A Shot of Reality [Harry Styles]

XX. Blurred

A/N: Hello world and all who inhabit it!

This chapter was kind of rushed, due to my AP schedule this week, but I hope it suffices! The dedication as you can see goes to @anniekinn, for making my beautiful cover. If any of you need a beautiful, professional cover made then she is the one you are looking for!

With that, I bid you adieu and a happy reading :) x

Two days in the sanctuary of Los Angeles seemed like five-hundred in the reality of London.

After the whole havoc that was the MTV appearance; Harry, Sydney and even the rest of the boys were confined to a box of hardwood floors and white walls for the rest of their stay in Los Angeles, for the Syco offices in England had gotten wind of the doomed interview since it’s viral sensation status, where titles of the multiple clips of it on YouTube read:

“Harry Styles goes CRAZY at interviewer!” or, “Harry Styles: inches away from hitting a woman?”

The boys, although obviously upset that their first visit to California would be spent in a bricked box, kept their spirits high and took the liking of playing various games, something that Harry never took part in.

Needless to say, Harry had gotten his “ass handed to him,” as Zayn stated rather poetically when Management called with nothing but tirades and curses ready to leave their silver-spoon fed mouths and sound from the speaker of the phone and into Harry’s eardrum. Issues of “poor image portrayal” had been brought up on the seventeen minute and thirty-six second phone call to which Harry responded with one of indifferent exhaustion, as he simply mummed and hummed to every aspect and command they told the spiraling pop-star.

He used to get so heart-wrenchingly upset at their words, for he knew he was trying his very best, but now he truly, honestly and deeply didn’t care. It was everything he had heard before, containing of how much of a screw-up he was and that if any member of One Direction was on the public’s hit list, he’d be the first to go. He knew also, that he had forgotten what people thought of him long before this lecture and for that he had frankly stopped trying. He’d rather castrate himself than admit this to them, but management had reserved every possible right to speak like that to him.

The night of their first concert had come and left, like a handful of sand being whisked away by a tornado. Harry had plastered on his uttermost fake smile and sang every note according to its intended pitch. The fans only saw what he wanted them to see: a perfect, happy Harry. But one audience member, he noticed, could see straight through his façade.

Amongst the screams and chants of the fans as he belted out the finale of Use Somebody, he sought out Sydney from the corner of his busy eye. She sat in the front row, isolated in single seat protected by a militia of big, hulking bodyguards. The simple gloss coating her blue irises and the supportive yet wane smile she had given him instinctively told Harry that she knew his sudden burst of bliss was just that: all too sudden.

So here he was, sitting alone with his blank mind in his bunk on the tour bus. Bound for the city of sin; Las Vegas, the rest of the boys had opted to play one of their many games of charades to make the most out of their apparent cases of insomnia. He had heard the masculine laughs and swears of his fellow band mates and one repeated, shrill screech of Louis every time Niall had quickly guessed the action one of them was doing.

“Dammit, Niall! Let someone else get in a guess, would ya’?”

And to his profound shock, he heard a familiar melodious, feminine laugh in response.

He didn’t know why he kicked the wall of the bus or why he found the need to kick it hard, but he did. Soon enough, the laughter died down into hushed whispers as the boys most likely tried to think of ways to cheer their pal up. As nice as it was, Harry knew deep in his heart and plunged beneath the exterior of his soul that no one besides her had even the remote capability of making him feel true happiness anymore.