Perfect Teeth

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
Day one of my film education starts with (500) Days of Summer. Thoughts to be determined.

“Tilt your computer screen, dear. I can only see your bed right now.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Harry adjusted his computer screen quickly, till it hit the right angle and suddenly both he and his bed were starring on my screen. “Hiiiii.”

“Hey,” I greeted with a slow smile right back, looking over him quickly. He already seemed ten times tanner, his skin glowing and his white teeth standing out against the darkened hue of his skin. He looked good, all sun-kissed and smiles, with the bright Australian sun shining behind him. “You look chipper.”

“I’m finally getting my promised movie date,” He replied with a grin. “I am chipper.”

I rolled my eyes, but felt something kick in my stomach. Stupid smiley boy and his stupid charm, stupid usage of the word ‘date’.

“How’s Australia? How was the show last night?” I asked.

His smile only seemed to light up even more. “It was brilliant.” He beamed. “One of the most mental shows we’ve ever had. Everyone’s so excited that we’re here. And the weather’s brilliant, the place is beautiful. I’m in love.”

“Sounds like a blast.” I agreed.

“It is.” He nodded firmly. “Now what are we starting my film education with today? Do I need to rent it or something?”

“We’re starting with (500) Days of Summer, because, I don’t know, we can? And we need to really remedy you not having seen it. I’m gonna send you a link so you can watch it.”

“What should I be expecting?” He leaned forward a little, a few stray curls falling in his face, and he swiped them away quickly.

“A good film.” I teased.

“Wow. So descriptive.” He drawled, but he was still smiling.

“You asked. I answered. I always give the people what they want.” I shot him a smirk. “Did you get the link?”

“Yeah, I’m loading it right now.” Harry hummed. “Is this legal?”

“Um. Sure. Let’s just say that it is.”

“You’re such a bad influence. What’s next, pirating music? Breaking and entering?”

“Don’t even start with me, Styles. You may look innocent but I’m sure you’ve done tons of awful shit.” I shot back.

“Tons? Tons?” He was incredulous. “I’m offended--,”

“Shut up and press play.”

Watching a movie with Harry wasn’t awful. It was actually kind of brilliant, even though we figured out that his loaded just a few seconds before mine, so he would laugh at the parts before I saw them. It didn’t bother me much, because he would just chuckle softly into his microphone, the sound feeding directly into my headphones, and the sound of him laughing softly in my ear was enough to have me shivering and sweating and smiling. I tried not to let my eyes stray too much on his face, focusing on the movie in front of me, but I was too invested in Harry’s reaction. I kept glancing over at him during my favorite parts, seeing if he was smiling or nodding or frowning or laughing.

It wasn’t my favorite movie, but it was up there. Sharing important things with people who mean something to you is nerve-wracking, because you’re never quite sure if they’re going to find the same value in it as you do. When the credits started to roll, I minimized one of my tabs and sat up straighter, watching as Harry did the same.

He had a slight look of confusion on his face, his furrowed eyebrows creating the little dent in his forehead. I wanted to reach through the screen and smooth it out, but I couldn’t and that was inappropriate and Jesus Christ, Ezra, stop it, so I just ran my hands over the soft fabric of my blanket and looked at Harry expectantly.

“So?” I prompted.

“I need a moment to gather my thoughts.” He said.

“Okaaaay.” I nodded. “You do that while I pee. Please have your thoughts arranged by the time I get back.”

When I settled back down into my spot a few minutes later, Harry was looking less confused and a little more contemplative.

“I’m not sure if I liked it.” He finally said. “Or if I get it.”

“Any other thoughts?” I crossed my legs in front of me, leaning forward on my elbows and resting my chin on my propped up hands.

“They’re all kind of jumbled right now. The ending is supposed to be…hopeful? I think?” He guessed.

I shrugged. “In a way, maybe. Or sad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh no no no.” I shook my head quickly. “I want your opinion first.”

I knew that once I got going, there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to stop talking about the movie and I didn’t want my thoughts to influence Harry’s.

“I liked their relationship. And I now understand your Ikea reference. And the musical bit in the middle, that was good. But then like – I couldn’t figure out if I felt bad for him or if he was really selfish?” His lips were pursed in concentration, the look of contemplation on his face wiping away the smile that had been there earlier. I couldn’t decide which face I liked better.

“I mean you could feel both.” I reasoned.

“I just – I don’t know if I got it, y’know?” He shrugged sort of helplessly.

“But you don’t have to ‘get it’.” I pointed out. “That’s one of the first things my film professor said when I took my first film class – that films don’t always have a universal meaning. You derive your own meaning, sometimes. Which is why there are so many different opinions about different films. Like, so many people don’t like this movie for a bunch of different reasons, because they were expecting a love story, but it says in the beginning that that’s exactly what it’s not.”

“It’s a love story in a sense.” Harry objected. “Even if his love wasn’t reciprocated.”

“But it’s not a love story in a stereotypical, Hollywood, sense, right? Like the guy doesn’t get the girl in the end.”

“No, he doesn’t. But that’s life, right? People don’t always get the girl.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Especially when they treat the girl like she’s an object to be won.”

Harry bit down on his bottom lip and quirked his head to the left, looking more like an adorably confused puppy than any one person should. He also looked incredibly attractive like that, all contemplative and intelligent and academic and it was doing things to my heart. “What do you mean?”

“Like – and okay, this is just my interpretation, so you definitely don’t have to agree with everything – but he treats her like an end goal, you know? Like she’s an object to be won and once he has her he’ll be totally happy, but he bases all of that because they like the same stuff. And I think it’s supposed to be about how sometimes people build up these ideas of people and they expect them to act a certain way but when they don’t they blame the other person, rather than themselves for creating this like, paragon in the first place.”

“No, yeah, I get that.” Harry nodded quickly. “I agree with that completely.”

“And there’s this stereotype in books and movies of the manic pixie dream girl, right?” I continued. “Like she’s cute and quirky and wears polka dots and likes the Smiths and she’s just so great and there’s nothing wrong with her, which is total bullshit. And he’s so into that, so into this idea of her, that he doesn’t see the cracks in their relationship. He puts too much of his faith in this one person and he gets burned, but instead of figuring out that he’s the problem, he blames everyone else. And then he doesn’t learn his lesson and goes and does it again.”

Harry hummed and nodded, his tongue darting out between his lips as he ran it across his top lip. “He’s selfish and he’s objectifying these women.” He finally concluded. “But I don’t necessarily think he’s a bad person.”

“No, I don’t think he is either.” I agreed. “He’s just acting how people act, because a lot of people do that. Objectify people like that.”

“They do.” He agreed, and I was wondering if his thoughts were going in the same place that my thoughts were going. “And I think objectification of people happens a lot.”

He said this carefully, the words seeming heavy on his tongue, and I felt my breath hitch a little bit, because there was a subtle shift in our conversation.

“It’s a by product of fame.” I said this softly, almost hesitantly, but it was on my tongue before I could stop it. I didn’t know if this was a thing that Harry wanted to talk about. I also didn’t know if it was an appropriate thing for me and Harry to talk about, but it was out before I could take it back.
I watched his face carefully, the subtle raise of his eyebrows, but I continued before he could get a word in.

“I mean, I feel like that sometimes, and I’m not even famous. I just have this – I guess, Internet presence? But sometimes I feel like there are two different Ezra’s, you know? Like there is Ezra on the Internet, who makes funny videos and people seem to like her, at least most of the time, but everyone has an opinion on what she says and tweets and wears and hangs out with and it’s like, sometimes I think that other people thing I’m a object that they’re entitled to have an opinion on, like a sweater or something that they can approve or make suggestions about, rather than an actual person. And then there’s like, Ezra Ezra, Ezra Callil, and that’s who I really am, but I don’t know if I can share all of that Ezra with everyone because I don’t know if I could handle their judgment. I mean, I share a lot, but sometimes I don’t want people to have an opinion on everything. I mean, you get that. You have to get that.”

“No, I completely get that.” Harry let out a little puff of air. “Sometimes it’s like…like it’s easier to be who they want you to be. Because who they want you to be is still a part of you, but it’s easy because you’re giving people what they want and making them happy.”

“Which is such shit,” I rolled my eyes. “Because it should be easier to be who you are rather than who you aren’t, but it’s not.”

“It is shit.” He looked down for a moment, before blinking slowly. “Not that I’m ungrateful, it’s just--,”

“You don’t have to justify it to me, Harry.” I stopped him quickly. “You’re probably the least ungrateful person I’ve ever met.”

“I doubt that.”

“Shh.” I negated. “Don’t fight me on this. You’re humble and kind and okay, yes, probably the biggest people pleaser I’ve ever met, but no one could ever say that you’re ungrateful. You have to put up with a lot of shit and you do it without complaint.”

He was looking at me strangely, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a frown, and he seemed to be somewhere else just then, before he shook his head and pulled himself back.

“I just – I just want to do right by people, y’know?” He said this softly.

“You are, Harry.” I reassured him quickly. “Trust me, you are.”

There was a pause between us, like there was something else that needed to be said, but I wasn’t really sure immediately what that was so I decided to shift things along. The path from the film to the objectification of people and celebrities was clear, but it still wasn’t one I had necessarily been planning to go down right then and there.

I mean, Harry and I were friends. Sometimes I think I wanted to be more than his friend (I seldom let myself voice these thoughts) but I had still only known him for a few weeks, not even two months, and in celebrity time, that didn’t seem like a lot. There was trust there between us, because I at least understood some of what he was going through, but I also understood that he had to be careful about who he talked to these things about.

One slipped word and there could be a headline tomorrow about how ungrateful he was. Which was such shit, because anyone that ever looked at that boy in an interview or onstage could see that he was trying his best, but sometimes it was like no one was ever satisfied.

“Now how do you feel about the movie?” I moved on quickly, shaking my head and clearing whatever thoughts were still lingering about Harry re: fame.

“I liked it.” He said with a definitive nod. “It was really beautiful, cinematography wise, and I quite liked that it’s about more than just him falling and love and ending up happily ever after. It’s harder than that.”

“And now you can say that you’ve seen it.” I provided him with another plus.

“Now I can say that I’ve seen it.” He nodded and smiled. He was always nodding and smiling. “Am I cool yet?”

“Please, Styles.” I scoffed. “You’ll never be cool.”

He gave me a wounded look and raised his hand to his chest. “It hurts, Ezra. It really hurts.” He pouted.

I shrugged and tried to reel in my smile, but it was already tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Just telling the truth.”

“So besides breaking hearts and spreading lies, how’re things?” He asked. “How is school? Have you cut the girl in your class yet? You sent me a text about snapchatting her neck the other day and I’d like to request that if that happens, you please have someone take video footage.”

“Oh Jesus, do not bring up She Who Must Not Be Named.” I raised my hand up to stop him and shook my head in agitation. “She’s so fucking smug about taking my seat.”

“Why don’t you just get there early?” He suggested, and then he switched positions, moving the laptop to the end of his bed and lying on his stomach. His t-shirt rid up on his stomach when he transitioned and I forcibly looked away.

“I do!” I cried. “I was fifteen minutes early on Tuesday and she was already there!”

“And finding a different seat is obviously unacceptable.” He said this dryly and I shot him a dirty look.

“Obviously.”

“The struggle.” Harry chuckled. “I’m sure if you talked to her maturely about this, you guys could reach a compromise.”

“Stop being sensible.” I snapped. “I don’t like it.”

“Fine, fine. Anything else happen?” He prompted, but I could tell from his tone that he was prompting for specific information.

“Jesus, he couldn’t wait for me to tell you myself?” I exclaimed in exasperation, already rolling my eyes. Grimmy and Harry told each other everything, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

“He was texting me when it happened, so no.” He said.

“I went to lunch with Grimmy. “ I said. “He called and invited me to lunch. We chatted. It was fun. But I’m sure you already know all of that.”

“You two are basically best friends already.” He filled in the rest.

“There is no more room in his heart for another best friend, it’s all taken by you.” I protested.

“I am pretty great.” Harry smirked. “But he seems pretty smitten with you.”

“We got on.” I shrugged. “We talked about you, mostly, but once we got off that dull subject we talked about other things. He wants me to come down to the radio station one morning.”

“I’m glad that you’re making friends.” Harry mused. “You need to work less and socialize more.”

“I have friends, thank you very much. And I socialize! What do you think I’m doing right now?”

“Okay, I’m glad that you’re making more friends.” He revised.

“Thank you.” I sniped, turning my nose up at him in an attempt to look haughty, but I was smiling too much.

Harry didn’t even have the audacity to look offended, just kept smiling at me stupidly. “Now when I invite you out places, you won’t have an excuse to say no, because they’ll be your friends too.”

“Has that been your hidden agenda all along?”

“Yes. Obviously.” He conceded. “But everything else is good?”

“Yeah, everything else is solid.” I reassured him. “I’ve just been filming and editing and schooling and repeating. You’re the one with the super exciting life, remember? Speaking of, stop talking to me and go enjoy the Australian sun!”

“What is with you always trying to get rid of me?” He cried out in exasperation, widening his eyes and shaking his head.

“I’ve spent the past two and half hours with you.” I pointed out. “And I have a paper to write.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to keep you away from all of that fun.”

“No, definitely not.” I said. “I hope you liked the film.”

“Of course I did.” He grinned at me again, and even though it was through a screen and it was probably the same grin that he shot hundreds of times a day, to hundreds of different people, it still made the breath in my throat hitch a little. “I’m already eagerly anticipating next week.”

“Goodbye Harry.”

“Bye Ezra. Talk to you soon.”

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
It’s all about the context.

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
Explanations change everything. Ace film.



Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
The Lives of Others.

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
Week two: foreign film.

For our second film adventure, I decided on something a little bit heavier. It had been a hard week, not just academically, but on the Internet world as well. Generally I tried to block all of the negative stuff out, because it wasn’t worth putting my time and effort giving a shit, but some weeks just seemed worse than others.

Maybe it was a Harry thing or maybe it was just the way the world was feeling, but people were feeling especially viscous and I needed to be reassured about human acts of kindness.

"Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever met another girl named Ezra?" Harry pondered, staring at me through the screen as the movie buffered.

"Typically it’s a man’s name, yes." I tilted my screen down as I rolled over on my stomach. "Also, this movie is German, so prepare yourself for subtitles."

Harry continued on. “So where’d your name come from? Were your parents just deciding to break gender stereotypes or something?”

"I’m named after a poet." I replied, just as the movie loaded completely. "Ezra Pound."

Harry’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed out in concentration. “Don’t think I remember him.” He concluded after a moment of thought.

I shrugged. “He’s kind of most notably known for being a huge anti-Semitic and being put into a mental institution after World War II, so I can’t really fault you there.”

"And that’s why you’re named after him?” He clarified, eyebrows narrowed in confusion. I didn’t blame him, it was a pretty shit reason. “Because he was anti-Semitic?” He looked offended.

"No, of course not." I laughed, shaking my head quickly. "My mom slipped her number into the Ezra Pound book my dad checked out from the university library where she worked and that’s how they met. That’s the reason. The insane asylum stuff is just a bit of fun fact."

"Fun fact." Harry mocked, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, Ezra, is there anything about you that isn’t interesting?" He chuckled and shook his head, shooting me another grin as he readjusted his gangly arms, folding them across his stomach and leaning back on the hotel room pillows.

I could feel the flush on my cheeks, so I purposely turned my head off screen and pulled the movie window up. “Yes,” I answered quickly, dismissively. “Now pay attention. We have to time this just right, so your movie isn’t ahead of mine again.”

"Wait, wait, I have a joke to tell you!" Harry sat up excitedly. "What do you call a cow with a twitch?"

I looked at Harry blankly, raising an eyebrow as I waited for a response.

There was a moment - I’m assuming he paused for comedic effect and then --

"Beef jerky." He chortled, his shoulders visibly shaking as he looked quite pleased with himself over his own joke.

"Oh Jesus."

“What?” He cried, outraged at my lack of laughter. “That was a good one!”

“Where do you even get these things?” I asked him. “An app? A page a day calendar? What?”

“Are you implying that I couldn’t come up with them myself?”

“Yes. That is exactly what I’m implying.”

“I’m offended.”

I stared at him blankly.

He let out a huff and an eye roll. “There might, hypothetically, be an app, but don’t belittle my humor, Calil!”

“I’m not belittling anything.”

“Good.”

“Except perhaps your tiny penis.”

Harry groaned and I chortled. “I should’ve seen that one coming.”

“You really should’ve.”

“Not even five minutes into the conversation and you’re already into the Daily Dick joke.” He let out a low whistle in appreciation. “You’re good.”

The Daily Dick Joke was a thing that had been established last week. Most of the jokes Harry felt compelled to text me throughout the duration of the day were awful – like, read it on a popsicle stick, awful – but last Wednesday, we finally found our joke mutual ground- penis jokes. I found them hilarious, because I was secretly a twelve-year-old boy, and Harry found them hilarious, because Harry found most things pretty funny. Even the decidedly non-funny things. We had been texting each other inappropriate penis jokes multiple times a day, and now it was my goal to make as many jokes as I could.

“It’s a talent. Maybe we should start keeping score?” I suggested.

Harry dismissed that quickly. “I would just like to state, for the record, that my penis is anything but small. Perhaps you need proof—“

“Can we start watching the movie already?” I cut him off, shooting him a dirty look, but he just smiled at me politely. “Yes. Okay, prepare to click it at the same time – one, two, three.”

And even though we tried incredibly hard to click in sync, it didn’t really matter, because his movie was just a few seconds earlier than mine.

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
Quite possibly the best film I’ve seen in a while. Go watch The Lives of Others. The subtitles will make you feel cool.


Harry was surprisingly good at keeping our movie times. He wasn’t a flaky person by any means, but he seemed to be perpetually late, so I was anticipating a bit of shifting around, maybe a few times where we would have to reschedule or I would have to wait. I wasn’t planning on faulting him for it, because touring was complicated and it wasn’t like I wasn’t already perched in front of my computer anyway.

He never made me wait, though. If we had a time, he stuck to it, signing into Skype right on schedule, if not a few minutes early. Sometimes he wasn’t always in the same place – sometimes he was in his hotel room, sometimes he was sitting in a dressing room, and then sometimes he just seemed to be in some random secluded hallway – but he was always there.

He liked The Lives of Others. He didn’t cry like I did, even watching it the second time around, but we talked about human kindness and got into this really deep, slightly philosophical conversation about people’s responsibilities to others. We kept talking far longer than we probably should have, until someone was knocking on the dressing room door telling Harry that he needed to start getting ready.

Week three was American Beauty, which was about suburbia and the American Dream. Week four was The Shawshank Redemption, which hadn’t even been in the original plan but when I found out he hadn’t seen it, it immediately wiped out whatever was next on the list, because it was one of my favorites and about perseverance and kindness too.

And then week five was Casablanca, because I decided that there was nothing better than the classic. Originally, I had planned for us to watch Requiem for a Dream, but by the end of the week I needed something more lighthearted than emotionally scarring. Week five was also our last week of scheduled movie viewing times (they were not dates I refused to call them dates) because Japan was so packed full of things to do and he didn’t want to cancel if he couldn’t find a right time.

“You know I’m going to make you do these when I’m home, right?” Harry asked right before we signed off.

“If you can make room in your schedule, yeah, I’m down.” I shrugged nonchalantly, trying to keep up my air of noncommittal cool even though on the inside, I was like, <i> fuck yeah, I’m down </i> because watching movies with Harry was fun and interesting and it was messing me up on the inside but I couldn’t stop.

“I can always move things around.” He said easily. “I like watching movies with you.”

I quickly looked away and cleared my throat. “Yeah, you’re not too bad. Always laugh at the wrong parts, but I think I find that more endearing than annoying.”

Harry just shook his head and smiled again. “I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

“Have a great show.” I wished him well. “Don’t run into anymore fire. And tell Gemma I said hi.”

“I swear you look her more than you like me.” He groaned.

“Of course I do. She’s obviously the superior Styles.”

“Bye, Ezra.”

“Byeeee!”

Gemma was the superior Styles, and even though I had never met her in person, I liked her immensely. She was always retweeting things from me, especially things about Harry, and when Harry was in Australia, I was kind of tweeting him a lot.

It was funny, mostly, because he took the bait so easily. I think it pissed a lot of people off at first, and sometimes a part of me thought that maybe I shouldn’t have any social media interactions with him, because it only seemed to fuel people even more, but then I eventually decided that I couldn’t be bothered.

Harry and I were friends. I was entitled to tweet him whatever the hell I wanted. And even if we weren’t friends, I would’ve been tweeting him anyway, because it was what I did.

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
Apparently there is some hoopla over some yellow shorts? Searching Tumblr to find the answer to this.

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
ABORT ABORT ABORT MISSION

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@Harry_Styles the fuck you have to do that for man u gonna give people heart attacks

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@Harry_Styles ALSO way to match ur sunglasses with your shorts. Nerd. (jk jk jk)
Retweeted by Gemma Styles, Tyler Oakley, and 3456 others.

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
Nobody likes a bully, miss.

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@Harry_Styles your passive aggressive attitude will be tolerated by NO ONE

Ash Flagler @ashcash
@ezracallil do you really think Harry is a nerd wtf is wrong with you???

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@ashcash he is a huge nerd but we’re homies so it’s cool!

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@Harry_Styles I am being told that I need 2 reassure u that I don’t really think ur a nerd (I do but it’s not a bad thing)

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
F is for friends who do things together.

Becca @itsbeccabitch
@ezracallil what’re you going to be for Halloween??

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@itsbeccabitch i have plans to be the saucy/sassy Wednesday Addams!!!!

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
Halloween was best night ever I just got to go around glaring @ people & threatening but they couldn’t say shit bc Wednesday ova here

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
@Harry_Styles I have no idea what is going on w/ ur costume but I am appalled & amused

Harry Styles @Harry_Styles
A little party never killed nobody.

Ezra Callil @ezracallil
IT KILLED ME


From Ezra, to Harry:

I don’t know if I approve of you being Miley Cyrus for Halloween but it might be the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.

I think I’m still drunk

Okay but serious question – how much did the nipple tape hurt to take off?

S not off yet

You are getting so much shit for this tomorrow. Be safe! Wear a condom!

xxx


Ezra Callil @ezracallil
“brand new bc sad or sad bc brand new??” – there has never been a more applicable text post

From Harry, to Ezra:

Why’re you sad????

It’s just been one of those weeks. No worries.

Yes worries. We’re getting milkshakes on Tuesday.

Wait when do you come home???

Tuesday morning.

Homeboy you can sleep first. I’ll be fine, I promise.

Milkshakes come first. Don’t fight me on this.