"What the fuck are you doing here?"

I stood on my stoop in the pajamas I had been unable to get myself out of for the better part of a week and stared into the face of my heartbreak.

Harry looked a little broken too. And tired. His eyes had bags fit for an Upper East Side socialite on vacation.

"What am I doing here?" His voice was higher than, like two octaves up. "Well, see, my girlfriend was supposed to come with her brother to start tour. And when he turned up, she wasn't there. And when I asked where she was, I was told that she had decided to sit this leg of tour out and was going back to uni." He was livid and the words were tumbling out of his mouth faster than I had ever heard and without the usual filler words he used to pause while he thought over or conjured up what he wanted to say. I wondered if it was evidence of his strong feelings or lots of rehearsal. "And I was really confused, because last time we talked, she was really excited about seeing me in Brazil. So I was really excited about getting there, but look at that, no girlfrien—"

"I'm going to stop you right there Harry!" He was talking abnormally fast, but my voice was shriller than I'd ever heard it. "When was the bloody fucking conversation you are referencing?"

I waited and he looked slightly puzzled. I knew exactly when the conversation had been. It had been between two and three weeks long since he had rung me. I remembered the conversation really well, because it had come after another stretch of silence, and I was feeling angry and confused. He'd told me then he even neglected to call his beloved mum and loud best friend too from time to time. It was character flaw he recognized. But he had promised he would be better. He said he would get better and I believed him. It broke me a little that I was easy to forget when he couldn't see me and that he didn't miss me the way I did him.

After every stretch of silence though I gave in like his face was water in the Sahara. Harry always looked so silly and sweet when FaceTime connected and he immediately would started waxing pretty about all the places we were going and what he wanted to do together, so I would just take sip after sip of him rather than bring my thirst and his silence up. This was a recurring theme over the stretches we were apart. I got surly when he was silent, but I was so excited for the table scraps that he threw me when we finally spoke I didn't complain. Or when I did it was apparently not long or loud enough to get through to him.

Apart from the surface conversations where he had promised to call and stay in touch and said every word but the three I longed to hear strung together, I had not whinged about his horrible habits.It genuinely puzzled me. How could a boy who was stuck having long distance dealings with everybody in his life be so damn clueless about staying in touch? It was inconcievable, and I knew what that word meant.

But I'd been so happy to hear his voice and touch the screen when he laughed and to see his God damn dimples that I had folded like a run of dominoes. As though my entire purpose was to be set up as knocked down for his pleasure.

It's funny how the idea of being for his pleasure was so arousing in one context, but devastating in another.

"Fucking weeks ago, mate." I saw him ready to interject. He hated when I called him mate now. I held up a hand to stop him. His protest was going to fall on deaf ears at best or totally piss me off at worst. "I suppose I should be glad that you were still hoping to see me. I was just not sure if you remembered my name since you clearly forgot my phone num—"

"Melody!" He tried to interrupt.

"Ah, you do know my name, well, is it that you forgot that we are 'together'? You know, like you said and I mentioned that people who are together call each other! You promised H!" I used air quotes and watched him blow out a frustrated breath.

"Melly, you are being ridiculous!" he started to say way to calmly for my taste.

"Fuck You Harry!" I seethed. "Get off my lawn!" I turned away and stormed into the house and locked it after me.

I may have been being ridiculous. But I was irate and wanted to wring his neck, and kiss his face off, and slap him repeatedly. He banged on my door for a while, I didn't answer, and he left.

So much for grand gestures.

Thank goodness he had plenty of money so the last minute flight would barely be a blip to him. I didn't expect him to come. I don't know what I expected when I decided not to show up for tour. I think I just said it out loud and my parents were elated and Michael had put up a small fuss then relented, and ta-da, I was staying in Australia, far away from Harry Styles.

I was being dramatic. My feelings were huge though. Didn't he even miss me? What could be so distracting that he could just ghost on me again? Who could be so distracting an insidious little voice whispered.

Why did I not invade his thoughts and sack his life like he did mine? I thought about him all the time. And when he was calling me often, I could get over my resentment and call him too. We would have good runs, where we talked frequently, or my phone blew up with his daily life, pictures and meals and anecdotes of his minute by minute. It was like the weather channels, constant updates. So I'd call and initiate contact through Snapchat or FaceTime or whatever technological tool we were using that made staying in touch with the people you loved so easy now.How lucky we were to have that ability.

It made the stretches of silence feel worse though. It's not as though we were stuck in the Trojan War and I was Penelope waiting on a husband who had no way to tell me of his survival. Harry could tell me many ways. Some days he did, and we would have different conversations going on several platforms. I even wrote him letters, though I stopped sending them when I got surly.

To give him a little credit, he did text. Not as often as I felt he should, but I did hear from him, though they were hardly multi-paragraph missives and more geographical updates than anything else. 'Made it to LA. London. Cheshire.'

I just wanted more. More words, more freedom, more of him.

I wanted him. And I'd just sent him away because I was mad and upset because I didn't tell him what I needed, again. And he flew all the way to Australia and I knew he had a show in two days. He was going to go back and I was going to be left here, crying on my bed and stress eating the crisps I was living on-when I remembered to eat.

I was so stupid. Why didn't I just call him a week ago, and tell him I needed to hear from him more? Why didn't I discuss not coming back for tour with him? Why didn't I let him in?

I had let him in to my life, my heart, and my body when he let me into his hotel room. But now that he was so far inside I knew he could break me open. It was devastating and scary. Harry had set up a little room inside my rib cage. It looked like a home, and it had pictures of us on the wall, not second class hotel art. He wasn't going away, not even if I kicked him out.

I could chose the man or the memory. It seemed so stupid that I was choosing the recollection. I think realizing I was sabotaging us too was what set off round 12 of the waterworks.

I cried myself to sleep on my bed until I heard my mum's voice downstairs talking to someone.

"So, why were you just sitting on the stoop Mr. Styles—"

"Harry, Wanda, call me Harry."

"Why were you outside then, Harry?"

Bloody fucking shit, Harry was in my house now, talking to my mum.

"Um, well, I think that your daughter is really upset with me, rightfully so, I've been a wanker." I could hear the self-deprecating grin he wore and knew he was charming the pants off my mum. Don't give in Mum, I wanted to shout. But knew I would never. He would charm her like he did everyone and he'd be genuine in doing it. She'd fall a little in love with him too, so she and I could share a life raft marked S.S. Styles the next time he sent me out to sea. For now, I was gonna cling on. The biggest feeling I was having right then was relief.

I thought he had left.

I went into the restroom and tried to make it look like I hadn't seen the underside of a lorry. My blonde hair was a bedraggled, but not in a sexy way, more like I'd not seen the inside of my shower for too long. That was true. I'd allowed myself to mourn my relationship like a death. Maybe something had died. Hopefully my pride.

I brushed out my hair and put it up and scrubbed my face. With the fresh skin my outlook felt similar. I was hoping Harry wasn't here to leave without me. Seemed like a long flight for nothing but a painful goodbye. I threw on a clean shirt and a pair of white cotton shorts, though a morning suit seemed more appropriate. He had come extending an olive branch and I was ready to come down my stairs with my cap in hand. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and made sure my big girl pants were pulled on tight.

When I rounded the corner into the kitchen, the scene before me was so a piece of a daydream I'd not allowed myself to have, I stopped and sucked in a breath. Harry was there, standing with my mum, in the kitchen where I had grown up eating fruit after school while whining about my homework and trying to not do the dishes.

He was apparently not avoiding any of the chores, as he was elbow deep in the sink washing out the pan my mouth had been using to make my unofficial favorite food.

He heard my gasp and looked up at me, and his face transformed. Harry still looked contrite, but he read something on me that made his eyes widen and brow smooth. The sun streamed in as it was setting through the beveled glass my mom had bought the house for, and the rainbows it created fell across his chest. He always looked like I'd dreamed him up, but at the moment even the light was loving him, painting him with color.

"Melody!" He intoned before pulling his hands from the sink and running them hastily over his jeans. The distance between us was maybe 20 feet, but each step felt significant, so I met him midway. His arms around me felt like taking my shoes off after being on my feet all day. He smelled like Christmas, and when he whispered my full name again in my ear I heard I'm sorry. He held me a little longer than was comfortable for my mum, and she cleared her throat.

"So, Melody, Harry was just telling me that he came to get you. Because tour wouldn't be the same without you." She was being awkward. To be fair, she had seen my brother with any number of females, those that stuck around for a minute and others that were just glitches. She had never seen me with a boyfriend. Let alone whatever one would call what Harry and I were to one another. He had flown across the world, boyfriend didn't seem a big enough word. I found myself trying to recall the longest known word when Harry spoke.

"No, Wanda. It's not tour that wouldn't be the same. It's me." He'd pulled back to say it, to look at my face and make sure that I understood. It was beautiful, but not quite right. "I'm in love with her and can't imagine her not being there." Those were the words and tears welled up at them, which was shocking because I should have been dehydrated by then.

"Yeah?" I cupped his sharp jaw.

"Yeah, Melody, I love you," he looked at me expectantly. I'd stopped saying it, after that first disastrous revelation, except in bed when I was out of my head enough to forgot myself.

"Oh Harry!" I blinked down. I couldn't look at him because I still couldn't say it.

This was the scene my dad walked in on. Harry and I clutching each other while feelings ran down my face and my mum midway through plating my sausage rolls.

"What's this?" He gestured to us and looked at my mum quizzically.

"Apparently, Harry Styles loves Melly and he flew here to get her."

That about summed it up.

We ate dinner with my family, and Harry even charmed my dad. That's not quite right. My dad was full on heart eyes for him by the time I noticed his bleary face.

"Harry?" He blinked at me owlishly, like he was trying to keep his eyes open while mum was getting the tiramisu. Well, she was looking to impress. "Are you ok? You look dead on your feet."

He grinned, yawned and took my hand where it lay on his thigh. "It's been a long day. Two days?"

"Mum, dad?" I swallowed some nerves. "We're gonna go up to bed. Harry is knackered."

My dad looked like he wanted to protest, but my mum put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Sure dear, get some rest Harry."

I smiled to her gratefully and helped Harry pick up his dead weight and led him up the stairs. I had a moment's pause. Only Jack had ever been in my room. It wasn't crazy embarrassing, covered in posters of his face or anything, but, and it was a weird concern considering, well, everything, it felt very intimate to bring Harry into my childhood bedroom.

My walls were still the light blue I'd fallen in love with at 12 and the clouds on the ceiling were just a little bit imperfect. I hoped he was too tired to look around closely.

I wasn't that lucky. Harry seemed to get an eighth wind when he came in. And the first thing he went to was my quotes wall. I had somehow convinced my parent's when I was 13 to let me write on the one blank wall in my room. At first, it had been full serious quotes, deep in the way that really appeals to introverted teenage girls who want to be writers, but gradually, over time, it had come to be full of lyrics and funny things friends said and anything written that struck my fancy.

Harry stopped, exactly where I didn't want him to. That part of the wall was my lyrics sheet. It had snatches of words strung together that I loved. He reached out and ran his hands over the two newest additions. I'd scrawled them on the wall P.H.- post Harry, as a way to remember how he made me feel. They were darker in color, I guess, but he also seemed to just know. As I watched him run his finger over the 'yellow' lyric, I couldn't help but remember him singing it to me when we lay by his pool my last night in L.A. I was looking at the stars, but his cheesy ass was looking at me. I loved every minute of it. I would have eaten him up and dipped bread into him like fondue.

And the Beatles lyric, well I'd never heard the song before he played it for me. When he mentioned that I reminded him of 'Something', I didn't know what he was talking about. I'm still not sure what he meant, but the idea that watching me move about our little borrowed spaces reminded him of such a dreamy song moved me too. I'd put it up after we got off the phone my first month home. I asked him when we could see each other again, if it was possible before the tour that almost wasn't. And he'd been honest, and said, "I don't know."

But then he'd sung it, in his raspy voice full of sleep and promise and I'd welled up with missing him and committed "I don't want to leave her now....." to my wall-that one in permanent ink, after he'd had to get off the phone. Some obligation had pulled him away and he'd been reluctant, like the sand clinging to the shore while the water yanked it from its place. I'd looked up the song then, and I'd found a Sharpie. I'd scrawled it out emotionally without trying to create pretty calligraphy. The letters were blocky and black.

"Harry..." I'd trailed off feeling like he'd caught me sneaking sweets before dinner, like my writings on the wall revealed me in a way that would send him running. Though to be fair, running was all me.

He'd finished tracing George Harrison's sentiments and looked at me then, moving at the same time. Harry was upon me faster than his fatigued legs should have been able to manage. He scooped me up like a baker collecting flour and I puffed into the air on the feeling of weightlessness. My arms and legs surrounding him and my lips fitting to his, lock to key.

"Melody," he pulled back from the messy kiss and I blearily opened my eyes. I had no interest in interruption. It had been months since we had seen each other and my bed was in reach. Making a memory of us in it seemed of paramount importance. Then I would be able to think about it when I was back here alone. I regretted it later.

"What?" I cried a little and would have cringed if I wasn't so desperate.

His face split and I chose to interpret it as fond rather than laughing at me, "I love you." He smoothed my hair back and made his brand of heavy eye contact. It not only made me feel like I was the only girl in the world, but the only person alive when he focused on me like that. It had always made me feel so. It most certainly put his mark on my soul and skin when he concentrate all of his attention through the green magnifiers of his pretty irises.

I dropped my head into his neck and squeezed, planting lips there. I didn't say anything.

"Melly," he nudged me from the rock I was trying to hide under. Bad choice on my part, his jaw was hard, but was part and parcel of him, so not a sure cubby to take cover. I pulled my face out. "I said I love you....."

"I know." I would have smirked and pulled my blaster had I felt half as cool as Han Solo. "You told my mother."

"I did. And I told your brother too. Before I came. So we are out!" I ducked my chin. "You wanna, like, say anything back?" He chuckled and ran a light hand up my torso before sitting in my bed with his back against the headboard and me wrapped around him, tucked into his neck again. "I'm feeling very naked right now."

"You love being naked." I said.

"Yeah, especially with you," his hand found the skin under the top of my waist band where the gap was and he trailed his fingers over it to make me shiver and my skin dimple. "But, not, um, emotionally. This is way worse than my wang hanging out—"

"God, H, your wang?!?" I deflected and laughed at him then.

"Melody," his voice an open wound. "Do you not love me anymore?" He whispered. "Say you love me too, baby? Please?"

"H—"

"Huh-uh, Baby. Or at least Harry." He stated it but I heard his entreaty.

I swallowed my pride and fear and pulled back and granted him my big blue eyes.

"Harry," I started and literally swallowed the lump in my throat. "I love you-baby. But you know that."
A tear welled over.

He wiped it away and kissed me like a vow. "I'm gonna make it so you are never scared to say that to me again, ok?"