———
"The Royals?"
"Yeah it's so cool. Can you imagine if I ever got to meet the royals just to do their hair?"
For the last three weeks Harry has been in Australia, he calls me everyday. Every single day. He tells me how the shows went and then he asks me all about my day. Usually it's the same response because nothing interesting really happens in my life, yet he still cares enough to ask me every single day.
Today, however, has been different. Very different. For me, life changing different. Today Andy informed me of the upcoming interview he has with the British Vogue. At first I though nothing of it. I thought, okay he's just telling me this because he'll be busy all afternoon next week for the interview.
This wasn't the case.
He told me he wants me to be his feature for the interview, meaning I'd be interviewed with him.
He wants me to represent his whole business alongside him for this big magazine. Me.
Of course I said yes because it's a no brainer. Who wouldn't say yes? Not only is this a rare opportunity for someone as young as me but this also means I'll be recognised. People in this industry will know my name because of my association with this salon and my work that'll be talked about in the magazine.
Andy said he chose me because he sees the potential I have in my future and that I'm his best stylist, regardless of my age and lack of years in this line of professionalism. I remember at the start Andy promised me he would be a mentor type figure in my career, and that's exactly what he's been doing.
I am beyond grateful for Andy and the opportunities that he's about to open up for me.
"Imagine if you met the queen. Wouldn't that be sick." Harry laughs. Today on lunch after Andy informed me of everything that'll be happening with the interview we continued talking and he told me probably the coolest thing ever, cool to me at least, about him having a royal warrant to provide them with his services.
"Sick?" I laugh at his choice of words. He always uses the word but recently I've been picking up on the tiniest details about him that never registered before.
"Yeah sick. What's wrong with sick?"
"It's so..." I trail off, "I don't know, ten year old doing a science experiment."
I hear him laugh on the other end of the line. "Your comparisons to things are so oddly specific."
"My mind works in different ways to the normal, inferior human."
"Ah, so you're not human. That explains it."
I scoff. "Explains what?"
"Oh nothing, nothing." Harry changes the topic. "Do you still talk to Luke?"
His question throws me off guard because of how random it is. "Sometimes, why?"
"Okay," he says as though he's preparing something big to tell me. "you can't tell him or Mikey, or Calum or Ashton, got it?"
"I won't tell them but, what am I not supposed to be telling them?" I ask extremely curious now.
"I'm getting to that in a second, hang tight." I could hear the smile in Harry's voice. "So you know about the prank war between 5sos and 1D." he states in a way that's also asking for confirmation.
"Yep."
"Well me and the boys are planning something for our last night in Melbourne, sort of a fair well, see you next tour." he pauses and I hear some shuffling around in the background. "Pie fight."
"Pie fight?" I say, confused.
"Yes." he states. "Pie fight. We're going to invite them back on stage while we cover Teenage Dirtbag and then like halfway through, the pies will come out and it'll be great."
I can't help but laugh at the childishness of these nine boys, especially considering one of them is twenty two years old soon. "Sounds like fun. Gonna be hell to get out of your hair though."
Hair is always the first thing I think about whenever there's something messy involved. It's like an immediate instinct to worry about hair before anything else in situations such as that one. I can't tell if it's a good thing or not.
Just then I hear a knock at my front door, causing me to immediately I jump up from laying down on the couch in my living room.
"Emma's here!" I say excitedly into the phone.
"Okay, I'll call you same time tomorrow love. Have fun." Harry and I say goodbye to each other before I hang up the phone.
Running up to the door I immediately unlock it, swinging it open to reveal the raven haired girl standing behind it with a bright smile on her face. She drops the bag off her arm and steps forward.
"Hey bitch." Emma smiles as I wrap my arms around her.
"You just missed me so much you couldn't wait 'til Christmas, huh?" I tease. Emma arrived back in London a couple days ago to visit her gran for her birthday, choosing today to come visit me before she goes back to Paris. It won't be long before I see her again when she comes to stay here for Christmas.
"Definitely. Now are you ready to leave?" she pulls away and jumps up and down excitedly before picking up the bag she dropped and hands it to me.
Confused, I take it and ask, "What's this?"
"Clothes that I don't want but think you'd look hot in." she smiles innocently.
"How kind of you." I say sarcastically but smile in gratitude.
I run inside to rest the bag down on the stairs close behind me, Emma following into the house. I then turn to the door leading to the space under the stairs where all my coats and other shoes are kept. I open the door and take out my black docs, pushing my sock covered feet into them.
I walk over to the table by the door, grabbing my keys and loose money before stuffing them into my jean pockets and my phone into the pocket at the front of my beige hoodie. Usually I'd have a purse for this stuff but I know we're walking around today before we go skating so I don't feel like carrying a purse around everywhere I go.
"Em?" I walk over to the wall that has the mount on it, holding some of my many skateboards.
"Yep?" she walks over from the stairs to me, her hands rubbing on her leggings. She also is wearing a hoodie but light blue with black leggings.
"Pick a board." I direct her attention to the wall that has five boards on the mount, all with different designs on the bottom.
She scans over the options quickly before leaning up and grabbing the one at the top. It's plain black grip tape but with a red snake in the centre, the back of the board with a red flame outline. This was the first board I bought when I moved to England, the first time, over three years ago.
"Nice choice." I smile as she holds the board and follows me out the front door.
We walk along the path to get to my already opened garage. I open the trunk and allow Emma to rest her board in there along with the one I always keep in the back. Mine is black with a white rose on the grip tape and a checked back. Emma gets in on the left side of the car as I get in on the right, immediately starting the car up and buckling in.
"Can I have aux?" Emma asks as I pull out of my driveway and stop in front of the gate to hit the button and close it.
"As long as you play good music." I agree.
"We both know I have amazing music taste what do you mean as long as you play good music." she mimics me.
"We both know my ass." I mimic her back as I continue driving until I reach a stop sign right before getting onto the main road. "I have the better music taste of the two of us, that's the only thing I know."
"Bitch." she fires at me.
"Slut." I fire back.
"I should play country music." she says out of spite while plugging in her phone to connect it to my car's speakers.
"If you play country music I won't hesitate to open your door and throw you out this car into the road." I deadpan because even though I try to respect all types of music, country music is just so irritating.
"Sure." she thinks I'm bluffing, which I obviously am.
"Shut up and play a song." I say as we've been sitting in silence for a minute now that we don't have the radio to automatically play music.
"Alright, alright I'm trying to find something you won't immediately shit on." I glance over at her once we hit a line of traffic, taking my left hand off the wheel and resting it in my lap.
The early afternoon sun shines brightly in the sky, almost perfectly in the middle of it. With only the position of the sun I can tell that it's about one in the afternoon now. I glance down at the clock in the car to confirm that it's five minutes to the hour.
Although today is one of the rare sunny days we get here in London, it's still fairly cold outside at about ten degrees celsius. When I first moved here I'd have to actually wear a coat but now, I could wear a t-shirt in ten degree weather. Living here for the last few years, I've definitely got used to the cold and rain that we get more often than not. Lucky for me I actually like the rain so if we go two whole weeks with barely seeing the sun, I'd be fine with it.
Forty days and forty nights
The five words play through the speakers along with a piano playing in the background. I smile as the song Out of My League by Fitz and The Tantrums begins to play.
"She smiles! Does that mean she approves of Emma's song choice?" Emma speaks in the third person.
I laugh and nod my head as I drive forward more, the traffic starting to disperse further up the road. "Hayley approves." I play along in speaking in the third person.
Emma claps her hands together happily and begins to speak. "Oh my god yay! Finally you approve of something I do."
Laughing harder than I was before, I glance at Emma quickly. "You sound just like me." I shake my head.
"In what way?" she asks clearly having no clue how that one sentence sounds like something I used to say so much, to myself, back when I lived with my parents.
"When I was younger and my mother was actually proud of something I did, which was rare, I always said in my head 'finally she approves of something I've done' because it is way too hard to impress that woman." I never realised until this moment how much of my life I've spent just trying to please my mother.
Emma laughs with me. "God, I spend so much time talking to you that I'm even turning into you." I see her rest her head in her palms out of the corner of my eyes.
We continue driving, the music Emma plays filling the silence we've fallen into. I'm glad that I have a friend like Emma where we don't have to keep up a conversation every minute that we're together because in all honesty, those types of friendships are exhausting sometimes.
As I'm driving I watch the sky every now and then, admiring the white clouds that overtake most of the light blue of the sky. It almost looks like a painting. I'm sure Emma could paint this exact picture in extreme detail with all that talent of hers.
Although I do love the rain, it's refreshing seeing a bit of blue skies every once in a while. It looks almost as though it could be a hot, summer day except it's not and I'm actually able to wear a hoodie and jeans without sweating to death.
Thinking about the warmth of the sun against my skin on a summer day makes me realise how much I miss the beach. I haven't been to a beach in quite some time now and I probably won't be going to one any time soon either. I could've had the opportunity to finally see the warm blue ocean and white sandy beach that I once lived on, but due to my parents still not talking to me, I don't really have much of a reason to go back home for Christmas.
"We're here." I announce to Emma, pulling the car into a parking spot outside the small restaurant we chose to come to for lunch before we go skating.
As we get out of the car and enter the restaurant, my eyes scan over the place. The walls were white with bricks accenting, black window frames taking up large chunks of the walls. There's plants scattered everywhere, including smaller ones on the center of the wooden tables. The floors looks to be of similar wood as well as the chairs.
"It's cute in here." Emma comments and I nod my head in agreement.
We walk further into the small restaurant, a waitress coming over to us and leading us to our seats. As we're sat down, the waitress does the general introductions and hands Emma and I both a menu.
My eyes scan over the menu, already seeing things that catch my eye. "What are you getting?" I ask Emma.
"I don't know, the Greek pizza looks good but it's like double what I eat." she continues scanning the menu as she speaks.
"I was thinking that too," I inform her and she looks up at me.
"Want to share?"
"Sure." I agree at the same time that we both close our menus.
"That was easier than I expected." I laugh with her.
"Maybe both of our indecisive tendencies cancelled each other out." I say just as the waitress comes back with a big bottle of water, thank god because I'm so thirsty.
"Is bottled water alright?" she asks, looking between Emma and I who both give polite smiles and I nod my head before verbally confirming.
Bottled water is more than okay because as I've said before, tap water is disgusting.
Once the waitress fills up our cups and walks off again, I pick up my glass and take a huge gulp, finishing almost half of the water in it. "Water really hits the spot when you're dying of thirst." I over exaggerate.
"You're so dramatic." Emma says to me and I just glare at her in response. "So guess what." she starts up a conversation.
"What." I answer and cross my arms in front of me on the table.
"Remember Jacques right?" she asks and I nod. "So he's going out with this girl named Mal, short for I don't know what but anyways. She's a complete bitch." Emma fills me in on Jacques' dating life.
"You've met her?" I ask and shift in my seat to take my phone out of my back pocket as I feel it vibrate.
"Just once, with pleasure." I see her roll her eyes causing me to laugh. "She had the audacity to come up to me when Jacques left the two of us alone and tell me to stay away from her man." she scoffs at the end of her sentence.
My eyebrows raise. "Really?
"Yep. Got all up in my face and everything." Emma leans forward in her chair at the same time that I do too, both of us probably looking as though we're telling each other the biggest gossip of the century. "I was about to tell that bitch to fuck off and that I don't want her 'man' because clearly she thinks she can speak to people however she pleases."
"And why didn't you?" I ask knowing that is definitely something Emma would do.
"Jacques came back." she sighs, disappointed she didn't get to curse off whatever the girl- oh right Mal.
After about five more minutes of Emma and I talking about people we know, the waitress comes back with a small notepad and pencil in hand.
"Alright ladies, are we ready to order?"
"Can we get one Greek pizza, please?" Emma orders for the both of us.
"Sharing?" the waitress asks.
"Yes." Emma confirms.
"Can I get you guys any drinks?"
"I'll just have a sprite." I answer her.
"And I'll have that too but with vodka." Emma smiles.
"Okay, everything will be ready within fifteen minutes." the woman informs us and then walks away, Emma immediately turning to me with a look in her wild blue eyes.
"You are so boring." she says, probably referring to my choice of not consuming alcohol right now. She crosses her arms over her chest, leaning into the chair.
"Says the girl named fucking Emma." I say just to piss her off even though I think Emma is a great name.
"What?" she scoffs. "Says the girl named Hayley."
"Actually," I begin to argue, "my name is Georgette, not basic at all." She shuts up at that. "That's what I thought."
My phone lays on the table in front of me, vibrating again. I got a call earlier but I chose to ignore it, however now they're calling again. I sigh and read the name that flashes on my screen.
James.
"Take it." Emma says noticing my hesitation to answer.
I sigh again and pick up the phone, sliding over the button to answer. "Hello?"
"Hails!" James' cheery voice responds.
"James," I say before my mind clicks and remember he's five hours behind me, making me immediately confused. "Wait isn't it like eight in the morning there? Why are you already awake don't you get up at noon?"
"Aww you remember stuff about me?" he says and I sigh for a third time within the last two minutes.
"Shut up and tell me what you're calling for. I'm busy." I look at the plant in the centre of the table.
"Ou, you on a date?" he teases.
"No, but if I was I'd still say no so I guess you don't know if I'm telling the truth or not. Now get to your point."
It takes a seconds for James to piece together my jumble of words. He's always been a little slow with these things. "Oh right. Me and the others were wondering if you're coming home soon or not?"
Funny how I was just thinking about this. "No I'm not. My parents are still being, well you know."
"I expected that answer but we're still going to miss you this year." James says with a hint of sadness in his voice.
"Guess what though." I say with a smile on my face even though he can't see.
"What?"
"I'm still coming for your birthday." I smile even bigger.
"Wait really?" the excitement in his voice comes back.
"Yep. Big twenty after all."
"Okay good so we get to see you, even if that's like.." he trails off in what I assume is an attempt to work out the math of how long it is until they see me again.
"Seven months." I say quickly working it out in my head.
"Right that." he agrees. "I forgot for a second that you're a brainiac when it comes to math."
Scoffing, even though it's not a bad thing, I say, "I'm hanging up now."
"Rude. Bye then." he says and doesn't even let me say bye before he's hung up the phone.
I bring the phone down and shake my head, smile on my face from talking to my friend and confirming that I'll get to finally see them in May, even though it's a very long time from now.
Not long after, the waitress comes back with our pizza and two plates. I take a slice of the hot food, the cheese melted with all the toppings sitting perfectly on top. I take a bite and it tastes just as good as it looks.
It take only ten minutes for Emma and I to finish the whole pizza, both of us seemingly a lot more hungry than we thought we were. Most of those ten minutes we spent in silence, completely focused on devouring our food while listening to whatever current hits were playing from the speakers in the restaurant.
Once we're done eating we don't bother sticking around for much longer, wanting to get in as much sunlight as possible for skating. We call the waitress back over to our table to give us the cheque. Emma insisted she pay for it but I refused, both of us eventually settling in just splitting the cost of the pizza in half and paying for our own drinks.
Exiting the restaurant, we go back to where we parked the car and enter, the radio filling the car with music once more before it pauses when Emma switches to aux again.
The hum of music plays in the background of the two of us screaming the lyrics to Mamma Mia by Abba, because who doesn't love that song? We drive around for ten minutes until we reach our second destination. A park.
This particular park, however, isn't just a random park. It's the park I met Mason at almost a year ago now. I haven't really been back here since we broke up and I honestly thought coming back here would bring up memories, but it doesn't.
I feel completely relaxed knowing he is out of my life for good and now I get to come here and create new memories with my best friend today.
"Hails?" Emma calls my name as I sit on a bench to redo the knot on the black Vans I wear on my feet.
"Yeah?" I say still looking down at the ground to tie my laces.
She hesitates before she speaks again, causing me to look up at her once she does. "Uh- never mind. Let's go." a smile spreads on her face.
I furrow my eyebrows together in confusion but decide to brush it off because it's clearly not important. "You remember how to skate right?" I ask cautiously.
"Hopefully." she smirks and hops on the board and kicking off. I do the same and follow close behind her, being sure to not run into anyone.
It's nice skating again. I haven't had much time the last month to come out and just ride on the board along the pavement like I used to all the time whenever I needed to think.
The sun still shines through the trees and the light breeze blows against my face and my hair, causing it to go all behind me. The grey concrete below me allows the board to ride smoothly, wheels making that satisfying sound as it rolls. I look around again at the trees and the grass surrounding us where people reside, having picnics and laughing together. I see couples holding hands as they walk together as well as one couple on a bench just making out, right in the open for everyone to see. I've kind of always hated public displays of affection but good for them I guess.
Emma skates ahead of me, both of us swerving every now and then to go around someone walking by. This is a big park with not many people here at the moment. From all the times I've come here, I learnt that the park is busiest at around four, meaning we have over an hour until the rush comes in.
As I'm skating, my head is empty of thoughts, simply allowing me to enjoy the peacefulness of the afternoon.
Feeling the need to do something other than just ride on the board, I slow down a bit to let a small space form between Emma and I. Since there's no one around I can actually do this without fear of hitting into someone.
I bring my left foot onto the concrete underneath me and push off a little to gain some momentum. Once I know I'm good, I bend my knees before kicking out in front of me, flipping the board three hundred and sixty degrees along the long axis of the board. I land on the board perfectly and continue skating, successfully landing a heelflip.
Smiling to myself, I continue skating to catch up with Emma. She starts to slow down as a group of people who are also skating come in our direction. There's about five of them who pass us, three boys and two girls, going the opposite way we are. One of the boys sticks out his hand to high five Emma and I, so we do and he smiles at us. Pretty sure I'm never going to see any of them again but they look like they'd all be cool people to hangout with.
After an hour of skating, and walking in between, Emma and I go back to my house. She doesn't stay long because she promised her gran she'd go home to make dinner with her.
"Don't miss me too much." Emma hugs me goodbye at the door.
"Oh trust me, I won't." I wrap my arms tightly around her because I know I won't be seeing her for over a month.
"It'll go by fast and before you know it, I'll be back here calling you a bitch every two seconds just for breathing too much." she pulls back and laughs.
"You're right, now I hope the time takes forever to go by." I joke. "Call me later."
"I will." she starts to walk over towards her car. "Bye!"
"Bye!" I laugh and throw up a middle finger as she walks away, sending one back with an eye roll.
Once she's gone, I walk back fully into the house and lock the door behind me. I grab my phone and jog up to my room, not having any plans of coming back down here tonight.
After showering and changing into sweats as per usual, I throw myself onto my bed and open up my laptop fully prepared to spend the next three hours binging something on Netflix. However, once I've typed in my password I see that I have a few messages from half an hour ago.
Haz
I can't sleep
Where r you Georgette Hayley
*1 missed FaceTime from Haz*
Why aren't you answering meee
Don't tell me you choose the one time I desperately need entertainment to have a life
Sorry baby that was mean
Please come talk to me :(
So much has started running through my head right now I can't even process. The fact that he can't sleep so he called me makes my heart warm. And then he apologised for something that wasn't even mean, at least I don't think it was considering I laugh.
He called me baby again, which I don't think I'll ever stop getting butterflies from. Even over text he makes me get butterflies. The little sad face at the end of his message made me immediately hope that he's still up after the half an hour these were all sent, just so I can talk to him again today.
Me
sorry Emma and I decided to go skating
I guess now we wait for a response. It's only around seven now, making it five in the morning for him.
I get up off of my bed and go over to my record player, deciding on which one I should play. I look through all of them and eventually decide on The Beatles, The White Album. I place the record onto the turntable and move the needle onto it.
After a few seconds it starts to spin and the familiar beat of Back In the U.S.S.R. plays. Just as I'm about to get back under the covers of my bed, my computer makes a noise to indicate I've just received a message.
Quickly pulling my laptop back onto my stomach as I lay down, I see the notification from Harry. He's still up.
Haz
Can I call you?
Me
yeah
I respond without even thinking over the answer because I so badly want to talk to him and waiting all the way until morning seems like torture. Just as my response sends and I see that he's read it, my computer screen changes to show my face come up on it from the camera. I accept the FaceTime from Harry in seconds, sitting myself up properly to lean against my headboard.
"Hey." his face pops up on my screen and immediately I smile as I look at his tired nature.
"Hey. How come you can't sleep?" I ask first because usually he has a set schedule of when he sleeps and I know how much Harry loves to sleep.
I look at his eyes and how tired they look, the bags under them revealing that. His hair is a mess but in a really hot way. His voice definitely sounds tired and from the way he's laying down on his side with one hand under his head and one hand holding the phone, you can tell he doesn't have much energy. His smile though, it's still bright.
He shrugs lightly. "I think too much."
Confused by this I ask, "What do you mean?"
"Hmm." he hums. "I'm too tired to talk about it now."
"Okay." I respond quietly and place my laptop on my bed so I can flip onto my side and lay down like Harry is right now.
"How was your day?" he asks his usual question and I'm smiling once again.
"Pretty good. We went to lunch and then went to the park to skate and walk around and... yeah." I briefly state the events of today, leaving out one part.
"What's yeah?" he furrows his perfectly done brows together.
"What do you mean?" I seem to repeat my question from earlier.
"You always end sentences with 'and yeah' whenever you have more to add on but you don't feel like the person you're talking to cares enough to listen."
Mind reader. I swear to god.
"Nothing important. Emma saw Mason at the park today with that girl he was.. you know. Apparently he was staring me down but I didn't actually see him only she did. That's it." I shrug as though it's no big deal because it really isn't.
"Oh, interesting." he says probably not knowing how to respond. "Are you okay?"
I quietly laugh at his unnecessary concern, but it's sweet nonetheless. "Yes I'm fine. I really don't care about him and what he does."
Harry brings the back of his hand up to rub his eyes which has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen him do. He looks like a little kid when he does that. "That's good. He doesn't deserve your care."
I smile and nod. "Plus I kind of really, really like this other guy who seems to be on my mind a lot, so I don't have the space for a douche like Mason."
The lazy grin on Harry's face changes to a smirk as he knows exactly what I've just confessed. "So you think about this other guy a lot huh?" he then smiles and I bite my lip, nodding. "He must be pretty special for you to be thinking about him all the time then."
"He's okay." I tease him with a tilt of my head.
"I'm sure he's amazing, probably the funniest guy you've ever met."
"I don't know... I heard he talks about me a lot to his older sister though." I decide now is the perfect time to tease the shit out of him about that.
Just as I expected, his jaw drops. "How do- you are not supposed to know that." he points out but I already caught on that I'm not supposed to know.
"Well I know, and it's going to be so much fun for me teasing you about this." I grin from ear to ear.
"I hate you." Harry pouts like a child.
"I hate you more." I continue to smile, my dimples being on full display now.
In my head Harry, I was really saying I love you.
———
an. hello sunflowers
kind of a filler chapter but this is a double update so next chapter is coming after this
also in some instances if a word or phrase is in italics and it doesn't make sense why, it most likely has something to do with the future. i like to tease like that
kisses <3