December, 2015.

"I can walk on my own, you know?" I complain as Niall practically manhandles me through the door and into my room.

With a movement that is a quick as it is awkward, I push myself out of his reach and I start making my way towards the bed. But as soon as I take the second step my feet get tangled with something that should not be there in the first place, and I fall straight to the floor.

"I'm sure you can, Harold." He chuckles condescendingly whilst rushing to help me back up, dragging and then dropping me on the bed like the dead weight I currently am. "You good?"

I growl in response which could be taken both as a yes and a no. And since I don't really know the answer to his question I don't add anything else.

I lie there still and in silence closing my eyes only to open them up again when my head starts spinning seconds later.

Why do I keep doing this when I know it just doesn't work? When did I become the person who drowns his sorrows in booze? Scratch that, when did I become the person who tries to drown his sorrows in booze?

It doesn't drown them. It muffles them, at best. And they are still there in the morning, as loud and wrenching as ever, mocking me and my desperate ways.

Each morning after a bender I wake up and I curse at the decisions that I've made the night before. Whether it is a girl sleeping next to me, or a headline waiting to hit the tabloids, it is always the same cringe worthy routine.

Drink. Make poor decisions. Regret said decisions. Vow not to do it again. Repeat.

At least tonight, with the help of a very vigilant Niall, I managed to break the vicious cycle and get home with nothing and no one to regret by the time the cold light of morning inevitably breaks.

And that would be a great thing if it weren't for the fact that everything I'm always so eager to chase away whenever I do these things slips right back way ahead of schedule.

Is her face what pops into my head first. And how I love, and hate, and miss that face. Those blue, haunting eyes, floating behind my closed eyelids and staring right through me.

Her lips. Ever curled up into that weak, trembling smile she wore the last time I ever saw her as she would say to me "I'll see you soon" which meaning I later came to understand.

Her cheeks slightly splattered with tiny orange freckles that would spread all the way to her nose. They were flustered, I recall.

"Fuck..." I grunt, driving my hands to cover my face as if her image would disappear by that action. It doesn't. "This is just useless."

"What?"

I guess I had totally forgotten he was still here, and his voice startles my hands away and my eyes open. He is just walking around my room, looking at the mess with his face scrunched in a grimace of disgust.

"This?" He says, picking up a piece of underwear that, for obvious reasons, does not belong in my personal collection. "I'd say it is."

I can tell there is not a single trace of reprimand in his tone, which strangely makes me feel a little disappointed. Because if there was, I would be able to pick up a fight about him being a judgmental prick and I would get distracted long enough to shove the memory of her right to the back of my head once again.

"Why can't I just get her out of my head? It is a bloody torture."

I slowly lift myself up from the bed using my suddenly tired arms to slide upwards into a sitting position. Somehow, with my back and head resting on the headboard, I start to feel a little bit better and my head seems to slip out of the alcohol haze I'm in.

I turn my head slightly, fearing that even the most insignificant movement would send me back into a spinning ride, and I look at Niall as he lets the piece of clothing fall from his fingers and walks over to where I am.

The expression on his face, although he tries to be cool about it, lets me know he is surprised, stunned even, by my words. And I guess I am, too.

"What happened, mate?" He asks under his breath when he reaches the bedside and sits next to me.

The fact is that I haven't talked about her since it all went downwards two months ago. Not a word. To anyone.

All they knew is that we were no longer together and that was it. The rest, I am the only one who knows.

"She left." I find myself speaking even before I make the conscious decision to do it, but as I feel the pressure on my chest slightly yielding for the first time in weeks, I quickly decide to continue. "She just vanished. I got to her place and she was gone. All she left for me was a letter."

Saying it out loud is both mortifying and somewhat liberating. But is as if it is all happening all over again.

I'm standing outside her door, waiting for her to open up so I can see her face of surprise when she sees me there.

I had it all perfectly planned for days. I was supposed to fly back to New York a few weeks back but a sudden change in the tour schedule made it impossible for me to make it. So I had decided that the next weekend off I would show up without her knowing and I would take her somewhere special.

What I had under my sleeve, she was definitely in for a treat.

But in a sick, totally unexpected twist of events, I stood in that hallway unaware that half a minute later I would be the one at the receiving end of a not so pleasant surprise.

"That's..." Niall runs his hands up and down his thighs, nervously. "I don't even know what to say, Harold."

"Sucks? Is total bullshit?" I help him find the right words to complete his thought, and he nods. "Yeah... Pretty much."

"Why, though? Why would she do something like that? Did you guys have a fight or something?"

I have been asking myself that exact same question, over and over, ever since that day.

"Not really. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least." I respond, unwillingly going through all of our relationship in my head.

Of course we had our problems. We used to argue over the phone almost regularly about not being able to see each other as much as we wanted to, but as soon as we would be face to face all that bickering would stop completely and we were as happy as we could be.

Our relationship wasn't easy. But then again, we never really expected it to be. So even though I never actually had an explanation as to why she checked out on us, I knew there must have been about something else.

Something drove her to make that decision. Something that probably had been building up inside of her way before she made it. And I can't help but thinking that if she would have share that something with me, or if I hadn't been so blind about it, our story could now be exceptionally different.

"What did the letter said?"

I could recite the whole thing by heart. I have read it one too many times to forget a single word in the near future. Even with my mind half-awake I can already see the words in my head.

"Just that she needs time and space to sort things out." I tell him a bare version of the letter, which is pretty much what it said but with fancier, more heart-felted words. "And that she's sorry."

The room falls silent for a few seconds that feel more like hours. The evident discomfort in Niall's stance is painful to watch as he is clearly trying to come up with something to say.

"And her roommate... Jasper was it?" He says, and I nod. "He doesn't know anything? Maybe he can tell you where she is."

I look at him with a dramatic expression of realization, holding my head with both hands.

"Jeez! Why didn't I think about asking him that the second I finished reading her letter?!" I yelp, feigning a tone of self-reprimand. "Oh, right! I totally did. And as it turns out, he's annoyingly loyal to his best friend."

My cynical mood fades away as quickly as it surfaced and I apologize to Niall right on the spot. He has been an amazing friend tonight and me acting like a brat is awfully uncalled for.

"It's okay, really." He dismisses my behavior with a wide grin and a loud pat on my leg. "Why don't you try to sleep it off and we'll talk about it in the morning?"

He stands up and I just nod in agreement, still not wanting to move from my sitting position. I actively feel a lot better but I do not want to strain my luck.

"I can't believe it will all be over tomorrow." I say almost to myself but he hears me anyway.

"I know. I can't believe it, either."

And just like that I am left alone in this hotel room for the first night since we've got here.

No distractions. Blond or otherwise. Just me and my racing mind.

And her. Because she's always here and there is no off switch.

Oh, how I wish there was.

rc�<"B�2

~~~~~

Song: Morning Song by The Lumineers.