The Photographer - h.s

On the road

Vic

I followed behind Harry as we traveled in the midst of the crowd of Harry's tour team. I pulled my suitcase along behind me on its wheels and a duffel bag thrown over my shoulder, my other suit case was checked and stowed away on the plane along with the rest of the teams luggage and equipment. We were headed to Switzerland today, and on a private plane in order to fit the whole team on the same flight, along with all of our belongings.

I nodded the plane and took a window seat in a row of three seats, I put my suitcase in the storage compartment and shoved my duffel bag beneath the seat in front of me. I pulled the seatbelt over my waist and clicked it into the buckle before taking my phone from my pocket and plugging my headphones into it and placing the buds in my ears and scrolling through my playlist library to find the right one. I watched as the rest of the team boarded the plane, Mitch walked by with Sarah following close behind him and shot me a smug smile as she passed by with him. She denies all day long that there's anything going between the two of them, but I see the way he looks at her, it's everything... it's the way I wish Harry would look at me sometimes.

I felt someone plop down in the seat beside me and I sat up straight and looked quickly to see Harry sitting beside me, slouched into his seat. He shot me a toothy smile as he buckled his seatbelt into its buckle, I smiled back to him and paused my music, taking my headphones out of my ears and setting them on my lap.

"Victoria Townes, are you ready? Are you excited?" He asked, with joy dripping from each word.

"I'll be more excited once we finally get off this plane. We haven't even taken off yet and I can't wait to get this flight over with." I explained to him honestly. I hate flying and I hate it even more when the flight is going to be 14 hours.

"I had a feeling you were gonna need some company for the flight. Someone to remind you that turbulence does not mean the plane is going to crash." He said joking a little.

"Okay, you know the turbulence to London was bad, you cannot tell me that you didn't think we were gonna crash, even for a second." I shot back and he laughed lightly and shook his head, the sound of his laugh made my heart flutter.

"Your hair looks nice by the way. You look great. I mean- looked amazing before, but you look amazing now too." He said, his face turning a light shade of pink as he stumbled over his words. I smiled lightly at him and nodded once.

"Thank you. I needed a change." I said to him and he smirked and nodded before looking around him.

"What, getting on a plane to Switzerland to start a world tour wasn't enough change for ya?" He asked sarcastically and I laughed and swatted his arm. This felt nice, joking around with him and feeling so natural again. I miss the way things were, but anything is better than falling into that grey area with him, the grey area between being friends, and taking so much space you can't even see the other.

"I figured: why not just, really lean into my impulse feeling and say 'fuck it' and just do it?" He smiled and reached over, taking a small section of my hair between his fingers for a moment and letting it fall back to its place. He paused for a moment and we made eye contact, causing a fire to erupt in my stomach. We haven't stopped to just stare at one another like this since things got awkward, I could barely look at him afterwards without feeling embarrassed. This feels so personal and foreign at the same time... this feels like I'm under a spotlight.

"Well, you look lovely." He said and I could feel my face getting hot and looked down at my hands. The doors of the plane closed and the door to the cockpit closed and locked, minutes passed and the plane began to move and take its position on the runway. We began driving down the long runway going faster and faster before the plane began to lift and ascend into the air. I gripped the arm rests tightly, making my knuckles go white as the rock in my stomach grew heavier and heavier. I closed my eyes and put my headphones back in ears and continued to play music. I felt Harry place his large hand over my hand on the arm rest between us, I kept my eyes closed and turned my arm over to grab his hand tightly and he began to rub his thumb over mine.

The flight was long and boring, Harry tried to keep me entertained and brought the card game Uno along with him... he started the game very cocky, but after losing enough times he gave up and rage quit, it was the highlight of the ride. Also, i learned if you put Harry on a plane, for 10 hours, with little to nothing to do, he starts going stir crazy... I'd also like to keep a reminder to myself that Harry... cannot rap. He got bored, had this whole monologue about how he thinks he could rap, and he's a great song writer and it might be fun, fast forward to 5 minutes later when I asked him to to do some freestyle for me... not good, he did not deliver on the promise that "it'll be good, just watch just watch" that he so proudly made. I may have finally found something that Harry Styles is not good at.

I followed everyone off the plane, with my bag rolling behind me, and my duffel bag sitting on top of it, balancing on the handle bars of the extended metal handle I held tightly behind me as I pulled it along. The anxiety that's been sitting in my stomach suddenly feels 100 times heavier the closer to baggage claim we get. We are in Switzerland.... we are literally IN SWITZERLAND, and this is just so... casual for them, I'm freaking the fuck out right now. I don't even know what time it is, I don't know where we're going, I'm just trusting the rest of everyone that I'm following, Arlo is hundreds of thousands of miles away, and I feel very unprepared for this, this is all a little overwhelming.

We made it to baggage claim and we all waited for our luggage to come around the corner, as the bags came some of the other guys just started taking bags off as they rounded the corner and set them aside beside themselves for everyone to come grab the bags. I spotted my big red suitcase come into view as one of the sound guys grabbed from the belt and set it aside. I walked over and grabbed it as the last handful of bags came around, I saw a brown leather colored suitcase with small Mickey Mouse pictures all over it, I wasn't shocked at all when I saw Harry grab it and carry it with him as he stepped out of the way.

We all ushered out the airport doors and we stepped into a large coach bus taking up about half of the seats. I sat in a row of comfy seats alone while Harry sat towards the back with Mitch, Adam, Sarah, and Claire, I could hear his loud laugh along with Claire snorting through her laughter. He loves getting Claire to laugh, because if you get her laughing hard enough she starts snorting, and he thinks it's the funniest thing. Once we were all loaded on the bus the driver started it and we began our drive to the hotel.

The scenery was breathtaking, it didn't feel real. The trees looked greener and the sky was a beautiful blue as we crossed over a bridge that held us up over a large river. I've never seen anything like it before. I directed my attention back inside of the bus and opened my phone to pull up the blueprint of the stage build that Harry had sent me last week. It was a large stage with people pushed right up to the barrier, and a large open runway splitting the crowd in two. I couldn't wait to see it in person, the work that goes into this is more than I ever imagined, the arena staff has been working for two weeks now to get everything ready and set up for this show, there have been fans lined up outside the doors for 2 days now, and we got our own plane just to fly in. It's all so surreal.

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HELLOOOOO!!!!

I have been LOVING reading through the comments being left on these chapters, I love love love seeing you guys interacting!

Who's ready for the next chapter? Next chapter HS1 your OFFICIALLY BEGINS!!!! Im so excited for them to finally start hs1 and to really get into some writing, and performing. CANT WAIT!!

Anyways, thank thank thank you all for the love and support you've been giving me on this story, it makes me so happy and so proud of this work. So truly truly, Thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️

All the love,
r