Bloom

December

It took ages to get through Customs and then another few millennia for the luggage carousel to start turning, and just when I thought that maybe I’d be out of Heathrow soon and could get on my way to Astor, my suitcase just happened to be one of the last to roll down the conveyor belt. My eyes were sore and my body was stiff and I really just wanted to sleep, but it seemed that the universe had other plans. Or at least my friends did.

Jillian clearly didn’t account for the fact that I might actually be tired after a long flight, because she threw herself at me with no inhibitions. I let go of my suitcase and it toppled to the floor, followed quickly by the duffle bag I’d only bothered to hitch over one shoulder. If it hadn’t been for the rubber soles of my boots, which offered a decent amount of traction, we both would’ve gone crashing down.

“Fuck—“ I managed to splutter out, pushing her frizzy hair out of my mouth. “Dude, let go. I can’t breathe.”

I had about three seconds to regain my breath before Matt embraced me tightly, muttering something unintelligible before he pulled away. It was probably ’I miss you’ or something equally as worrying, but I was too tired and had too many other things on my mind to even start thinking about what I was going to do about Matt.

“Silas couldn’t be bothered to make an appearance?” I asked, allowing Matt to bear the heavy burden of my duffle bag. We started out of the terminal, and Jillian looked eager to fill me in on everything I’d missed. I wanted to talk to her about Harry, just not while Matt was around (and maybe when I’d had a few more hours sleep). If there was anyone who knew how to handle awkward conversations with Harry Styles, it was Jillian.

“The Parents got back from Amsterdam just before Christmas,” Jillian explained. “They found out Grimmy’s back in the picture and won’t let Silas out of their sight.”

“What, do they not approve of him being gay or something?” I asked, curious to know more about the elusive Mr. and Mrs. Barnes.

“They don’t approve of Nick,” Matt corrected.

I grinned. “Well, I can understand that. My mom doesn’t even know him and she doesn’t like him.”

Matt chuckled, but Jillian wasn’t so amused. “Look, we all know that Silas is weak when it comes to Nick. There’s no universe where those two stay apart forever, no matter how hard Nick tries to convince the both of them it’s better that way. But they should at least be allowed to try and be friends, even if it fails horribly.”

“Let’s not talk about this, yeah? I wanna know about New York,” Matt said, before Jillian could get even more heated about Silas’s love life.

Her face changed instantly, a smile spreading across her thin pink lips. “Oh, yes! How was New York?”

“Cold, mostly. I spent the whole trip sitting around at home and doing stuff with my mom,” I said with a shrug. Jillian shot me a look that said my short explanation wasn’t good enough. “I also went to see one of my old professors and did some baking with the old lady that lives across the hall. We tried to make a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve, but her cat destroyed it when she jumped onto the counter and knocked it over.”

“Cats are assholes,” Jillian said. “My mom’s cat is the worst. Every time I was sat down back home he would jump on my lap and get hair all over everything.”

Matt threw Jillian a dry look over my head. “You’re just shit with animals. Even Nick’s dog hates you, and he loves everyone.”

Her long arms allowed her to smack him upside the head without touching me. I tucked my chin to my chest to hide my smile, overwhelmed with the sudden realization of how much I’d missed them.

The thing is, I’ve always had a hard time getting attached. Growing up, I never had any best friends. Just friends. The kind you see and talk to at school but never outside the grounds. This had a lot more to do with me being slightly socially awkward as a kid and more interested in science than people. But as I got older, entered the chaotic whirlwind of hormones that is middle school, I learned what other kids were like. I started to realize that being like these other kids was how I’d make friends, so I tried. Letting go of school turned out to be a lot harder than I realized, and it took me a few years to find the balance between social and academic worlds.

In high school, I finally started to feel balanced. I had real friends, maybe not best friends, but people I connected with and whose company I enjoyed. I even had a boyfriend, Scott, who’d been a close friend before we started dating and remained so afterward. He didn’t even mind that I kept his lacrosse hoodie. Scott and I weren’t particularly adventurous with our relationship, we kissed a bit and he saw me in my bra a few times, but he was a little awkward like me and we’d decided that we weren’t ready for anything else.

But then there was Beckett. I didn’t realize, before him, what it was like to have your universe centre around a person. I didn’t even realize what it was like until it was too late, and I was too far gone. My life went from a careful balance between friends and school to Beckett, Beckett, Beckett and I was too busy enjoying the ride to think about the future taking shape before my eyes. There are tons of books about people falling in love at seventeen, knowing it’s forever, and maybe in those fictional worlds it is. But we change too much when we’re young; everything is ephemeral. The sweet, blue-eyed boy I’d willingly given my heart to underwent a slow change, but that can be the worst kind. Subtle shifts in behaviour, seemingly innocent at the time, to keep my path going in the direction he wanted. Toward the future he wanted, where we were together forever like the eternal teenagers in all those books.

My entire self had been consumed by all things Beckett; the emptiness that tore at my chest after he was gone and the anger dissipated had made me physically ill. The forty-odd days I’d had to recover before getting on a plane to London had been all-important, and Dr. Gustavson was responsible for helping to put me back together again. I hadn’t had the heart to tell Mom the truth, after seeing how excited she was for me to go to England. After Beckett, I didn’t think I’d be able to maintain a healthy relationship — any sort, be it romantic or platonic — for months, years even.

I suppose it was a good thing Jillian invited herself into my dorm room on move-in day and decided we were going to be friends, because I probably wouldn’t have talked to her otherwise. And even though they weren’t aware of it, Jillian, Matt, Silas, Nick, sometimes Tatiana, and now Harry were helping me return to my regular self: the slightly awkward, smart girl that was trying to find a balance between life and school.

“You’re smiling really strangely,” Jillian said, breaking through my thoughts. “Thinking about all the brilliant presents you got for Christmas, yeah? I got one of those mini blender things for smoothies. Best present ever.”



I didn’t see Harry until New Year’s Eve. He’d been busy filming a music video and going to meetings and other things international pop sensations did. We kept up pretty consistent contact, though, because despite not able to be physically present, half the time he was at ‘work,’ he was sitting around and waiting. With Jillian’s advice to guide me, I held off on explaining the whole Beckett situation until I saw him in person.

To my surprise, Jillian hadn’t been terribly judgemental when I told her about my strategy to avoid my ex-boyfriend. Her only sarcastic statement had been to point out that there was ’like, an entire ocean’ in the way, but I had to explain that that hadn’t stopped Beckett from plaguing my phone with texts and voicemails. I wanted a clean cut, and avoiding his calls wasn’t working. But ever since he assumed I was dating Harry, Beckett had stopped trying to contact me. It was weird to not be constantly deleting unread messages.

Nick was hosting a New Year’s party with an ‘Around the World’ theme, which meant that we all had to dress up as a country or he wouldn’t let us have any alcohol. Jillian’s brilliant plan was to convert an Australian flag into a dress (she had a black tube dress on underneath, just to be safe). Matt was going as Germany, and Silas — at our insistence — as the Dominican Republic, where he’d spent his summer trying, and failing, to get over Nick Grimshaw. From the brief comment Jillian had made about her bad costume ideas, I understood that Tatiana planned to go as the Netherlands.

By noon on New Year’s Eve, I still hadn’t picked a country. I refused to go as the USA, mostly because that was too obvious, but also because I couldn’t think of any clever costumes. Jillian was extremely unhelpful, since she kept on pushing me to dress up as Lady Liberty. After almost an hour of dismissing bad ideas, I decided to text Harry.

What are you dressing up as for Nick’s party?

A few seconds later, the little bubble indicating Harry was typing popped up.

I thought the costume thing was optional

Nick said no costume, no alcohol

I guess I need a costume then

What country did you pick?

I DON’T KNOW

HELP

The USA is too obvious?

Obviously

:)

OK so what about being the country that your favourite space person is from

I smiled at ‘space person,’ and decided not to tell him that he’d actually come up with a good idea to avoid spending the next hour dealing with his gloating.

Like who?

I don’t know any space people

Wait gonna google ‘space people’

Galileo?

Too mainstream

Also I don’t want to be Italy theres gonna be at least 3 Italys

The next name that came up was Copernicus

That’s a cool name you should be him

Copernicus is Polish

How do I dress up as Poland?????

Poland is too hard

I think I’ll be Greece

Why Greece?

You’ll see

He left me another half a dozen messages, but I was out the door and off to the nearest linens store to buy a plain white sheet.

When I got back to Astor, I knocked on Jillian’s door. She eyed the bag dangling from my fingers and grinned. “Finally picked a country, have you?”

“Greece,” I said with a firm nod. “Now help me figure out how to make a toga.”

It took a lot of experimentation and “How-To Make a Toga” manuals online, but eventually Jillian and I managed to turn the sheet into a passable toga. When it came time to head over to Nick’s, I put on a strapless bra and a pair of Jillian’s tiny running shorts (God knows why she’s got so many), then fastened the sheet over one shoulder.

Unfortunately, Jillian insisted upon attacking my eyes with various brushes, powders, a fine eyeliner pen, and a scary mascara wand. I tried my best to sit still while she complained about my feeble eyelashes, pulling at them mercilessly with a curler. She’d done her makeup earlier, while I was still trying to figure out why the Ancient Greeks thought togas were a good idea, and so after putting on our shoes and grabbing coats for the cold, we were ready to go.

Central London hadn’t gotten much snow, but it was still freezing out, so my toes quickly turned red. I could’ve always worn boots to Nick’s, then changed into the leather sandals currently exposing my feet to the elements, but that involved effort I couldn’t be bothered to put in. Besides, once I had enough alcohol coursing through my veins, the cold wouldn’t be much of a problem.

We got some funny looks on the Tube — mostly tourists, since the locals couldn’t be bothered by a girl wearing a flag for a dress and another in a toga — but there were plenty of other people dressed up for their own New Year’s celebrations that prevented Jillian and I from sticking out too much. It was a lengthy trip up to Primrose Hill, compared to my usual travels within the city. Even further north was Hampstead, where the Barnes family lived.

Just as we turned onto Nick’s street, we spotted Alexa and Pixie coming from the opposite direction. They reached the stairwell that led down to Nick’s basement flat before us, but waited on the sidewalk until we got there so that the four of us could go in together. I couldn’t see Alexa’s dress beneath her chic pea coat, but I suspected it was a high fashion, feminine number, custom-made for her by some Italian designer (which simultaneously fulfilled the ‘represent a country’ requirement and had her looking better than the rest of us). Pixie, to my amusement, was dressed up as Lady Liberty. Unfortunately, she didn’t paint her face green, but she did have a fake torch.

Nick had decided that since he was hosting the party and had claimed England as his costume, nobody else was allowed to be England. To be fair, he’d been pretty creative and dressed up as (a very tacky) St. George. Nick threw open the door and flung his arms out wide so that we could admire his cheesy knight costume, then demanded that he inspect each of our costumes in turn before we were allowed into his home.

“Love the toga,” he said to me with a grin, and shut the door as I stepped through into the foyer. “Coats just there, love.”

There were already about a dozen coats hanging on the hooks, and I averted my eyes from any tags to keep myself sane. I did recognize Harry’s aviator jacket amidst the heap, as well as one of Silas’s slim Chesterfield coats.

In the main room, a table was littered with champagne flutes. Jillian and I each grabbed one, but she quickly deserted me once she spotted Pixie chatting with some guy I thought I recognized as one of Nick’s coworkers at Radio 1. I ducked past Aimee and a few other people, wondering where Matt was. There was no point in bothering with Silas this evening, since he was probably off in a corner drooling over Nick’s knight costume. Although I knew most of the people here by name, I didn’t actually know anybody well enough to just go up to them and start a conversation. Not without Matt, who had been a part of this crowd for almost two years.

Instead of finding Matt, I stumbled upon Harry laughing maniacally at something Nick had said. I had to stop and laugh to myself at his outfit, how obvious it was that he’d just thrown on stuff from his closet and added an ill-fitting beret. At least he’d found a pair of black jeans without holes in the knees, and his black boots were shined to perfection. I suspected the red kerchief tied around his neck actually belonged to Nick, despite Harry’s expansive scarf collection.

“Where’s your baguette?” I asked, having finished admiring Harry’s costume from across the kitchen.

Before he said anything, Harry threw one arm around my shoulders and pulled me in, pressing his face into my hair. I was briefly overwhelmed by the scent clinging to him, a mix of cologne and boy and peppermint gum. But a second later he’d dropped his arm and leaned away slightly, though his feet stayed in place. Harry did a lazy scan of my costume, a grin quirking at the corners of his mouth. Nick glanced between us and then wandered off, sipping his champagne. “I did have one,” he insisted, referring back to my baguette inquiry. “But then Nick cut it up and put it next to the antipasto.”

By the slightly glossy look in his eyes, I could tell he’d already had a few glasses of champagne. “Too bad, it would’ve really completed the look.”

Harry nodded, downing half of his champagne in one go. “Are you going to tell me why you picked Greece now?”

“I thought it was obvious.”

“Not to me.”

I took a sip of champagne. “The Greeks sort of pioneered, well, everything. I could’ve gone as some Arabic dude, I guess, but making a toga seemed like fun. It was actually pretty hard and not fun at all, but I think Eratosthenes would be impressed.”

A crease formed between Harry’s brows. “Who?”

“Nevermind,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. “Why France? Did you see that striped shirt at the back of your closet and think, ’Why not?’”

The sheepish expression on his face told me that he had. “My house is finished,” he said, effectively changing the subject of conversation. “You should come by and see it. The kitchen is brilliant, and I’ve got one of those massive claw-foot bathtubs in the master bathroom.”

“You should have bubble baths every night,” I replied, because that’s what I would do if I had a claw-foot tub.

“It was an impulse decision,” he admitted, swirling what was left in his champagne flute around. “I’m more of a shower person.”

“Boooring,” I admonished, grinning. Harry grinned back, his eyes lighting up.

“You should know,” Harry said, clearing his throat, the bright look in his eyes disappearing. “Matt plans on kissing you at midnight.”

I tried to hide my surprise, but Harry had clearly seen it flash across my face. “What? How do you know?”

“He was freaking out about it before you got here,” Harry said, his voice dropping as though he were sharing an important secret. There was something else in his voice, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “You do know he fancies you, right?”

“I wish he didn’t,” I muttered, raking my fingers through my hair. I had to step back from Harry, his cologne and his eyes and the way his body angled toward mine had begun to distract me. “What should I do?”

Harry shrugged, finishing his drink. “Let him.”

“That’s, like, the worst thing I could possibly do,” I said. “You like keeping things separate, right? That’s what I’m trying to do with Matt. But no matter what I do, he keeps on saying all this stuff about missing me and what he would do if I wasn’t here. So, Mr. Styles, master of setting relationship boundaries, what should I do?”

“Tell him you aren’t interested,” said Harry, his eyes following some blonde across the kitchen. They switched back to me, suddenly very dark. “Or kiss somebody else.”

“Like who?”

Harry caught his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze flickering down to my mouth for the briefest of moments. Then the look was gone, and he frowned at the opposite wall. “Anybody,” he said. “No. Wait. It should be someone who won’t care. Like Grimmy.”

“We both know Silas is going to kiss him.”

“Then kiss Jillian.”

“Funny,” I deadpanned. “She’ll probably try and kiss Pixie. Or you, depending on how drunk she is.”

“Fine. Then kiss him,” Harry said, nodding at some guy who’d just come into the kitchen.

I frowned. “Who’s that?”

“Exactly,” Harry said. “There is also the option of kissing no one.”

“I like that plan better,” I agreed, turning back to Harry. “Maybe I’ll just conveniently be in the bathroom or outside when the countdown starts. Have you decided who you’re going to kiss?”

Harry shot me a quizzical look, but then he seemed to spot something over my shoulder that consumed all of his attention. His spine straightened, his upper body shifting away from me. “Darcy?” he said, a frown settling onto his face.

“I guess that makes sense,” I said, a little disappointed he was still doing whatever it was he wanted to call it with her.

“No,” Harry said distractedly. “Not that. She’s here.”

One glance over my shoulder confirmed what Harry had said. Darcy was standing with Tatiana (dressed entirely in orange, and still managing to look great), listening to some guy talk with a bored expression her face. I had to admit, Darcy looked nearly as good as Alexa. I had no idea what country she was supposed to be, but the dress she wore was some sort of filmy silver material that slid over her slight curves in a way that could only be pulled off by somebody with her body type. Of course, the moment she realized both Harry and I were looking at her, Darcy glanced over. Her lips immediately curved into a frown, and I wondered if I’d be receiving another warning at some point tonight.

“For the guy who’s sleeping with her, you sure don’t seem to like it when she’s around.”

Harry rolled his eyes, his posture relaxing toward me again. “She never used to show up at these things. She’s not friends with anyone here except Tatiana.”

“Oh, and now that she is here, you might actually have to talk to her? The horror.”

“If she’s here, it means she wants to be part of this side of my life,” Harry stated. “Which isn’t good. I’m going to talk to her.”

Then, without another word, he left his empty glass on the counter and headed toward Darcy with a determined set to his shoulders. I watched with interest as he lowered his head to say something in her ear, then two of them disappeared to some other part of the house.

“He looks like an idiot in that beret, doesn’t he?”

“Hmm?” I swivelled my head around and blinked at Matt, feeling like I’d just woken up from a dream. He’d appeared out of nowhere, wearing a German soccer kit and holding a beer. The world would probably come to an end if Matt Campbell drank champagne.

Matt narrowed his eyes. “You look a bit spacey, everything a’right?”

“Fine!” I said quickly. All I could think about was Harry saying that Matt planned on kissing me at midnight, and how that was the last thing I needed right now. “I’m gonna go and, uh, find Silas. Bye.”

I finished off my champagne as I approached the liquor table and refilled the dainty glass with a mixture of gin and ginger ale (mostly gin). Nobody would notice the difference, anyway. Silas was fairly easy to spot, thanks to his entirely white linen outfit. I sidled up next to him, sipping my drink, and bumped my hip against his to get his attention.

“You look ridiculous in white,” I informed him.

Silas took one look at my toga and raised his eyebrows. “Did you know that the slit in your toga goes all the way up to your hip? Nice shorts.”

I scowled at him, adjusting the sheet around my legs so that it didn’t split so far up. “So,” I began, once I was satisfied with the material. “Any idea why Matt hasn’t realized that I don’t want to date him yet?”

“You found out he wants to kiss you at midnight, I take it?”

“Harry told me.”

Silas grinned into his glass. “He looked quite put out when Matt brought it up. I think he was planning on kissing you himself.”

“What?”

“You’ve certainly shaken things up around here, Imogen,” Silas said. “Though, I don’t think Harry actually wants to date you. He doesn’t do that anymore, or at least that’s what he tells himself. I suspect he wants a snog so he doesn’t have to wonder what it’s like anymore and get back to fucking Darcy.”

“When did you start taking such an interest?” I asked, furrowing my brows at him. “And did you just say that Harry’s been thinking about kissing me?”

Silas shrugged. “He’s Matt’s mate, I just overhear things.”

“What things?”

“Let’s just say that while you were back in New York, it didn’t feel like you’d gone anywhere at all.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Silas said, looking annoyed I kept on asking him to explain himself. “that you’ve got two boys who want in your pants, but one of them won’t admit it to himself, much less one of his best mates, who just happens to be asking his advice on pursuing the same girl. I suggest you pick soon, because it’s only going to get worse if you don’t.”

“I’m still confused,” I stated, causing Silas to roll his eyes. “No, listen, Harry can’t like me. He’s said again and again that he doesn’t date his female friends.”

“I didn’t say anything about dating,” Silas said. “But I wouldn’t listen to me, anyway, because I know fuck all about relationships. Nick has been flirting with some twat in a leprechaun costume all night and ignoring me completely.”

My head was whirling, and I had to lean against the wall to digest all the information Silas had just loaded onto me. I suppose that Harry was allowed to be attracted to me without wanting to date me, but did that mean that at some point between walking into each other at Alexa’s birthday party and when he’d asked to drive me home from Matt’s, Harry had decided that being my friend was more important to him? Or, maybe after seeing that I was a permanent fixture in the lives of his friends, he had no choice but to be my friend as well because of his intent to keep friendship and romance (if you could call it that) separate?

What had once been black and white had drifted into grey, and I didn’t like it one bit. Knowing what we were was what I’d liked so much about our friendship, aside from Harry himself. I didn’t want things to change between us, and I had to think of a way prove that it hadn’t. The first thing I thought of was kissing Matt at midnight, which would solve one problem but only worsen another. I could always just talk to Harry, but I was terrible at that, and it would probably just end up being more confusing and complicated than before.

I could see Matt coming across the room toward Silas and I, and decided that I wasn’t ready for this. After meeting Silas’s half-amused, half-annoyed eyes and nodding, I slipped out of the rapidly filling main room and into the adjacent hallway. I went around the corner and into the master bedroom, where Nick’s dog was curled up on the bed. The roar of the party had diminished to a buzz here. I breathed out a sigh of relief and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding my glass between my knees.

With every moment, things just kept on getting more complicated. I hadn’t come all the way to London just for my life to become a jumbled mess of emotions, grey areas, and unsaid things. I wanted Dr. Gustavson here to tell me what to do. At the moment my next best option was Jillian, but I hadn’t seen her since she went off to find Pixie.

At five minutes to midnight, a knock came at the door. I let out a noise somewhere between a groan and ‘come in,’ tilting my head up so that I could see whoever was on the other side. I’d lain back on Nick’s bed and stayed there for almost two hours, my knees hooked over the end, one hand resting against Puppy’s back.

It was Jillian. She frowned upon seeing me, stepping further into the room. “Who are you hiding from?”

“Would you like a list?”

She sighed. “Come on, Imogen, the countdown’s starting soon.”

“I know. That’s why I’m staying in here.”

“You can’t!” Her voice came out strained.

I sat up, narrowing my eyes at her. “You know Matt wants to kiss me too, don’t you?”

Jillian laughed nervously, hands fidgeting at her sides. “No! He does?”

“For fuck’s sake, did you guys plan this?”

“He really likes you, Imo,” she said softly, taking another step toward me. “Like, a lot.”

“I don’t want him to!” I exclaimed.

“You can’t stop somebody from feeling any more than they can,” Jillian said.

I pushed both hands into my hair, clinging at the roots. “I stop myself from feeling all the time! I made myself stop loving somebody once, and that was after he tried to take over my entire life, so don’t tell me that people can’t stop feeling.”

“Everything okay in here?” Of all people, Matt appeared at Jillian’s shoulder. “Imogen?”

“I’m fine!” I shouted, leaping off the bed and pushing past them. I could see the clock ticking nearer to midnight and Nick gathering everyone into the main room. Standing a few feet away was Harry, frowning to himself. Across the room I saw Darcy staring at him, her expression somewhere between furious and dejected.

“Imogen,” started Matt, who’d come up behind me with Jillian, his hand reaching for my elbow. “Are you okay?”

“Stop asking me that!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you pay attention to anything I say to you?”

“Of course—“

The countdown started, the entire room coming together with smiles on their faces. I found myself looking at Harry again, startled to see that he was looking at me too. Or, rather, at Matt’s hand still hovering near my arm.

“3! 2! 1!”

I closed the space in the last three seconds, my body working before my mind could catch up. I placed my hands on either side of his face and pulled it down to mine as people around us kissed and hugged and high-fived the way people did to ring in the New Year. It was quick and forced and he didn’t even have time to kiss me back before I pulled away and my hands dropped to my sides.

“Happy New Year, Harry.”