Hearts Like Ours

Gemma was awake by the time Harry finally rolled out of bed. He could hear her in her room playing Two Door Cinema Club quietly as she got dressed. He rubbed his face slowly as he pushed himself up. Sunlight was filtering in through the window and he didn’t bother to turn on a light as he reached into his bag and pulled out a clean pair of boxers and athletic shorts. He made his way to the bathroom without a word to his sister and turned on the shower.

The scalding water felt good against Harry’s tense muscles. He had barely slept the night before and was now regretting it as he prepared to go to a meeting with the rest of the band. He felt stressed again already. Though the press work he’d be doing this week wasn’t much, he was still dreading it as he stepped out onto the mat and began to towel dry. He swiftly put on his clean clothes and shook out his hair, pushing open the door and padding across the apartment back to his room.

“What’s this?”

Harry stopped dead in his tracks, surprised at where his sister sat on the guest bed. She had the journal in her hand, a duster sitting beside her. It was obvious she’d come in to clean and had come across the diary instead. It was open on her lap and Harry was torn between snatching it from her hands or trying to come up with a decent enough excuse to get out of it. Neither happened as he realized she’d already begun reading it.

“Who does this belong to?” she asked instead, glancing up into Harry’s eyes. She read the expression there and accordingly shut it, wrapping it in the leather strap and sitting it down. Something in his face must have alerted her to the taboo she’d breached, but she didn’t move as she gestured for him to take a seat beside her. He obliged, running a hand through his hair.

“I found it.”

“You found it?”

“On the street outside our hotel somewhere in the States. It was there and I found it and...” he trailed off, unsure of what to say next.

“And...?”

Harry sighed, pulling his lip between his teeth. No one else knew about the journal he found, let alone what it had done for him. He felt awkward telling someone this, but knew if he could admit it to anyone, it would be his sister. Her eyes were encouraging as she met his gaze, trying to understand.

“I don’t know. It helped me. It gave me somewhere to go when tour was difficult and I missed home.”

“And this girl?” Gemma asked, raising her eyebrow. Harry made no response, instead he began examining his hands.

“You’re in love with her.”

Harry’s head shot up.

“Absolutely not.”

“What is it then? Because you won’t tell me and you won’t look me in the eye to let me figure it out for myself.”

“It’s complicated,” Harry snapped with an exasperated sigh. “I’m not in love with her. I’ve never even met her, for God’s sake. I don’t know anything about her.”

“You know her innermost thoughts, Harry. I think that counts as knowing someone.”

“She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t even know I found the journal. It’s just a book, Gemma.”

“Is it, though?”

Harry made no reply, again falling into silence as he contemplated this. Of course it wasn’t just a book. It meant so much more to him than that. He was invested in Charlie and she’d helped him through one of the most difficult times in his life. Still, admitting that to Gemma felt like admitting defeat. He was a hopeless romantic, sure, but at least a realist.

“Can we just drop it?” Harry finally asked, looking up again to meet Gemma’s eyes.

“Do you want to meet her?”

“God. I don’t even think about that. It’s a book for Christ’s sake. Just let it go.”

“Why are you so defensive about it?”

“Because it’s stupid. You’re turning this into something it isn’t.”

“So just tell me you’re not curious, then. Just tell me you don’t want to meet her and look me in the eye when you say it.”

He sighed again, his hands balling into fists. He tried focusing on his breathing in an attempt to calm down. Gemma was pissing him off, but showing her that would only strengthen her argument that the diary meant more to him than he wanted to let on. Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet Gemma’s, opening his mouth to speak. The words were there, right inside his mouth, waiting to roll off his tongue, but he couldn’t find the voice to speak them. Gemma’s eyes were expectant, waiting. He closed his mouth, wetting his lips before trying again, but was met by silence once more.

“You could pull it off to anyone else, Harry. If I were mom, maybe. If I were one of the boys you could say it. But you can’t bullshit me and you know it,” she told him, a determined fire in her eyes. She stood then and his eyes followed her as she left the room, crossing the living area to the kitchen where her laptop sat. She hopped onto the countertop, pulling the computer toward her.

“Okay, so what have we just accomplished?” he asked, striding into the kitchen. “I found a journal and I’m intrigued by the stranger who wrote it. That doesn’t mean I’m in love with her. So now you feel all high and mighty because I can’t lie to you, but it doesn’t change the circumstances.”

Gemma was blatantly ignoring him as she typed furiously into her laptop. He was growing even more annoyed as he watched her, knowing she heard his words but chose not to make a response. He was opening his mouth to yell at her further when she hopped from the counter and glared at him, as if sensing what he was about to do. She put her Macbook on the warm countertop she’d previously been sitting on and gestured to it, not taking her eyes off Harry for a moment as she did so. His eyes flickered to the screen and he stopped cold.

A blonde girl was smiling widely in the photo, her arm thrown over the shoulder of a boy wearing a pastel baseball tee. Her eyes were bright blue, her hair falling in a cascade of waves over her right shoulder. She was almost laughing in the photo, leaning into the boy who was smiling just as widely as she was. The name beside the photo read Charlie Dupont, the Facebook cover photo a snapshot of the same girl leaning over a boat, pointing in the distance to a fin he assumed belonged to a killer whale. She had the same smile, perfectly aligned teeth, and eyes that shone like the sun. Her hair was pulled up in the photo and she wore a pair of blue jeans with a black Northface fleece. She was even more beautiful than he’d imagined her to be.

He leaned in, captivated by the profile his sister had found in a matter of seconds, yet he had failed to even think about searching for. Her information read that she attended the University of Washington in Seattle, right above her work information that told him she volunteered at the Seattle Public Library. There was no denying it was the same girl, this information confirming every detail that had been written in the diary. She existed. She was out there somewhere, living and breathing and surviving. His heartbeat quickened.

“You should go to her,” Gemma suggested, leaning back and crossing her arms across her chest as she did so. “You could explain it all to her. From what I read, she seems like a genuine, good-hearted person. I’m sure she’d understand.”

“It’s not that simple,” he mumbled in response, willing himself to step away from the computer but instead finding himself scrolling down. The profile was private, but he could still view her information page as well as her likes and dislikes.

“What’s so bloody complicated about it?” Gemma asked.

“I am,” Harry answered simply, finally reaching forward to shut the laptop. He could feel his sister’s eyes on him as he began to make his way out of the kitchen, done with the conversation.

“That’s it, then? You just walk away? This girl changed you and you don’t care?”

“It’s not that,” he snapped as he pinched the bridge of his nose. This entire conversation was getting out of hand so quickly and he willed it to be over, mostly because a part of him agreed with her. Still, the level-headed part of himself feared rejection.

“I read this journal and it’s like I know her. It’s like I have a friend who gets it, who sees the world in a different way than I do. I like having that friend. But what happens if I go to Seattle to find her? She’ll see full on boy band Harry Styles and it’ll crush me. So I’ll spare myself the embarrassment and disappointment, thanks.”

“Harry, this girl reads biographies about John F. Kennedy. She quotes Edgar Allan Poe and eats Nutella to cure a hangover. She’s obviously intelligent and I know that she’ll be able to distinguish the facade you put on to the cameras from the living, breathing human being in front of her. This journal was last written in, what? Six months ago? And where does it leave off?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t finished it.”

“Well, I have. She needs someone too, Harry.”

The words hit him like a slap across the face. It was so obvious, yet he’d never thought about it in that way. All this time he was reading the journal, she was helping him by allowing an escape into a semi-normal world. The thought never occured to him that she had no one to rely on. Cam, maybe, but he’d only appeared in the last few pages. He had one entry left to read, but he knew that it wouldn’t be enough to resolve all the shit she had been going through in such a short amount of time.

Harry examined his hands, making no sound as he thought about Gemma’s words. It was true that things had been going downhill for her as of late. Did that make it okay for him to shun the responsibilty to offer a hand to a friend in a time of need just because he had one of the most recognizable faces in the world?

“Grow a pair and be that someone,” Gemma encouraged, reaching for her brother’s hand and giving it a tight squeeze. He let out a huff of breath, defeated. How could he explain this to the band?

-

Harry flopped down into a seat in the last row of the airplane after shoving his bag into the overhead compartment. He felt uncomfortable here, unsure of what he was really doing. What would he even say to her if he found her? He had the entire nine and a half hour flight to compose a script, but anytime he began to think of it, he felt nauseous.

The band had been accepting of Harry’s explanation. He apologized profusely for missing out on the scheduled interviews on radio stations and talk shows that were scheduled for the next two weeks, though they shrugged them off without second thought.

“This all makes so much more sense now,” Liam had said, the first to break the silence after Harry had gone into detail about the journal. “It was like you were better overnight and we couldn’t figure out why.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea, mate?” Louis had asked immediately following Liam’s outburst. “I mean, you don’t really know this girl. You’re sure you want to do this?”

Harry opened his mouth to make a response but Zayn cut in. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. I mean, how many times have we wished we had some escape from the madness? Harry found it and he’s going after it. I think it’s awesome.”

“I agree with Zayn,” was all Niall had said, folding his arms and sitting back.

“I just want you to be sure,” Louis mumbled. It was obvious he felt attacked by Zayn and Niall. Harry nudged his best friend with the toe of his shoe in a playful manner.

“I appreciate it, Lou. I just feel like this is something I need to do.”

No one made any remarks after that and they went their separate ways. A few phone calls later and he was at Heathrow, boarding the next flight to Seattle, Washington.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, shifting his weight in his seat. He felt uneasy and nervous, both emotions foreign to him. The journal was sat in his lap and he ran his fingers along the edges of the pages, contemplating whether he should read the final entry or not this early in the flight. The attendant’s voice came over the intercom and he buckled his seatbelt before turning to look out the window. A light drizzle was falling and condensation was gathering on the outside of the panes. He closed his eyes, a headache beginning to form. What had he gotten himself into?

The plane jerked forward and he once again shifted in his seat. His willpower was fast depleting and he found himself unraveling the string around the leather book, turning to the last few pages he’d left unread.

“Wanna get out of here?” Cam finally asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

Charlie’s eyes had finally dried, but her eyes were bloodshot. She felt like hell, her body unused to the exercise she’d done earlier, combined with the slight hangover left over from the night before and the emotional strain she was under. Moving didn’t sound like fun and she was weary of Cam’s request.

“Where would we go?” she asked.

Cam cocked his head as he considered this.

“We could go back to my apartment if you want. I could make tea.”

Charlie didn’t want to be rude, but Cam’s apartment didn’t sound particularly thrilling. She craved the fresh air and cringed at the thought of having to sit still on his uncomfortable couch. He must have read this in her face because he let out a light chuckle.

“… Or not. We could go for some coffee? Or a drive maybe?”

Coffee sounded nice enough, but she was feeling self-conscious without make-up, especially after crying as hard as she had. She didn’t feel keen on the idea of anyone but Cam seeing her this way.

“A drive sounds nice,” she told him. He smiled over at her, giving her hand a squeeze before standing. She followed suit, running a hand through her messy hair as she gathered her strength to follow him to the down escalators. She stood a few feet behind Cam as he checked out the books he’d picked out for his paper, promising she wasn’t interfering with the due date. She’d feel even worse if she discovered she was the cause for Cam failing an important assignment. Once finished they made their way to the parking garage where Cam’s black pick-up was waiting. Charlie raised an eyebrow at him for his choice of vehicle and he began to laugh.

“My parents were overcompensating,” he explained as he unlocked it, throwing the books in the back seat before hoisting himself up behind the wheel. Charlie began to laugh as she pulled herself into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind her. As Cam started the car, a familiar song began playing from the speakers. He reached forward to turn off the noise, but Charlie stopped him.

“I love Ra Ra Riot,” she told him with a smile as she reached forward to turn the volume up. Cam shrugged in return before backing out of his spot and making his way to the main road. Charlie tucked her legs beneath her in the seat as Cam maneuvered his way through the Seattle streets to the highway. Her eyes followed the movement of the water as they sped by the Puget Sound. The mountains in the distance were breathtaking as they peeked above the fog and drizzle and she smiled to herself as she leaned her head against the window. Her eyes shut against her will, needing reprieve from the burning sensation left over from the tears she’d recently shed. She began to mouth along quietly to the lyrics of the song.

”How high will you leave us? Something about the way you call. I worry for the public, I know you feign, you do…”

The chill of the air outside felt nice against her forehead, numbing her mind as they drove further and further away from the city. With every mile they put between themselves and her worries, the more herself she felt. A weight was lifting from her chest and she felt as If she could finally breathe again. Her eyes fluttered open and she realized they’d reached the outskirts of the city. Cam had turned onto a smaller road that wound into the forestry, which was fluorescent green, lush from the rainfall.

“I come here to clear my mind,” Cam explained, noticing Charlie’s eyes as they scanned the area around them. She nodded without a word, amazed by the view around her.

“Sometimes it all gets to be too much, you know? I’m proud of who I am, but Tanner’s in this frat and he’s so afraid to tell anyone about us in case he’d get kicked out. His parents don’t even know. I just get frustrated with him about it. But at the same time, I think about all the shit I had to go through after I came out, all the slurs that are still hurled at me even now, and I can’t blame him. So I come out here to get away from it all.”

Charlie wetted her lips as she listened, absently reaching across the space to grab onto Cam’s hand which rested on the center console. He welcomed it, smiling vaguely to himself.

“I had so many plans for this year,” Charlie found herself saying. “It was going to be great. Freshman year, me and my friends conquering the world, having the time of our lives. But when you plan it like that, it never really ends up that way. I even had this whole list of stuff I wanted to do before the year was out, like dance front row at a concert or scream at the top of my lungs just to see how it feels, all these things I wanted to do with them, and then it all fell apart. And my brother’s here now and that’s an emotional wound I never thought I’d have to open again and I just didn’t know what to do. So I ran.”

Cam nodded, thinking over her words. It was quiet for a while before he spoke.

“You should do it. Don’t let it stop you. The world keeps spinning, you know? If you want to scream, scream.”

“What?” she asked, turning to look at him. He began to laugh.

“Do it. If you want to scream at the top of your lungs, go ahead.”

“Right now?”

Her voice was skeptical and Cam only began to chuckle harder as he rolled down the windows, apparently uncaring of the mist that made its way into the car. He nodded at her encouragingly and she bit her lip nervously.

“Scream, dammit!” he demanded and she broke into a grin.

It felt so stupid, so childish. Cam was watching, though, so she opened her mouth and sucked in a large breath. And then she began to scream as loud as possible for as long as possible. Cam joined in half-way through and she began to laugh, feeling a true sense of happiness for the first time in weeks.

They were reaching the end of the road and Cam pulled over when they arrived. Charlie was still grinning, feeling light from the release she’d just had. It was amazing how all her worries left with the exertion of the scream. She was feeling giddy, ready to stretch her legs and do something. As the truck came to a stop, she did just that, throwing open the door and letting her feet hit the damp earth of the forest around her. She ran a hand through her hair as the drizzle fell and began to cling to her blonde locks. Her eyes flashed upward, taking in the view before her and she gasped at the sight.

Cam rounded the truck to stand beside her, leaning against the passenger door. They had stopped on a cliff overlooking the Seattle city in the distance. Below, a vast expanse of water led to the mountains on the horizon. She pulled out her phone to take a photo, astounded at the beauty of it all.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” came Cam’s voice beside her. He put an arm around Charlie’s shoulder as he looked out into the landscape. From any other boy, the gesture would be too forward. Charlie would have shrugged off the arm, blushing as she took a few steps back to separate herself from him. With Cam it was different. He felt like a brother, the way Emmett had once seemed to her. She wondered vaguely if she could have that again with him, but shook off the thought as it began to cloud her mind again, unwilling to let this perfect moment leave so soon. She leaned her head on Cam’s shoulder, feeling as if maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

Harry glanced up, out the window and into the clouds. He shut the book and laid it on his lap, feeling torn. It seemed as if Gemma had been wrong, that Charlie had found someone to be there for her and had taken advantage of the fact that he hadn’t read this entry as a way to talk him into leaving for Seattle. At the same time, he almost felt grateful for it. He would have never hopped on this plane in the first place if not for that. Regardless of his words, he was vaguely excited to see her in person. His eyes slowly fluttered shut, his hands clutching the book as he fell into a deep sleep.