February, 2016.

I open my eyes and I jolt out of bed the second flashbacks from the night before start to pop up in my head.

"Oh, no! No, no..." I desperately mutter to myself, running my fingers through my hair and pacing back and forth across the room. "Why are you here, Harry? What the fuck did you do?"

I'm starting to get a little panicked when I realize that I'm at her house but not exactly in her room. I should know. I have been in this place more times than I can count.

And aside from my shoes, which are scattered at the side of the bed, I am still wearing the same clothes from last night.

This is good. Confusing, but good.

The sound of someone moving about in the kitchen downstairs reaches my ears and then, I notice the smell of coffee and pancakes.

I'm starving but I don't know if I'm ready to come out and face her.

"Dude, are you awake?"

A male voice comes from the other side of the door before it starts to crack open really slowly, and the confusion grows inside of me along with the curiosity.

"Uhm... yeah..." I say hesitantly as his head pokes through.

I can't say that I know his name, but I definitely recognize his face. I think he's an actor, or something, and I may have crossed paths with him before in a red carpet event or two.

"We've made breakfast, if you want some." He says without coming in, but opening the door entirely.

He has a polite smile on his face, but I can tell there is a bit of awkwardness in the way he stands and shifts his eyes in every direction but mine.

"Sure, thanks..." I was planning to refuse the offer and get my ass out the front door, but my rumbling stomach seems to make the final decision. "I'll be down in a second."

I make my way downstairs painfully slow, dreading each step I take.

"Thank you for being so cool about this, babe." I hear her voice speaking tenderly. "I just couldn't leave him alone like that."

I stop in my tracks just before I turn around the corner and make myself visible to them.

"I know." He responds, and I hear the sound of a quick kiss.

Okay. So this definitely confirms nothing happened between us last night. I mean, I might be in a weird place at the moment, but I'm not as far gone as to have a threesome with my ex - or whatever you want to call her - and her current boyfriend.

"There he is! How're you feeling?"

I guess I didn't noticed I was already walking into the kitchen, so her voice rattles me a little before I manage to crack up a smile and wave at her shyly.

"Hi, Candice." I speak up, looking at her and then back at the guy leaning on the kitchen island. "I'm... good. Thanks."

"Oh! Sorry, I'm Michael..." He says, straighten himself to his full height and offering me his hand. "Call me Mike."

I can't help but notice that, even though he is being mannerly and genuinely nice about the whole thing, he is definitely marking his territory as well. Not that he has a reason to do so, but I can't really blame him.

"Nice to meet you... Harry." I reply, taking his hand and shaking it as firmly as my bafflement lets me.

We drink our coffees and eat our pancakes in silence, which is surprisingly not as unpleasant as I thought it would be, and I just take this moment to recollect my thoughts and put my memories from last night in order.

Is not like I drank too much, so is not that hard for me to remember everything. I was at this club opening some friends thought we should check out, and we were just hanging out in the V.I.P lounge minding our own business when this girls showed up.

At first I didn't payed much attention to them, and other than affably thanking the praises they would throw my way ever so eagerly, I barely spoke to them.

Truth be told, I wasn't at all interested in any of them. And I remember thinking, since the whole drinking and partying act I had been putting up lately seemed to be getting really old, that I was finally starting to feel a little bit more like my old self.

The old self, I mean, before I even met her, let alone get dumped by her.

But then something happened.

I was standing in a corner, talking to one of my friends and catching up on random stuff, when I reached into my pocket to take out my phone and this thing came out of it.

I hadn't seen it in weeks, maybe even months. And I had totally forgotten about its existence until now.

The last time I had seen it, if my memory served me correctly, I was having yet another really bad night and I ripped it off my neck with the intention of getting rid of it forever.

I guess I must have changed my mind in the middle of doing so, because I clearly haven't done a very good job with it.

Next thing I knew, I was gulping down what I think was my fifth shot of tequila and this girl was doing a lot more than telling me how much she appreciated my work.

"Okay, I have to get going." Michael breaks the silence, making me notice that my hand is in my pocket and my fingers are grazing the outline of that damn paperplane trinket. "I'll pick you up around seven?"

Candice nods and smiles at him after giving him a kiss goodbye. And with another handshake and a pat on my shoulder, he leaves the kitchen and then he house all together.

"So, he seems nice!" I say in absolute honesty as I place my empty cup on the sink. "You look happy."

The way she blushes warms my heart unexpectedly. I have always knew we weren't even remotely made for one another, but I guess I would have never expected to feel this comfortable with her having a relationship with someone else.

"He is. And I am... thank you." She beams with a smile as she walks around the big table towards me. "But we are not going to talk about that right now."

And all of a sudden, once she is close enough, her face becomes dead serious, and her hand flies to smack me on the head with a wiping sound that makes me shriek.

"Ouch!" I cry out, rubbing the assaulted area. "What was that for?"

"Really, Harry?" She threatens to smack me again but I flinch and she recoils. "I mean, seriously!?"

"What did I do!?" I ask her literally running away from her to put a safe distance between us. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Have you?" She retorts, crossing her arms under her chest, grilling me with her glare from across the table. "What the hell are you doing?"

We stare at each other almost without blinking as I search for some sort of clue as to why she's so pissed off at me.

I got nothing.

I shrug with impatience, waiting for her to say something.

"This is so not you, Harry. The person I saw last night." Her eyes suddenly soften into a sad expression and I find myself thinking I prefer her raging mad. "Drunk and fooling around with a random girl? What gives?"

I let out a long sigh, tilting my head backwards and closing my eyes with annoyance.

"Candice, come on..." I breathe out, lowering my head again so I can look at her in the eye. "Last night was absolutely not what it looked like."

I've always found that phrase quite funny. Because almost every single time someone says it, it is exactly what it looks like.

"It wasn't?" She exclaims with sarcasm. "What about the other nights, then? Were they not what they looked like, either? Yes! I know about that shit... the whole world knows by now."

I look at her in shock. And even though there's a big part of me that wants to tell her to go take a hike and that this is non of her business; a much bigger part of me is suddenly cringing with embarrassment.

"Cand-"

"Look, Harry..." She cuts me off, showing me the palm of her hands. "... and please, don't think that by what I'm about to say I mean that I haven't moved on because I really did, but you did not just left me on that street all by myself after giving me that fucking speech of going after the real deal, to go around getting wasted and grinding on a girl that, correct me if I'm wrong, looked nothing like the girl you ran after that night."

I'm rendered speechless at her words. And all I can do is stare at her like a brain dead person as I try not to explode from all the emotions that are now swirling within me.

But I fail. Epically.

"Do you think that I'm enjoying myself!?" I burst for the first time in months. At least in front of someone. "Do you really think that I'm having fun or that I don't know this is not who I am!?"

My hand frantically reaches deep down my pocket, stumping loudly against the marble the necklace Lea gave me to replace the one I assume Candice has stored at the back of a drawer somewhere in this house.

And she jumps.

"Then why do you do it?" She asks calmly after a few seconds, frowning at the sight of the piece of jewelry I just left there.

"Because it's the only think that works... Or at least it's the only thing that works best."

She slowly walks over to me again, lifting her arms to show me she comes in peace when I take a step backwards. And she smirks.

"Where did you get this?" She grabs the necklace, twisting the chain between her fingers.

"I... uhm... I took it from your jewelry box." I lie blatantly without even thinking.

She laughs rather loudly and her other hand goes to her chest, pulling her actual necklace from under her sweater.

"Try that again." She says. "And again, this is not me not moving on... I just like the damn thing".

I blush a little at her catching up on my bullshit. But the situation is so bloody bizarre, it actually manages to calm down my horses.

"Why are you doing this? Why am I here?" I ask her, ignoring her previous question.

"I wasn't going to let you screw things up any further, so when I saw you were about to leave with that girl I snatched you up." She shrugs sheepishly. "You barely put up a fight, so I'm guessing deep down you didn't want to stay there all that badly. And then you just passed out on the car, so we brought you here."

"Why?"

She shrugs again, bitting the inside of her cheek like she's considering whether or not to say what she's thinking.

And I silently urge her to speak.

"When I met Mike a few weeks before you and I... broke things off, sort to speak... I realized that you were, up until then, the only guy that has ever been honest with me." He hand slide across the table to settle softly upon mine. "Always."

With that single touch, she manages to convey a sense of intimacy I've never experienced with her before.

It is warm and strangely pure; free of any kind of ulterior motives like all the other times we've touched in the past.

"But I did hurt you, didn't I?" I ask sadly.

"Only because I kept fooling myself. But you've always made it clear you would never going to give me more than what you were already giving me. That you couldn't." She assures me, still touching my hand. Her eyes are fixed on mine and they never falter. "You never lied to me and it pains me to see that you're lying to yourself."

"I'm not..." I say defensively but not at all convinced. "Look, Lea and I..." Saying her name out loud is just too painful, and my voice cracks a little.

"Didn't work out? I figured as much." She finishes the sentence for me. "I'm not going to ask you what happened because it really doesn't matter now. But I'll ask you this, though... Did you try?"

I don't respond to her question, and I guess she takes that as an answer. Because with a slow motion, she slides her necklace out of her neck and she puts it carefully next to its twin.

"Harry Styles may be annoying, really bad at telling jokes and a terrible, terrible liar..." She jokingly states, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "But he is not a quitter."

"I didn't quit. She did." I tell her, pretending I wasn't affected by what she just said.

"Maybe so, but you're the one who let her get away with it."

~~~~~

Song: This Town by my precious little Irish ray of sunshine of whom I couldn't possibly be any prouder. (Aka Niall Horan)