(No Control - 77. No Control)

I walk back along the hotel corridor. Dale is waiting for me at the end.

"You OK, H?"

"No."

I'll never be OK again.

He accompanies me to the lift. We ascend in silence. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like shit. She must really fucking love me if she still wants me looking like this. After all this. After all I have done.

This makes me feel worse.

I walk blindly along the hallway to my suite. It takes me three attempts to get the key card in the slot before I give up. Dale does it for me.

He follows me inside and I sit on the bed. I don't know what to do. We have a show in a matter of hours. I need to pull myself together.

There is a knock at the door.

Louis.

"You alright, mate?" he asks.

"No."

"What happened?"

"I ended it."

"What?"

The confusion is clear on his face.

"I ended it," I repeat.

"Why? What do you mean, you ended it?"

I say nothing. I stare at the wall.

"H?"

I look at Louis.

"What?"

"What happened? You look fucked."

"I am fucked," I answer, robotically. "Just leave me alone, Lou. Please."

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

He's never this pushy about stuff like this. I close my eyes.

"She screamed at me, made me relive it. I told her everything apart from the Speed - she doesn't know about that. Then -" My voice breaks and I drop my head down so Louis can't see my face. "Then she said she wanted to try and sort things out. I told her I didn't."

"Why?!" Louis breathes.

"Because I've hurt her enough. I obviously don't love her, or I wouldn't have looked twice at Sara."

"Anyone would look twice at Sampaio! A fucking blind man would look twice at her. She's fucking stunning."

"No," I say firmly. "I wouldn't have, if I loved Jess. So what's the point? It's over. I'm walking away."

"You're a bellend."

"Fuck you."

"You need to sort this out with her," Louis says. "Ring her and apologise for being a knob, and tell her you'll do whatever it takes to make it right. She loves you. You love her."

"I don't."

"You're being a prick again."

"I'm not."

"You are!" he insists. "She offered you a second chance and you fucking threw it in her face! Stop acting like a spoilt brat and get your bony arse down there and talk to her!"

My arse isn't bony, it's squidgy, I want to say, but don't. That's too painful even to think about.

"You only hurt the ones you love," he says, wisely, and I pull a face and look up at him.

"Where the fuck did you get that from? A Christmas cracker?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. But it's true."

"That's the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard."

He huffs impatiently. "Well if you won't sort this out, I will."

What does he mean by that?

"What do you mean by that?" I ask to his retreating back, but he doesn't answer, and disappears from the room.

He's probably going to talk to Jess.

I am so emotionally wrought, I can't even muster up the energy to be jealous about this. I am drained.

....

I don't see or talk to anyone until it's time to go to the stadium for soundcheck. Niall tries to talk to me on the bus on the way there, but I refuse to discuss it. I stare out of the window, looking but not seeing. Buildings, trees, cars, people, all pass by. None of them are Jess.

I wonder where she is.

I wonder if she's OK.

....

Lou Teasdale agrees to stay with me until the Horsens show on the sixteenth of June. I smile my gratitude and she doesn't press me for answers, but instead puts her arms around me tightly and strokes my hair. Lux wants to know why I am crying. I tell her I banged my finger, and she kisses it better for me.

I talk to Mum backstage before the show. I tell her Jess came to Brussels. I tell her I broke it off. She's shocked, but I don't have the energy to try to explain it.

She tries to convince me to come home after the show. I know she's been talking to Gemma, and I love them both so much for caring. But I just want to be away from normality, now that normality is ruined beyond repair.

"You gonna be OK to do this show?" Liam asks uncertainly, as I'm staring miserably at my own reflection while Lottie watches Lou do my hair.

"Yeah," I reply. "The show must go on."

"That's the spirit!" Niall says, enthusiastically. Lou exchanges looks with Lottie.

I force a smile, and try to tune into the conversations going on around me. I have to get into One Direction mode. I can't let the fans down. Louis is talking about how excited he is to sing No Control live for the first time since the No Control Project. He's nervous, I can hear it in his voice.

I'm about to reassure him, and join in with his excitement; this is a huge deal for him.

But someone is playing John Legend.

All Of Me.

I leave the room quickly and blindly, to get away from it. If I hear those lyrics they will break me. I can't fall apart now. I just have to get through these next couple of hours, then I have two days to sort my life out.

"Harry? Time to go on."

We huddle up behind the stage.

"We've got your back, Harry," Liam says softly.

"I know," I reply, and we take our places behind the backdrop while our intro plays and the crowd screams.

Niall gives me a reassuring smile, and as the opening notes of Clouds fill the stadium and the screen tilts to allow us to enter the stage I take a deep breath and burst forward towards the deafening roar.

"Make some noiiiiise!" I roar back at them, giving them the Harry that they want, that they expect. The sound of my voice is lost in the hysteria of more than fifty thousand screams.

I am Harry Styles from One Direction. It's all I'll ever be.

....

We board the bus quickly after the show, eager to be clear of the stadium before the crowd departs. Out of habit I pull my phone out to check if Jess has tried to call. She hasn't.

I'm about to put my phone away again, but something in me wants to check she is alright. I pause for a moment, then I open up Facebook and type the start of her name into the Search bar. She doesn't appear. I type her full name, and there she is. With a small blue button next to her name: Add Friend.

My breath catches in my throat. She's deleted me.

Hands trembling, I open up Twitter. I don't know why I'm bothering to look. I know even before I find her profile that she's unfollowed me.

I'm right.

With a sinking heart I type jessie_braddy into instagram, even though we've never discussed this platform. I find her profile, but it's set to private, and I can't see who she follows. I'd bet my entire net worth that it's one less than she followed twenty-four hours ago.

She's deleted me from her life.

I know this is what I wanted but fuck, it hurts. It really fucking hurts.

My cheeks are wet again. When did I turn into such a loser?

I turn away from the other boys. Thankfully they haven't noticed me bawling my eyes out. I just want to be alone.

I stare down at the picture of Jess on my lock screen, and wish with all my heart that I could go back in time to the day Nadine first texted me, and tell Jess the truth every single time I've lied to her. I brought this on myself. I let it snowball. No Control.

Her face stares back at me from my phone and I study every inch of it, even though I have it committed to memory, from the wisps of soft hair blowing across her eyes, to the curve of her pink lips smiling adoringly at me, to the love radiating from her entire being. This beautiful girl, that is no longer mine.

But above all else, the one thing shining out at me from this picture, that I will never forget as long as I live - just like the night I met her, just like the last time I saw her - is the one constant that never leaves her face, despite everything I've put her through.

That trace of innocence.

THE END