Written Words

Harry noticed the journal as soon as he turned his back on the girl, hearts jumping out at him like a double dutch team in elementary. He thumbed over the black ink, slightly smearing it with the spots of coffee dotted across his too big fingers.

"Hey, you..." He turned around quickly but she was gone and his journal was gone, replaced by someone else's thoughts and feelings and hurt crammed into a single notebook. "Ok, well that's just fine." Harry looked down at the coffee cups and let out an annoyed groan. Sure, he had told the girl that it was okay, that he could just get more but damn, he really didn't want to walk all the way back to Starbucks.

Deciding he was just going to head back to the hotel, he picked up the empty coffee cups, tossed them into the nearest trashcan and forced his long legs to carry him to the Ritz Carlton at the end of the street.



He knows he shouldn't read it, shouldn't even think about it. But staring down at the leather notebook on the bed, he's got temptation in his veins and curiosity in his eyes. When he reaches out to touch it, he feels like it should be hot with secrets desperate to be read.

He thinks about his journal, probably tossed in the trash like a piece of junk or hidden under some clothes without the girl's slightest idea as to who it belongs to. He thinks about all of his own secrets, hidden behind soft words and smudged ink. The words that he stayed up writing when he couldn't sleep or when he wanted to cry but couldn't or when he was just homesick and needed some comfort in the form of poetry or lyrics.

"Writing again, yeah?" Zayn asked, stepping out of the bathroom, hot condensation coating his body and his hand running a towel through his hair.

Harry raised his eyebrows before looking over at Zayn and shaking his head, "It's not mine. Some bird got them switched up when we ran into each other."

"Oh, yeah? Dude, that's shit. You'll have to start from new then?" Harry didn't even think about that or moreso, didn't want to think about it. Having to start with a blank canvas, a new beginning. It was scary. He liked being able to glance over at his journal and know that beneath the tattered leather flaps was his life.

"Yeah, suppose so." Harry grabbed the journal and held it in his hands, "I think i'm going to read it. If she hasn't thrown mine away, she's probably reading it right now." Zayn shrugged and watched as his mate snatched up his coat and left the hotel room.

Harry Styles has done a lot of things in his life; At the age of 19, he's been around the world twice, met thousands and thousands of people, made millions of dollars, but never in his life has he gone so far as to read a girl's diary, not even Gemma's. He believes a girl's thoughts are her own private property and no man should know the beauty they contain. So, looking at this book, this stranger's life in word form, he feels, excited.

He plants himself on a park bench, curling into the corner with his legs pulled up and the book now sat on his knees. With a deep breath, he unwrapped the straps and flipped open the cover. His eyes scanned over the writing, neat and precise. He didn't know such curly letters could exist. Finally, his eyes shot up to the first word, the fist thing that had ever been written in this book.

You.

You are not a puzzle. You are an oil painting I traced with steady fingers. You are a song I sing with pride in my voice. You are the poem I wrote when darkness didn't exist. You are the fairy tale ending of my favorite movie.

You are not a puzzle because I am no good at putting pieces together.