of mind, but I’ve always found the silence unsettling.

We got up, took a shower, and we didn’t say anything.

Harry’s eyes were somber as we stood underneath the spray, hard water beating down on our backs. My eyes focused on his collarbone, level on the tattoos decorating his chest, as he handed me the exfoliating bar of soap out of the metal tin and grabbed the shampoo to lather on his own hair.

We weren’t touching. Harry’s body was deliberately positioned inches away from my own, and the magnetism was there - the same magnetism was always there, the current that bounced between his skin and mine - but there was something telling me that if I got too close, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant burn. The warning was in his shoulders, the heavy darkness in his eyes, the way his gaze never quite seemed to meet mine.

The entire shower was spent in silence, shallow breathing under beating water, an occasional exchanging of products and switching positions until we were both technically, physically clean. Every time Harry turned away from me I felt the words crawl up the back of my throat, ready to be spat out, to say something, anything to make the inches between us feel less like miles, but I lost the nerve every time he turned back around.

When we finished with our shower, he handed me a towel, dried off, and slipped on a pair of boxer briefs and a t-shirt. I stumbled into the flat to find a pair of clean panties and a sweater, brushing my teeth and piling my hair onto my head, and even though it was barely noon, Harry was closing all of the blinds on the windows and pulling back the duvet on the bed.

I slid in next to him carefully, conscious of the fact that he was huddled to one side of the bed, rather than his usual lounging in the middle.

His inhale matched every one of my exhales. I felt him next to me, his arm barely a space away, but my hand was paralyzed.

We were twenty-two inhales into lying next to each other, and I was trying to time my breaths and slow my breathing and calm my heart rate and mind - when Harry let out a sigh and shook his head, slightly damp hair moving across the pillow.

“I’m sorry.” He croaked out, voice hoarse and thick. “That was - I’m sorry.”

There weren’t words I could give to him then- there weren’t words for a lot of things I needed to say, so I just turned on my side and burrowed my body against his chest, resting my head on his torso and throwing my leg over his. If Harry wasn’t going to initiate the affection, I was going to give it to him anyway. He wasn’t touching me - and Harry always touched me - and I didn’t know if that was out of guilt or remorse or anxiety or something I couldn’t identify, but I didn’t want it to be like that. I needed him to touch me. It wasn’t going to make everything okay, just a simple sweep of his hand along my back, but I didn’t have a plan of action and I wanted to feel like there was an actual connection between us, something to be traced and followed.

He was stiff underneath me, but eventually his hand began to stroke my hair, and his lips lowered to press against my forehead, and we fell asleep like that, Harry leaving apologies in the form of kisses along the crown of my head.

It was the first time we’d slept in clothing in weeks.

When I woke up again, it was well past three in the afternoon, and Harry was gone.



One Direction @onedirection
Violence against anyone should not and will not be tolerated. We are deeply saddened that this has happened and hope that in the future, events like this do not continue.

Nikki Acton @nikkisacton
is Ezra Callil ok has anyone heard from her? @ezracallil @harry_styles @scottcallil @alfierosoff @grimmy @zzbishop we are all really worried

Nick Grimshaw @grimmy
food for thought - just because someone you “love” loves someone else, doesn’t mean you have to hate the person they love

Nick Grimshaw @grimmy
@nikkisacton she’s safe. x

Ezra’s Fam! @ezrasmilkshakeparty
@ezracallil we love and support you!! So much!!! Please come back to us!!!

HARRY FOLLOWED @trashyashley
boo hoo she got spit on, maybe now she’ll know that no one likes her anyway!

Gwen @zarryovernarry
@trashyashley look i don’t even like her that much but those fans crossed the line, stop trying to pretend it’s not an awful thing that happened.



I’d been awake for a little under half an hour, just enough time to wonder where Harry was and how he’d slipped out without my noticing, when he came in. I’d gotten up, peed, put on a pair of pants because it was freezing in my flat, and had just sat down and started a staring contest with my closed laptop when the keys in the door jingled and then the door swung open. It was good timing, because the laptop was starting to win.

Harry came in with a Christmas tree in his left hand, large fingers wrapped around the inside trunk. The tree was small, coming up to the middle of Harry’s chest, and it was a little sparse around the front, but judging from the hopeful look on Harry’s face, he thought it was the best tree London had to offer. George came trailing in behind him, four large Harrod’s bags threaded between his fingers. I was glad I had decided to put on pants and brush my hair.

“We’re doing Christmas,” Harry announced once he made it into the doorway, setting the tree down gently to his left. I watched as some of the pine needles fell to the carpet, decorating the beige floor. Most of the melancholy from this morning had wilted out of Harry’s voice. “Tree and all.”

“It’s a baby tree.” I replied, matching Harry’s seemingly chipper mood, before unfolding my legs from underneath me on the bed and stretching up to cross over to him. If he could fake it and pretend it was all good, so could I. George snorted. Harry looked mildly disgruntled for a moment, before he let the smile take over his face again.

“He was the best we had, considering the selection. And I didn’t think you’d want a six foot tree considering your apartment is the size of a shoebox.”

“You knocking my flat, Styles? I can kick you out of here.”

He ignored me. “I’ve got ornaments, lights, the weird confetti tinsel stuff that our cat always used to eat, and even a festive holiday wreath.”

“Thankfully you remembered the festive holiday wreath.”

Harry’s face dropped at the detected sarcasm in my voice. “Do you not want to decorate? You said you’d never had a tree. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“No, no,” I shook my head quickly, wincing at the fact that I’d been being unintentionally rude and crushing his surprise. “I’ve just woken up and I’m grumpy because my back hurts like crazy and I forgot to buy half and half for my tea. I’m the shit, not you. This is wonderful.”

I would have given him a kiss if George wasn’t still unloading the bags from his hands, untwining the handles and stacking them all neatly by the door.

“Alright?” He called to Harry as he was finished. “Anything else, Haz?”

“Nah, I think that’s it. Thanks, mate. Have a good Christmas. Tell me if the girls like their gifts.”

“Will do. You too. Happy Christmas, Ezra.”

“Happy Christmas, George!”

When George left, Harry turned back around to me, still looking like an excited puppy. “I thought we could decorate a tree. I even made a Christmas playlist on my phone.”

“When did you have time to do this?” I asked, brushing past him and heading towards the bags stacked by the door, peeking inside.

“This morning. I called a few people to get the ornaments and stuff together so George only had to pick them up. I wanted us to pick them out together, but I figured you might not want to go out into public with me today.” His chuckle wasn’t humorous.

“Not just with you.” I disagreed. “I don’t feel like going into public at all. I’m going to live the life of a hermit forever.”

“I can appreciate and accept that.” Harry hummed playfully, and the enthusiasm was just forced enough to make something clench in my chest. “Even if I’m really, really sorry.”

“Just a little hermit crab, living in my flat.” I brushed over his apology, shrugging and continuing the joke. “It’s easy these days with the Internet. I can buy everything off of Amazon.”

“What about socialization?” Harry walked up behind me and hooked an arm around my waist. I relaxed into the comfort of him, the earlier awkwardness and tension from this morning erased. “You don’t need people?”

“I’ll get a pug.”

“What about me?” He pouted.

“Ehhh.”

“Don’t crabs mate for life? Don’t you need a fellow hermit crab mate? What if we were hermit crabs together? We’d never leave. We can just eat a lot of pizza and get our exercise in with sex. That sounds like a happy existence to me.”

“And you’ve got enough money to sustain us, so it’s not like we’d ever need to work.”

“Always knew you were after me for the money.” Harry teased, shaking his head.

I meant to laugh, breeze over it, but the sound was brittle and awkward and I couldn’t let it go, and it’d only been like 8 hours and my mind kept circling back to the conversation at Nick’s. “You and the rest of the world, homeboy. But crabs don’t mate for life. You’re thinking of lobsters.”

“The rest of the world?”

I shimmied out of his grip, grabbing one of the bags and sorting through the different boxes of ornaments, the expensive, glass baubles and then the individually wrapped ceramic ones.

“Did you pick these out yourself?” I asked, unwrapping the first ceramic ornament, which was a very ornate replica of the tower that held Big Ben.

“I gave one of the personal shoppers a list. Of things that would be good if they had them.”

“You didn’t have to do this.” I told him sincerely, gingerly placing the ornament back in the tissue paper and then grabbing the next. It was a vintage camera, light and delicate in my palm.

“You’ve never had a Christmas tree before.” He said this like it was an obvious explanation. “And after everything…it’s a good time to celebrate a little, yeah?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed thickly. I could recognize that we always did this. Put things off for later. Tried not to worry about everything else and just focus on the now. I pulled the card on Thanksgiving and Harry was pulling it now. I couldn’t blame him.

“I’ve never done this before, so you’re going to have to teach me.” I motioned towards the tree.

“I’ve done this a million times, so I can do that.”

Or at least Harry tried to do that, but we got hung up because he’d forgotten a tree stand. Neither of us wanted to go out and buy one, George was technically off, and everyone else was on holiday, so we devised a plan that included propping the tree in a corner, the stem of it sandwiched with heavy books and miscellaneous things in my flat to keep it standing up semi-straight. The top of it still heavily leaned against the wall, but it was stable enough to work. Without the stand, we couldn’t water it, so Harry insisted on spritzing it with water that he’d put in an empty cosmetics bottle he found under my kitchen sink, working meticulously to hydrate the tree before we started decorating.

The playlist that Harry’d put on his phone had four different renditions of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and he sang along to every single one, leering his eyebrows at me and trying to coax me to sing along with him.

It took us three hours to decorate the entire tree, because Harry was distracting and very insistent on being precise on the exact ornament placement, but when it was done, Harry turned off every light in the house, turned the tree on, and made me stand back to appreciate the glow.

“Happy Christmas.” He murmured against my ear, arm finally snaking around my waist and pulling me to him, tucking my head under his chin and resting on it. His hands were sliding up and down my back. I revelled in the voluntary affection. It’d only been missing from my life for a moment, just a few minutes this morning, but it was still jarring and jolting.

“Merry Christmas.”

“The tree looks great, doesn’t it?”

“It looks good. Still smells a little weird, but it looks cool. I feel very festive.”

“We are very festive. We are gonna celebrate this holiday season right. No other distractions. Just pure festive joy.”

“Oh really? How’re we gonna do that?”

“Chinese food and movies. Go pick something to watch and I’ll call in the order.” He tapped my bum. “Nothing else but Christmas celebrating for the next few days.”



I’d planned to meet my parents at the airport and then ride with them back to their hotel, but Harry was still lounging around my flat come Monday morning. We’d spent the entirety of Sunday watching surrealist films and Harry bitching about how much David Lynch didn’t make any sense and okay, call me uncultured, but sometimes it’s nice when a movie makes a bit of sense, before Harry demanded that we watch A Christmas Story. He was officially getting into the festive holiday spirit, tucking me into the couch and turning off all of the lights except for the Christmas tree, even going so far as to making peppermint hot chocolates to sip on as we curled around each other and nestled into my couch.

He was atoning and I was letting him.

Nothing felt as good as spending a Sunday curled up next to him, my phone across the room on “do not disturb” and ignoring the world. The anxiety was still there, clinging on to the base of my spine and reminding me of everything that was piling up as soon as I got too comfortable, but with Harry laughing and making quips in my ear, it was easier to pretend those problems didn’t exist.

As we absorbed ourselves into the strange plotline of Mulholland Drive, it was easier to forget about Nick and the conversation and the spitting incident and Harry’s strange phone call to (presumably) management and his freak out and the way the rest of the world was reacting. It was easy to just pretend that this was us, and we were just going to continue to be us, and nothing could change that.

On Monday morning, he was still treading carefully, waking me up with a soft peppering of kisses all along my face as his hands slid under the jumper of his that I’d worn to bed, settling on my waist as his thumbs stroked patterns along the stretch marks on my hips, following the raised skin there. Every fluttering of his fingertips was gentle.

“When’re your parents getting in?” He asked, mouth grazing across my skin as my eyes fluttered open.

“Half past ten.”

“Wanna get breakfast before then?”

I shifted underneath him, Harry pulling back as I sat up. “I can just take a cab if you’re busy.”

Harry shook his head. “If there’s anything I should be doing today, it’s picking your parents up from the airport.”

I furrowed my eyebrows at that, but Harry was pecking me on the mouth and raising off of the bed before I had more time to question what exactly he meant. Maybe it was another atoning thing.

“Aren’t you driving home today?” I asked. “With Gemma?”

“Yeah, sometime.” He shrugged, scratching the butterfly on his chest as he stumbled into the kitchen. “I just have to text Gem when I’m through here. It’s not that bad of a drive.”

“There’s gonna be traffic.” I followed him up off the bed, darting straight towards the bathroom for the ritual morning pee.

“Just get dressed.” Harry said, following me into the bathroom to brush his teeth. “I think we need donuts.”

We got donuts (Harry was into the regular glazed old-fashioned, I told him that a donut without sprinkles was hardly a donut at all and then proceeded to stuff my face with two chocolate cake donuts with extra sprinkles) and then Harry dropped me off at the arrivals section of Heathrow while he tried to find a parking space. It would’ve been too risky for him to go in, he decided, and I went along with it, because it was still taking everything in me to feel brave enough to go out at all.

I’d been glancing around the donut shop nervously when we’d gone inside, conscious of every teenage girl who walked past. There was no security on holidays. We’d made it out okay, eating in the car and listening to the radio while we enjoyed our meal, but I was still hyper aware of every bit of our surroundings. And I hated it, because even though I was outside and technically free of responsibilities for the holidays, I felt trapped and vulnerable.

I met my parents right outside of baggage claim, collar of my jacket pulled up around my ears and my hands shoved inside of my pockets, shoulders tight in an attempt to shrink myself.

They came walking towards me hand in hand, and I saw my mother’s eyes scan over the crowd of people already at Heathrow two days before Christmas before landing on me. The beanie and coat routine had apparently made me looks as inconspicuous as possible, because her eyebrows furrowed for a moment before her face eased. She nodded her head in my direction, my father turning to spot me, and then they marched over.

It was a Callil attack when they reached me, both of them reaching for a hug at exactly the same time, so I was sandwiched between them. My mother was rubbing my back and my father was squeezing me affectionately.

I’d never felt so much relief in my entire life. It was like all of the tension dropped right out of me upon greeting them, because they were here and they were a comfort and there’s a type of safety sometimes that you can feel in your parents that you can’t find anywhere else. Maybe Harry was some type of home, but they were actually it - they were the place that I returned to when I needed comfort, and here they were, giving it to me wordlessly, and I felt the emotion and the tears build, but I held back and held them back just as tightly.

“Hi.” I greeted weakly as they both pulled away.

“Hey, Ezzie,” my mother’s hand reached up to brush across the side of my face, her eyes searching and warm, and I had to focus extra hard to reel the emotion that was threatening to spill over again. “How’re you?”

“Oh, you know.” I shrugged nonchalantly, but my voice cracked and I had to clear it. “I’m okay.”

My father snorted and shifted his feet. I ignored him.

“Harry’s outside with the car. Do you have any checked luggage or no?”

“No,” Papa Callil shook his head. “We packed this trip light, so we’ve just got backpacks.”

“All right, let’s go then.” We began to weave through the crowds of people just as the luggage carousel started to spin. “You need to check into your hotel and then food, right?”

“Food.” My mom agreed enthusiastically. “Yes, food.”

Harry had pulled out of the parking space and was loitering by the curb after I texted him that we were on our way, looking equal parts excited and nervous as he quickly darted out of the car and pressed the button to open the trunk.

“Hi,” he said with a tentative smile, one hand reaching out to take my mother’s backpack from her and place it in the back. My father just followed his lead and put his own backpack inside. “Welcome to cold, snowy London.”

“Thank you,” my mother said, but she didn’t move to hug him in greeting - and my mother hugged everyone she’d met more than once in greeting - and it was then that I knew something was wrong and that she’d seen the video. She loved Harry in New Haven - we’d talked on the phone about him after I’d come home and she’d been giggly and excited, and now she was looking at him with the same speculative gaze that she gave to people who protested outside of the clinic she worked in.

We all piled into Harry’s Range Rover, my parents sitting in the back even though I’d offered either of them the seat up front, and Harry tried. He asked about the flight, about the weather back home, tried to keep up the same cool, friendly banter that he could keep up with everyone, but it wasn’t working. My mother was at least cordial, answering Harry’s questions politely if not shortly, but all my father had suggested the entire car ride was that Harry drop them off at their hotel and then I could meet them later for a “Callil Family Meal”.

Harry’s lack of invite was noted.

stop being mean, was the text I sent to my dad as we pulled onto the highway.

I’m tired. It was a long flight. was the text he sent back.

Daaaaaaaad.

He didn’t reply, but he didn’t make much of an effort to improve his conversation skills either. When we arrived at the hotel, in the middle London and actually only a 10 minute walk from my flat, my father shook Harry’s hand quickly and firmly before going inside to check in.

“Nice to see you again, Harry,” my mother said with a smile. “Ezra, are you coming up with us now?”

“Um, no.” I shook my head. “Harry’s driving home today so I need to give him his gift and then I’ll be over.”

“Okay.” She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “See you in a bit.”

She followed the door my father had taken into the hotel, the doorman opening it and ushering her inside.

Back inside the car, Harry pressed back against the driver’s seat with a sigh. “They hate me.”

“I think they’re just tired.”

Harry shook his head, bracing his hands on his thighs as he took in a deep breath. “No, they hate me. And I can’t say I blame them.”

The tension that we’d forgone for Christmas celebrating was back.

“Harry--”

“It’s fine.” He waved me off, shaking his head and pulling his seatbelt around to click it in. “Your place, yeah?” And then he leaned over to turn up the volume on the stereo.

It was a quick drive, a zip down a few roads and a wait at the stop light, and Harry’s hands gripped the wheel the entire time, knuckles clenched. I tapped my fingers against my thighs, searching desperately for a seagueway to a different topic of a tension diffuser, but I was coming up blank and we were pulling up outside of the apartment building.

“Let me just run in and get your gifts.” I reached for the handle of the door as Harry put the car into park and shut off the ignition.

He turned to me and gestured his head to the boot. “Yours are in the back of my car. Do you want me to come up?”

“Nah,” I shook my head, because suddenly all I could think about was escape. Maybe we just needed an escape. Maybe Harry just needed time at home and I needed time with my family and maybe that would fix it. “You’ve already told Gemma you’re on your way. Let me just grab yours really quick.”

“Okay.” Harry’s head ducked into a nod as I unlocked the door of the car and slid out, into the gently falling snow and my apartment building.

I spent the entire walk up wondering if things were always going to be like this. Were we now going to live in a constant state of tension now, only finding release for a few moments before we reverted back to this?

I needed to talk to him. We needed to talk about all of this, hash it out on the table and figure out where we went from there, but the idea was so scary it made my hands shake as I inserted the key into my front door, heading towards where I’d stashed his gifts.

I’d had Harry’s Christmas gift figured out for weeks - well, the big part of Harry’s Christmas gift, at least. There were multiple parts, because I was indecisive and I couldn’t figure out the proper balance of sentimental and joking.

Sometimes it felt like I’d been dating Harry for ages, that’s how comfortable I was with him. We had an entire book of inside jokes, months worth of banter, and most of the time I felt more like I was just dating and kissing my best friend. We watched movies together and we ate a lot of food and we just got on, living the type of nonchalant, easy relationship I’d always wanted with a boy who looked at me the way Harry sometimes did.

But then sometimes everything felt new and fragile and scary. When the rest of the world was involved, we felt new and fragile and scary. Because the entirety of us - Harry and Ezra - wasn’t tangible. There was no evidence that we existed anywhere besides the two of us. And that was okay with me, mostly, but it’s so easy to tear something down that hardly even exists.

The bag containing his gift was tucked in the corner by my bed, hidden underneath a pile of clothing to try. I’d wrapped everything individually and then shoved the boxes into a gift bag, topping it with a wad of tissue paper and taping the handles of the bag together with a roll of Scotch tape. Harry was patient with people, but I wasn’t sure how good he would be with waiting the few days before Christmas to open or peek at presents.

I could see his outline lounging in the front seat when I came back down the stairs, and when I opened the door, his face looked a little more relaxed.

He raised an eyebrow as I hoisted myself into the car and dropped the bag in his lap.

“It’s all wrapped like this, isn’t it?” He asked, examining the large paper bag that had One Direction pictures on the front of it. I’d even gone so far as to write “fetus Harry →” in Sharpie next to his 2011 face.

“Maybe.” I shrugged cooly. “You won’t know until Christmas.”

“Gemma’s gonna laugh at me.” He complained, before attempting to peek into the bag. I slapped his hand away and he chuckled, before twisting his entire body around and then snatching a different bag and plopping it onto my lap. Harry lifted it easy, considerably sized arms hardly even flexing, but the gold bag dropped on me with a “oomph”. It was huge, the entire size of my upper body, and heavy.

“Jesus,” I wheezed, adjusting the bag off my lap and putting it down by my feet. “What is that?”

“I dunno.” Harry he imitated my coy shrug. “Guess you’ll find out in a few days.”

“Guess so.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“D’you think you’d be able to Skype?”

“On Christmas?”

“Yeah. Half the fun of giving someone a present is watching them open it.”

“True. I’ll text you when I’m done with family stuff in the morning. We can figure out a time.”

“Sounds good.” He smiled, and it wasn’t a full watt Harry smile, but these days I was taking what I could get.

“Alright. I’m gonna go upstairs and put this away before I change and meet my parents back at their hotel.”

“I can drive you.” Harry offered. “And carry that upstairs if you can’t.”

“I’m strong, thank you very much.” Ish. I was strong-ish, but he couldn’t see my nonexistent arm muscles underneath the fabric of my coat. “I’ll just call a cab or something. And you’ve got to meet Gemma, remember?”

“Gemma can wait.” Harry decided.

“I think she’d beg to differ.”

He scrunched up his face in displeasure, but nodded.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” I said, grabbing for the bag in one hand and pressing the handle on the door with the other.

“Wait, no, hold on.” Harry grabbed at my wrist, stalling me, before he took a quick glance around the area. The snow was falling harder now, a thin layer covering the entirety of his windshield, almost shielding us completely.

“I’m - I’m sorry for Saturday.” He finally breathed out. “I was selfish.”

“Harry--”

“I was.” He acknowledged sheepishly. “But if you - just call me, okay? If you need anything. Saturday related or otherwise. I’m here.”

“I know that.”

I could’ve told him then. I could’ve word vomited it out perfectly. I could feel the words starting to climb up the back of my throat, scrambling frantically to latch onto my tongue and push themselves forward. I could’ve said, I’m scared and I don’t know how to handle this and how to make them not hate me. I could’ve said, How do I handle this? What do I do? I could’ve said, Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning but I think I’m doing it to myself.

But I didn’t say anything at all. I just smiled and nodded and took a deep breath.

Because telling Harry meant acknowledging it, meant having to lay everything out on the table and deal with it, and that sounded exhausted. He needed to be in Holmes Chapel and I needed to go spend time with my parents.

And we would deal with it eventually. Maybe. Sometime.

(Unless we didn’t have to first.)

Or maybe the tension would go away first. Maybe we just needed some space apart, to regroup.

“Merry Christmas, Harry.” I said.

“Happy Christmas, Ezra.” And then he leaned over to kiss me, grabbing my face with both of his hands and guiding me so I was leaning over the center console, lips attached to his as he kissed me slowly, gently, delicate sips and kisses against my mouth until I was having trouble breathing and felt light headed.

He separated our lips but kept our foreheads pressed together. “Solid?”

“Solid.”

“Brilliant.”

With another smile and slightly stuttering heart beat, I grabbed the bag, opened the door, and hopped out into the snow.



I nestled between my parents, resting my head in my mother’s lap and my feet on my father’s as we occupied the entirety of the sofa in their hotel room. It wasn’t very large, but I relished in the closeness of them. Of feeling them underneath me, an intense amount of comfort in that warmth.

We’d made it through the entire meal without talking about anything heavy. We talked about my classes, my impending grade reports, both of their work, Chunky Salsa, my crazy Nana. I tried to keep the conversation off of myself as much as possible. I was sick of thinking about my own problems, of having them loop around in my head, and it felt good to just listen to someone else and absorb myself completely in that.

I thought we’d be able to get through the rest of the day easily, without any emotional harm on my part, but we were having a little break before going out and hitting a few premium sites, relaxing in the swanky hotel room for a moment, when they brought it up.

“Are you going to talk about it?” My father finally asked.

My mother’s fingers were beginning to thread through the strands of my hair, soft nails scratching at my scalp in a move of affection.

“Do I have to?” My voice was only really one level underneath a whine.

“Yes.”

I sighed deeply, turning my head into my mother’s lap and hiding there.

“Did you watch it?” I whispered.

Both of them remained silent.

Finally, my mother spoke. “We love you, Ezra. You’re an adult. You’re capable of making your own decisions.”

“But?”

“What, ‘but’?”

“There’s a ‘but’ there.”

“But what’s going on?” My dad interjected, tapping my feet with the pen he was using to do his crossword puzzle. “Banana nut, you look like shit.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I muttered dryly, closing my eyes and hoping that if I wished hard enough I could disappear from this conversation. From everything, really. I’d never considered myself a runner before this week, but it was all I wanted to do.

“I’ve never seen you look so worn down.” He continued, his voice gentle but serious. No nonsense Papa Callil.

What was I supposed to say to that?

“Ezra?” He prompted.

“I just…” I hesitated. “I’m just really tired right now.” My voice was timid, tight, and muffled as I spoke, refusing to look at either of them.

“Of what?”

“Of everyone hating me, I guess.” I tried to let out a humorous chuckle, but it sounded more like a dry sob, and that’s when I felt the tears sting and my throat tighten. And it was gonna happen - I was going to cry. And I hadn’t done it much Saturday and I hadn’t done it at all Sunday, but it’d been building for a while and it was going to happen now and it was going to hurt. “I know that I...that it shouldn’t matter. But I just...it does.”

My mother’s fingers stopped brushing through my hair. “They don’t hate you.” She protested, and I felt her entire body shake with the vigorous movement of her protest. “They hate the idea of you.”

“Still sucks.” I sniffed, squeezing my eyes together tightly.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” My father prodded at my ankle, a sign that I should sit up and face this conversation like an actual adult. In response, I scrunched my knees higher to my chest, moving my feet off of his lap and tucking into a smaller ball. It was easier to be this - compact, protected - than anything else.

“What does that mean?”

“Does he make you happy?” My mother asked, hand on my back in an attempt to get me to turn around and look at her, but I shook my head and refused to move.

“Harry?”

“Yes, Harry. Does he make you happy?”

“Yeah.” The sound came out like a squeak, and I’d been closing my eyes but the tears were leaking out anyway, pooling around my eyes and down my cheeks and onto the fabric of my mother’s jeans. “He does.”

My dad asked, “Is that enough?”

I didn’t allow myself to speak, afraid of whatever sound might come out, so I shrugged.

“Ezra, I love you, kid. But I’m going to tell it to you straight - if he doesn’t make you so happy you feel like you can jump off a building a fly, it isn’t worth it. His life is hard. He’s got a lot going on.”

My mother hummed out an agreement. “Just because he is who he is doesn't mean he’s allowed to eclipse you.”

I sat up, rearranging myself on the couch so I had my own spot, pulling my knees to my chest and swiping at my eyes. “I don’t...I don’t think he is. It’s not him. It’s just...everything else.”

My dad shook his head, rejecting that. “Ez Pez, as nice as it sounds, relationships don’t exist in a bubble. The rest of the world exists.”

“I know that.” In theory. I knew that in theory, but it was a shitty concept in application.

“And if it’s too much for you right now, that’s okay.” My mother’s hand reached over to grab at one of mine, holding it tightly. “I know you, Ezra. You’ll work yourself to death before you give up on something. But if it’s hurting you, you need to know that it’s okay to leave.”

I’d never played any scenario in my head where I was the one that ended things with Harry. It always seemed like his move, which was kind of silly because only weeks ago, he’d been the one giving me the out. The one waiting for me to walk away. I’d never even considered it an option.

And now, it was.

Except it really wasn’t.

I only started to cry harder, shaking my head as my face crumbled and the shaky breath tore out of my throat. “I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him. Like 92% sure.”

“Oh, Ez,” my mother exhaled, pulling me to her so my head was tucked against her chest, hand raising to stroke at my hair.

She let me cry into her chest, sniffling and trying to control the sobs that wanted so desperately to break free, but my father wasn’t giving up. He was always the one to continue with the hard conversations - my mother was comfort, loving, and she didn’t always push, but my father was relentless when he thought he needed to be. He would’ve leave it alone until I’d thought about it all.

“Where’s the other 8%?” He asked.

I cleared my throat. “Scared. The other 8% is scared.”

“Of what?”

My heat snapped over to him, eyes widening as if the answer should’ve been obvious. This answer was the type that rushed out of me. “Of this ending badly and me ending up more a mess than I already am. I don’t know how to fix it.” I shook my head frantically. “And Harry doesn’t know how to fix it. So we just kind of sit around and pretend that everything’s okay, but we don’t fix it.”

“Not everything can be fixed.”

“No,” I shook my head, closing my eyes. The thought of it not being fixed made me hurt. Like things were going to go to shit and it was going to get worse and I could do nothing about it. “I don’t believe in that. That’s some type of defeatist bullshit. If you want it bad enough, why can’t you fix it?”

“Ezra--”

“It just isn’t fair. Because I told myself not to do this!” I cursed myself because I was crying again, pressing the pads of my fingers to my eyes as if that would hold everything in. “I told myself not to get involved, not to make things messy, but I did. I’m the one that wanted to be in a relationship with him. And now his friends think I’m using him and most of the world hates me and I can’t even upload a YouTube video without someone asking me about what’s going on between us. And it sucks! It fucking sucks.”

“And you’re in love with him.”

“And I’m maybe in love with him! Like how stupid can I get?” The sentence ended with a sob, pressing my hand to my mouth as my shoulders shook. Because how stupid could I get, really? To do this to myself and believe that it was going to be easy and that it wasn’t going to hurt? And it wasn’t even Harry - that’s what made it suck so much. It wasn’t even Harry.

My mother shot my father a look over me, some type of silent communication that I didn’t catch, and then she was hugging me tightly, hand gently sweeping my hair back as I cried again.

My mother waited until I’d calmed down, still rocking me back and forth, before she spoke again. “Have you talked to Harry about any of this?”

I squirmed in my seat. I wanted to say yes on a technicality, but the kind of talking that they were referring to was something that neither of us could really stomach.

“Why not?” She asked softly.

I pulled away, wiping my eyes and my nose with the sleeve of my sweater. The tightness in my face was already starting to make my head hurt. “He took Saturday really hard.”

“HE did?” My father barked, and my mother shot him another warning look. “And what about you?”

“You need to talk to him, Ezra.” My mom advised, and she was settling me with another one of her this is serious, listen to me and take my advice mom looks.

“But what if talking about everything ruins it?”

“Then you’re not in the kind of relationship that you need to be in.”

“I just want to rewind.” I admitted. “I thought I had it all figured out but I don’t.”

“No one has it all figured out.” My mother said, and my father agreed. “Everyone thinks they do, but they don’t. You need to talk to him. If you’re crying over it, you need to talk to him. Maybe you wait until after the holidays are over, but you need to sit down and talk to Harry. If you can’t work through it, you can’t, but if you want to fix it, you need to try.”

I didn’t want to accept that, but I had to. “I’m scared.”

“And that’s perfectly valid, but you have to do it anyway.”

“Now buck up, banana nut.” My dad leaned over to press a kiss to my forehead. “Go wash your face and get ready. We’re going to go out and see some of London and get some food. And after dinner, we can get milkshakes.”



I’m in Holmes Chap.
Just letting you know for safety reasons, you know.
(And I miss you.)

how was the drive? good?
i miss you too

There was a little bit of traffic, but not too bad. Caught up with Gemma so it went quickly.

that’s good.

Baby, you okay? Everything good? Do you need to call me?

sorry, yeah. just been talking with my parents about stuff, but i’m gonna be okay.
we’re going out for a posh dinner now.
dad says i can get a milkshake afterwards.

Have one for me! My mum’s making food right now. I’m so excited.

Happy Christmas Eve morning.

did u just use the kissy face emoji?

It seemed appropriate. I want to kiss you.

ur such a dork

Hey now. Don’t be rude.

can i send you a kissy face emoji and then it’ll all be fixed?

Yes. Give me allllll the kisses.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

merry christmas. :)



Christmas morning passed in a whirlwind of gifts and waffles. My parents took a car to my flat at half past seven, a bag full of groceries in my mother’s hands and my father looking slightly bleary-eyed and disoriented from the early time and the strong London cold. We’d spent all of the 24th together, dodging London crowds and looking at the Christmas decorations in the shops, before coming back to my flat and watching the animated Grinch with the lights on. The crying had helped, the time with my parents had helped, the time away from the Internet had helped. I felt less on edge, if nothing else.

I plugged in the lights on the Christmas tree and grabbed an extra sweater to layer over my extremely festive Christmas flannel pajamas, leaning against the dining room table as I watched my mother spread the groceries she’d bought and prepare waffle batter.

“I don’t have a waffle iron.” I told her, clutching the newly prepared cup of Chai tea in my hands, warming myself with the heat.

“You do.” My dad interjected from his spot at the tiny dining room table, sitting across from me.

“I don’t even have a blender and you think I’d have a waffle iron?” I asked with a laugh. “Trust me, I don’t.”

“Trust me, you do.” He shot right back, barely even looking up from the crossword puzzle he was still attempting to do.

“You should at least let me open the gifts before you spoil them.” I teased, sticking my tongue out at him.

“I wouldn’t have to spoil anything if you would just stop questioning everything.”

“She got that from you.” My mother said, raising her whisk at my father, and then cursing when some of the batter dripped down onto the counter.

“Ha ha.” I laughed.

“How’s Harry?” My dad asked, and he said his name with less disdain than he had at the beginning of the weekend. We’d talked about this yesterday - my father was blaming Harry and I told him not to. He said he’d try.

“Good.” I swallowed and peeked over at him. “We’re gonna Skype later. To exchange gifts and stuff.”

“Cool, cool.” He hummed, tapping the butt of his pen against the paper. “Now what’s four accros for a ‘faddish fruit’?”



Skype?

gimme like 5 and then yes



“My mum laughed at the wrapping paper.” Harry said in way of a greeting as the Skype connection finally firmed, his face taking up the entirety of my computer screen and his voice filling my headphones. His smile was contagious.

“I aim to please.”

“And to tease.”

“That makes me sound like a stripper.” From over the top of my laptop, where I had it perched on the dining room table, I saw my father raise an eyebrow.

“You’d be classy.” Harry protested. “Prefer the term exotic dancer. Though there’s not much exotic about your dancing.”

“Hey now.” I warned. “Don’t be rude. You’re not any better.”

“How was Christmas breakfast?” He diverted.

“Good. We had waffles with the brand new waffle iron that my father unwrapped for me because I was being too slow about it.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“Always. How was yours?”

“Really nice.” Harry grinned. “Mum’s trying to get me fat.”

I shrugged. “I’m okay with that. I like your little lovehandles. Now presents.”

“Presents.”

“Who goes first?” He asked.

“My gift to you has instructions, so let me go first.” I decided, and Harry looked intrigued, but allowed it.

“You just don’t want to have to keep waiting.”

“Whatever. Can I go for it now?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, go ahead.”

The bag was sitting at my feet, propped against my ankles, and I contemplated having it on my lap, but knowing the weight, I settled for just opening it and pulling everything out inside.

Harry hadn’t bothered with lots of tissue paper, just a few pieces of gold haphazardly stuck in the top, and once I got all of that out of the way, there were two large, rectangular boxes, wrapped in gold paper.

“Which one should I open first?”

“There’s one with a bow, yeah?” He moved closer to the screen, as if he could peek inside. “Open the one with the bow.”

There was one with a bow, a gold, sparkly bow stuck of one of the boxes, and I heaved that one out of the bag first.

“Should I be gentle?”

“Nah.” Harry should his head, leaning forward into the computer. “Just go for it.”

I tore the wrapping paper off quickly, my eyes widening at the KitchenAid logo on the side of the blender box. The image was huge, the shiny black blender taking up the majority of the box.

“It has five different speeds.” Harry supplied. “And I Googled and this was the best one rated for milkshakes and not being super loud, so you can make milkshakes all times of the day.”

“I’m gonna get so fat.” I laughed, looking up at him wide-eyed and smiling, before looking back down at the blender and laughing again.

A blender. For milkshakes. Because we’d had the conversation ages ago about how I didn’t have one, and he remembered.

“I look forward to it.” Harry grinned. “Now open part two.”

“I don’t think you can top this.” I told him, flipping the box of the blender around to read the descriptions on the side. He was right - five speeds, quiet, and it even listed “perfect for frothy milkshakes” as one of the attributes on the side.

“Just open the package.”

“Alright, alright, but I’m not gonna try and give you a fake reaction if it doesn’t top the Milkshake Machine.”

Harry said nothing, just shot me a look through the screen that would’ve had more power if he wasn’t wearing a dorky Christmas jumper and grinning wildly. This was the Harry I loved, I thought. The one with the stupid smile and the bright eyes and the wild Beethoven hair.

The second box was almost identical to size as the blender, and for a moment I wondered if this would be the Christmas of Kitchen Appliances, but I was tearing away the golden paper before I could fully question it. This box didn’t have a graphic or a paper on the front - it was a completely plain, cardboard box, except for the words, “Supreme Milkshake Making Kit” scrawled in large, block letters on the side.

“What--?” My eyes darted up to Harry’s excitedly. “Did you--?”

“Open it.” He grinned, looking eyes bright with excitement as I dug my nail into the tape holding the top of the box open and popped it open.

Inside, there was a premium silver ice cream scoop, a fancy, old-fashioned milkshake glass, a strange looking contraption in the shape of a banana, and a gift voucher to Tescos.
“Harry--”

“The white thing is a banana slicer,” He started in. “And it cuts through frozen bananas too, which is good to make better milkshakes.”

“Did you make this?” I asked him, awed, as I continuously cut from the box in front of me to Harry on the screen, feeling something swell up inside of me. It was like sunshine or warmth and it was the kind of happy gratitude that only made me think of Harry. The kind of feeling and moment that could cancel out entire days of second-guessing, could blur out all of the bad for just a few moments and remind me of this. Us. Him. The kind of feeling I wanted to bottle and live off of, because I was afraid it was going to be fleeting.

“I put it together.” He said. “But wait - look at the glass.”

“The milkshake glass?” I extracted the glass delicately out of the box, removing the tissue paper that was wrapped around it to keep it secure, and I only had to turn it a quarter of a circle in my hand before I saw the wording labeled on the front. Ezra’s Lifeblood, the milkshake glass declared, and I giggled.

“How did you even do that?” I asked, smoothing a finger over the letters printed on the front, curved around the glass.

“I know a guy.” Harry answered vaguely. “You’ll need to hand wash it, but it should stay.”

“Harry, this is amazing. Like - holy shit, actual best gift ever.”

“There’s also a corkscrew at the bottom of the box, too. It’s not milkshake related, but I didn’t want to put it in a completely different box.”

“You remembered the corkscrew.”

“‘Course I remembered the corkscrew.” He grinned. “Can’t have you impaling yourself with a knife just because you want a bottle of wine. It’s for your safety.”

“Thank you. Like - man, I’m making so many milkshakes. Is Tesco even open today? I need supplies.”

“I think they close early, but they’re open.”

“This is the actual best gift ever. You are the best ever. Thank you.”

Harry’s smile stretched across his face, leaning forward as he ran his tongue across his bottom lip and looked please. “Ezra and milkshakes.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “They go together pretty well.”

“I don’t think I can top this.” I told him honestly. “So lower your expectations significantly right now.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” Harry shrugged. “So I’m already pleased.”

I rolled my eyes at that, but moved the box off my lap and pulled my laptop closer to me on the table. Both of my parents were sitting on the couch, my mother scrolling through something on her iPad and my father still adamantly working on the crossword puzzle, but I could feel my father’s gaze flickering across my face every few moments curiously.

Harry’s Christmas present was something that I made weeks ago. Two of the gifts had been obvious - one was mostly a joke, the second was practical - but the third had been what was stressing me out. There was a right level of sentimental value that I thought needed to be applied, but I was also afraid of making it too cheesy.

“Open it,” I urged, as Harry grabbed the One Direction gift bag from by his feet and perched it on his lap, leaning back against the couch.

“I have to be careful,” he chided, delicately undoing the tape on the handles. “This is a prime gift bag.”

“Your face is holding a gift for your other face. It’s like Harry’s face-inception.”

“It’s a nice face. I don’t blame it for being everywhere.”

“Shut up and open it!”

First Harry had to get through the mound of tissue paper - there was a lot of tissue paper and a huge bag for how small the actual gifts were - and I watched Harry’s face closely as he came upon the boxes.

“Seriously?” He asked, pulling the rectangular box out and examining the One Direction wrapping paper on it.

“Go big or go home, man.”

Harry opened gifts the way my mother opened them - slowly, precisely, gently opening the tape and unfolding the creased edges and moving the paper away, as if he was going to preserve the wrapping paper and maybe reuse it.

“You can program like 10 different songs to the time you’re supposed to spend brushing.” I told Harry as he unwrapped the electric toothbrush completely, examining the packaging. “And different vibration speeds and a tongue scraper. It’s like, the premium toothbrush.”

“Plus it’s purple.” He added, grinning up at me after he finished examining the box. He’d talked about wanting an electric toothbrush constantly, and every time I told him to just buy himself one, he would shrug and pretend like he couldn’t be bothered, until I finally got the hint. There had been a lot of scouring Amazon reviews until finding the right one and it was just a bonus that it came in purple.

“And it’s rechargable, so you don’t have to waste money on batteries.”

“My teeth are gonna be so happy.” Harry smiled widely, showing off all of his shining, white teeth, before putting the toothbrush down and diving back into the bag.

The second box was flatter and more square. Harry took equally as long to unwrap this one.

“You don’t have to preserve the paper.” I said. “I still have an entire roll of it here.”

“I don’t want to accidentally rip someone’s face.” He explained. “That would just feel wrong.”

“It’s wrapping paper, not a voodoo doll.”

“Shh. It’s my present, let me unwrap it how I want.”

When Harry finally did unwrap the box, he slid the lid off of it slowly, and I watched as his eyebrows furrowed and he tried to reel in his confused expression. He lifted the fabric out of the box delicately, still looking confused at the red square.

“It’s a cravat.” I explained, and Harry tilted his head in recognition but still looked confused. “It’s like the ruffly tie thing Beethoven used to wear. His was red too.”

The amusement spread across Harry’s face slowly, starting from his eyes and extending to his mouth, but soon he was leaning back and laughing, a low, breathy chuckle as he held the cravat up to his neck.

“Because I have Beethoven hair.” He filled in.

I nodded. “Now you can be Beethoven Styles. Wear it every time you’re making music for good luck.”

“I’m gonna have to Google how to wear this, but expect a picture sometime later today.”

“It’s not that hard to tie. It’s like a tie, there’s just more of it.”

“Do you think it goes with my sweater?” He held it up against his green Christmas sweater, wiggling excitedly.

“I think the red with your eyes will be the epitome of Christmas.”

“Yessss.” He hissed out, pumping his fist in the air, laughing and shaking his head. “Where did you even find one of these?”

“Where you find all strange things: the Internet. It’s more a joke than anything, but I dunno, I kept thinking about your stupid Beethoven hair and it needed to happen.”

“I’m going to wear it while brushing my teeth with the toothbrush.” He promised. “Oh! I can probably even program some Beethoven as one of the songs.”

“There’s another thing in there. At the bottom of the bag.”

“I don’t know if you can outdo the cravat.” Harry put it back in the box and set it down on the cushion next to him.

“Probably not, but it’s already there, sooo.”

His hand searched around in the bag for a moment, before he pulled out the tiny, rectangular object wrapped in the tiniest amount of paper possible. Harry raised his eyebrow, as if to ask, “Really, you had to wrap this too?” And I just continued to grin at him.

“Thanks!” Harry said enthusiastically as he unwrapped the tiny flashdrive, looking at it with a mix of curiosity but also gratitude. “I can save files and stuff now.”

“Put it in your computer, Harry,” I shook my head at him. As if I’d just give him a plain flashdrive. I mean, they were handy, but he wasn’t exactly toting around large files all the time.

“Oh?” Now he sounded intrigued, leaning over and plugging the flashdrive into the USB port. “There’s more?”

“There might be more. Did it pop up?”

“It’s taking a second - yeah, it popped up.” He fingers clicked around on his laptop, presumably opening the Finder window and double clicking on the file. It should’ve opened immediately on whatever media player he had.

“Did it work?” I asked.

“Did what -- Ezra.” Harry looked up at me suddenly, eyes wide and alarmed. “Did you--”

“I know that it kind of seems like a cop-out - like, of course she’s gonna make a video as a present, it’s what she does - but this one is different. And you don’t have to like it, I just--”

“Shut up.” Harry shook his head quickly. “I - do I need to find headphones? Is it appropriate? There are children in the next room.”

“It’s appropriate, you knob.”

I wanted to give Harry something more sentimental than a toothbrush and a cravat for Christmas, something that seemed a little more emotional, and I’d been tossing around ideas of cards or letters or a stupid collage, watching television and feeling hopeless, and then I was watching an episode of David Letterman and the idea clicked.



I could hear Harry watching the video through the screen, in his scramble to watch it quickly forgoing headphones completely, and his face was leaned in, so I only saw a fraction it, an eyebrow and some of his nose, but when he leaned back, the smile on his face was positively blinding.

It made my heart hurt. Because yesterday I was crying and wondering how exactly any of this was going to work, and now he was smiling at me like that, and it didn’t even matter.

He leaned back on the couch, smiling and looking dazed, and he didn’t say anything for a moment, and then when he did, he sighed out, “I just - I l- like you’re my absolute favorite person. Best. Girlfriend. Ever.”

I laughed through another influx of emotion that was building, shaking my head at him and smiling. “You’re pretty great yourself. So happy Christmas. I’m glad you enjoyed your gift.”

“Gifts.” He pointed out. “You got me multiple, wonderful things.”

“So did you. I mean, milkshake kit. C’mon now. That’s golden.”

“There’s actually one more thing, but they haven’t come in yet.”

“Oh? Are you gonna tell me what it is or are you just gonna leave me hanging?”

“I’m gonna keep you in the dark until they come in.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, shaking my head and giggling. It was hard to feel anything other than happy when Harry was looking at me like that.

“There’s also a thing I wanted to ask you,” Harry started, leaning forward on the couch again, clasping his hands together in his lap. “And I figured might as well ask you now, since we’re here.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to LA this week, until after New Years.” His fingers played with his bottom lip.

“Oh?”

He tilted his head to the left and asked, “Do you want to come with me?”

“To LA?”

“Yes. To LA.”

I ran my hands through my hair, thinking quickly. LA. He was inviting me to LA. Again. And I’d be lying if it didn’t sound good, like the escape that I’d been yearning for just a few days before. “Um - when?”

My dad’s head had poked up curiously, raising an eyebrow curiously, but I ignored him and pulled the calendar up on my computer.

“Like the 28th to the 5th of January.” Harry listed. “It’s part vacation and part work.”

I counted the days on my calendar, recalling the mental list of things I had to do in my head. “I have a thing on the 4th of January.”

“A thing?”

“There’s a magazine release party for the issue of Company that I’m on.”

Harry looked confused. “You’re on a magazine? What?”

“I told you back in November. It’s why I couldn’t come to 1D Day.”

“You said you had a magazine thing, not that you were on the cover of a magazine.”

“I’m on the cover of a magazine.” I told him sheepishly. “Or I’m going to be.”

Harry clicked through something on his laptop, before typing something into his phone. “The 4th is a Saturday, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We can come back the 3rd then, if we left the 27th. How long are your parents staying?”

“Until the 27th.” Both of my parents looked up at that. I waved them away.

“We could fly out with them.”

“Harry--” He was so excited that I couldn’t help but be too, and there was a part of me that knew it was probably a foolish thing to do, decide to run away from it all, but then I justified it with the thought that maybe we could talk in LA. Maybe that would be the break that we needed from everyone else.

“Unless you don’t want to go.” His face fell marginally. “Sorry, I assumed. I’m still just - you’re gonna be on the cover of a magazine, Ez. That’s HUGE.”

“I’m excited.” I shrugged, trying to play off some of the nerves that were fluttering in my belly about it. But back to the topic at hand. “But I - LA?”

“LA.” Harry nodded. “I’m doing some song writing stuff. And I really miss the sun.”

I didn’t think about it as long as I should have, but I was agreeing before I was doing anything else. “I think - I think I can go to LA, yeah.”

My father made a sound, my mother’s head snapped up, and I ignored them both.
Harry was going to hurt himself if he didn’t stop smiling so wide. “It’s gonna be the best.” He said. “Because do you know what’s in LA? Besides like the sun and the beach and other things?”

“What?”

“Milk. Which, I have on good source, is the best restaurant to get a milkshake in LA. And that’s just one place of many.”

“It’s like your life’s goal to get me fat, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” Harry shrugged. “You’d be sexy as hell either way. I’m booking now.”

“I can pay--”

“Just consider it part of your gift, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

“Harry--”

“Shh.” He raised a hand to his lips, smiling against his fingers as he pursed them together. “We’re gonna go to LA, Ez Pez. I’ve just booked it.”



Ezra Callil @ezracallil
I’m now in the possession of 50 Pez candy dispensers - does that count as a collection?

1DUpdates Weekly @1dupdates
Harry was just spotted at LAX airport with Ezra 12/27/13

www.tumblr.com/tagged/hezra

everyone can just shut up with their salty ass opinions because GUESS WHAT Harry doesn’t CARE what you think he DEFENDED her and now they’re in LA so SUCK IT

they’ve been in LA like two days and Harry is practically glowing everyone just needs to shut up

harry goes to LA = like zero security guards, meanders around by himself. harry brings Ezra to LA = two security guards, there hasn’t been a single picture of her by herself. why would he go through all of that trouble protecting someone he doesn’t care about??? oh right, HE DOES CARE ABOUT HER

i’m so done with them they’re so exhausting like come out with it already for fucks sake

i’m just waiting for the day that a picture of them kissing or something leaks and then they’re denying it like crazy or just gonna come out with it, it wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t trying to hide it but seriously it’s old now