Endless thumping. That was all she could feel. In her heart, in her ears, in her head.

Everything ached. Like she'd just completed an assault course that had pushed her to the very limit. But of course, there'd been no assault course. No physical activity had made her feel this way. Her mind was the culprit behind the pain. Torturing and twisting. Infecting every rational part of her brain until all that was left was darkness.

Held hostage by her own thoughts.

By the time Wednesday arrived back at her house in a taxi, she was a shell. Her face was dull, remnants of makeup from the night before still lingering under her eyes. She'd pulled her hair into a low bun and tried to ignore the same outfit from the night before she'd chucked on in a moment of escape, ignoring that she'd just taken an entire flight looking how she currently did.

But the moment she stepped into the house, she released a breath it felt like she'd been holding onto since Amsterdam. Leaning against the closed door, for a second it was almost calm. Peaceful. Like nothing had happened.

It didn't take long for the moment to end as the lack of distraction meant the anxiety hit her with the force of a train. The feeling started in her chest, gripping as it spread like wildfire down her limbs, to the end of her fingertips. She was so used to it, and yet, it left her feeling immobilised every time. A prisoner in her own body. How could someone feel so numb and yet so consumed at the same time?

Holding back the rising nausea, she dragged her feet through to the living room and dropped onto the sofa. She pulled out her phone which she'd long since turned off and placed it on the table, not having any type of energy to check it. Then, she pulled the throw from the back of the sofa and covered herself with it.

It was only as she snuggled into it, looking out at the quiet room and feeling the first bit of peace since the news had broken that she smelt it. Radiating from the throw blanket. His aftershave. The smell of him.

Harry.

It was the straw that finally broke the camels back. A wracked sob broke from her lips, like it had forced its way out of her body. Her eyes quickly pooled with tears, her breathing shallowing out. She didn't stop it. Didn't even try to hold it back. She needed to cry. To let all the pain that was coiling around her insides out.

She cried into the throw, that kind of crying that isn't loud or wailing. It was the kind that was gut-wrenchingly sad. The type that doesn't ease up quickly but is a slow and steady outpouring of emotion.

Wednesday cried like she couldn't see a way out. Completely hopeless.

The one positive to crying your entire heart out is that it can leave a person fairly exhausted. And by the point her tears had started to subside, she couldn't fight the lull of sleep. Her eyes, sore and dry, closed without any protest.

It was only when the sun had long since set and the moonlight streaming through the blinds was the only vague source of light in the silent living room, that she awoke. Wednesday's eyes opened with difficulty—they felt metaphorically and physically heavy, weighed under with the emotion that had poured through them hours before.

She didn't move or change position. Instead, she just looked out at where the crescent moon sat in the sky, gleaming white as she breathed gently. Once again, she'd found herself looking to the night sky for comfort, finding more of herself in those faraway celestial beings than she could in anything else.

There had always been something about crescent moons she found herself drawn to. Even relating to. People could only see that thin slither of the moon in all it's beauty. The part that was highlighted to the world, showcasing its radiance. But then, there's the part you don't see. The dark, hidden part that is in stark contrast to what's actually shown. Lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to appear. The light and the dark both make up the moon, but people only care about the light part. They don't care to look deeper because what's already visible seems so beautiful that they don't want to ruin their perception of it.

Wednesday was a crescent moon. More dark than light.

As she attempted to lift her head, it felt like it had the weight of a thousand bricks. And when she swung her legs down from the sofa onto the floor, the wooziness of anxiety and a lack of food hit her straight in the stomach.

Even in the dark, her eyes locked onto the phone sat dormant on the coffee table. Moonlight bouncing off of the black screen.

In an ideal world, she'd never have to turn it on again. It was a blissful thought, imagining a life with no link to the online world. But she also knew that since fleeing the hotel earlier, she'd not replied to a single text or call from anyone. And if there was one thing she couldn't deal with on top of everything else, it was guilt at making people worried about her wellbeing.

With shaky fingers, she picked up the cool object and pressed down on the power button. In a second the screen flashed white, burning her retinas as she winced at the brightness. She placed it back down onto the table, nervous anticipation filling her for whatever would come.

She watched with anxious eyes as her home screen popped up. A photo of her and her dad that she'd had since the day he passed. And for a moment, nothing happened. No notifications or messages or missed calls. In those few seconds, she almost felt hopeful that maybe she'd avoided the backlash of the photos.

But then that sound she'd come to fear echoed through the air from the phone.

Ping.

Another one. And another. And another.

It was like her phone had been brought to life with the way it didn't stop. Not for a second. Wednesday closed her eyes and placed her hands over her ears, but it didn't help. She could still hear the stream of notifications and messages.

It was like the soundtrack to her spiralling mental state. If there was any noise she was sure would greet her in hell, it was that.

After what felt like a lifetime, the pings came to a halt. The room returned back to its calm state and when she was sure the onslaught had ended, she let her screwed eyes open, slowly dropping her hands from her ears.

Taking a deep breath, she leant forward and grasped the object, inputting her lock code in. And then, she saw the utter chaos. She had 112 new text messages, 42 missed calls, 28 voice mails. She couldn't even focus on the social media notifications, because her stomach was twisting with guilt at the list of messages from her friends. Checking to see how she was; if the news was real; if she was okay.

A rush of emotion overcame her as she saw that a large chunk of the messages and missed calls were from Harry himself, asking for reassurance that she was okay. That she'd made it back to England safely. She opened up the text chain and skimmed through.

It was too late to not feel the guilt. She could hear the desperation in his messages, in the way she had so many missed calls from him it was almost as if he'd been sat by his phone all day trying to get in contact with her. It made her want to cry just to picture it.

Sade had once told her that she wasn't worthless. That it was a belief, not a fact. But how could someone ever let the people who care about her the most become this worried over her wellbeing. Purposefully frightening them, all because she was running away from her problems, as per usual. Like the selfish person she was.

Right now, that belief didn't feel fake. In fact, it felt very much real.

Quickly, she typed a message back.

She didn't have a moment after pressing send to compose herself. Almost instantly, the phone began buzzing in her hand with a phone call. She sighed, willing herself to muster enough energy for the conversation before hitting accept and bringing the phone to her ear.

"Oh, you're finally answering are you! We've all been worried sick about you Nessie," her mum boomed down the phone, making her wince at the volume. "I've had Harry on the phone to me all day asking if you've been in contact, saying that he hasn't heard a word from you since you left him. We've all been ringing and messaging you all day!"

"I know Mum, I'm sorry I—"

"It's just not on to make us all sick to our stomachs with worry. I've spent the entire day sat waiting to hear a peep from you. I even considered ringing the police to go round and check if you were okay. I was seriously starting to think I'd have to report you as missing!"

"I'm sorry Mum, I am but I—"

"What were you thinking! You know how worried I get about things like this ever since your Dad passed. It's just selfish Ness!"

Wednesday bit her quivering lip, having nothing to say.

It was selfish. She was selfish. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.

She looked to where the photo of her dad sat on the mantelpiece in the dark room as her Mum's voice boomed through the phone.

"And while we're on the topic of you apparently not bothering to keep me updated with your life, I'm upset that the way I had to find out about you and Harry was through a news article. A news article! My own daughter."

"I—we were planning on telling you and Anne when the timing was right. We weren't keeping it from you out of spite, I promise," Wednesday explained, panicking.

It felt like time wasn't real. How could it possibly have been only the day before they'd had that conversation in the park about telling their mums about them? It felt like weeks ago, not a day before hand. In the space of just over 24 hours, she'd gone from the happiest she'd ever felt to quickly being dragged back to the abyss. How had everything flipped on her so quickly?

"How long has it been going on?" her Mum asked, ignoring her previous point. Wednesday could hear the hurt underneath the sharpness.

"Since we went to Malibu for my birthday," she replied quietly, anxiously waiting for her response.

"March?" her Mum said disbelievingly, as if she'd been purposefully deceived. "It's May now! I'm starting to believe you were never going to tell me at all!"

Wednesday released a breath as she leant forward and held her forehead in her hand, screwing her eyes shut.

"We were! But we just wanted to make sure that we were both on the same page before telling absolutely everyone else."

"Well, I would have believed that had you not told your friends first," she replied sharply.

Wednesday's eyes opened, her brows drawing together.

"How...how do you know that?"

"Because when I was on the phone with Harry earlier, trying to figure out where in the hell you were, he mentioned that Zara and your bandmates were also worried about how you were handling the news breaking. And when I said that they must be just as shocked as me at the photos, he very casually exclaimed that they'd already known about you two. So, forgive me for starting to think you just didn't want to tell me full stop."

It was a bigger mess than she could have ever pictured. And that was just the people closest to her. If her own Mum was having this kind of reaction to her and Harry, she didn't dare think about what kind of comments and theories had been brewing online in the twelve hours since the story broke.

"Mum, what I'm telling you is the truth. We didn't say anything initially because we just wanted to be sure it was something worth telling you about! And people in the band found out by accident, it wasn't some huge sinister plot to keep you in the dark."

"Okay, well it might not have been intended that way, but it feels that way," her Mum replied harshly. "What does it say about the kind of mum that I am if my only daughter feels like she needs to keep secrets from me?!"

Wednesday sighed, feeling her frustration heighten at how awfully this conversation was going.

"It doesn't say anything about you. We were just doing what we thought was right Mum. I'm sorry you found out this way, it wasn't meant to be like this but—"

"It's hurt me Nessie, whether you meant it to or not. I know that it was always your Dad who you found it easier to talk to, but I would have thought you'd be able to come to me with these things too."

At the mention of her Dad, her jaw clenched.

"Please don't bring Dad into this," she said, breathing heavily through her nostrils at the image of him in her mind.

"I'm just saying that I think he would have been disappointed too, at how this whole situation has come to light."

Wednesday couldn't hold her tongue any longer. She'd reached a melting point, a lethal combination of anger and sadness bubbling inside of her, forcing its way out.

"Well do you know what Mum? I'm disappointed as well at the fact that the woman I thought would be on my side through his whole nightmare has done nothing but make me feel worse. I've already copped enough from the entire world, I don't need your criticism to add to that!"

She brushed away a tear, one of those angry ones that fall without you even realising and took a breath before continuing.

"And yes, you're right. If Dad was still alive, I might have told him by now. But I can guarantee one thing—if I hadn't, he wouldn't have spent this entire phone call yelling at me when I already feel like complete shit. You haven't even once asked me once if I'm okay, or how I'm feeling. So maybe, just maybe, that might explain why I didn't rush to tell you about me and Harry straight away!"

Her finger hit end call before she realised.

And once again, it was silence. Emptiness. She clutched her hands around her stomach, feeling that black pit inside of her begin to widen again.

Since starting therapy, she'd been working to rebuild her life, starting with replacing the rotten foundations. With each new breakthrough, each bit of awareness, a new block had been laid. And then, it seemed to get easier to stack the blocks on top of one another, now that they had stable foundations. Her mental health, her self-image, Harry. Every single one was a new block that made her stronger.

But now, it was like a someone had stolen away one of the foundations. And everything on top of it was crumbling, threatening to crash to the ground at any moment. A stack of cards brought down by one gust of wind.

Her screen flashed in her hand to show a reply from Harry had come through during the call. She analysed the words with a fast-growing headache.

Smiling sadly, her fingers traced over his words. She hadn't realised how much she missed him too, but she felt almost guilty admitting it to herself. As if she wasn't the one that had ran away from him in the first place. Choosing to run instead of facing her problems head on, as per usual.

The calm, logical Wednesday she'd become for those few months had been nice. But now at the first sign of hardship, she'd reverted right back into who she used to be. Who she really was and would always be. Someone useless and broken.

She couldn't bring herself to check the other messages, not yet. Instead, she clicked open the app she knew would do nothing for her mind. Knew it wouldn't help her feel any better. In fact, it was like that was the appeal of looking through it. It would only fuel her own self-doubt, increase the grip of her core belief. Feed it the hatred it so desperately wanted to thrive on.

If she felt like this, she might as well feel worse.

Her mentions were freezing up with the number of tweets, her timeline full of her. Full of Harry. Them. She was still trending, up there at the top. For the second time that day, she clicked on it.

It was actually somewhat impressive, the way media outlets had scrambled together so many news articles about her in the space of a day. Where in the morning, all the articles had been concerned with sharing the exclusive photos of her and Harry kissing, now she could see at least a dozen features on herself.

'Who is Harry Styles' new rumoured bae? A look at the private drummer Wednesday Green, 26, and her romance with the A-List singer, 26.'

'From banging the drums to banging Harry! How Wednesday Green, 26, managed to break out of the friendzone to seduce Harry Styles, 26.'

'Loss, loyalty and lust: We look into the difficult life of Harry Styles' rumoured new girlfriend, 26, and her battle with grief, depression and unrequited love.'

She read it all with a sour taste in her mouth. It had started. The trend of being reduced down to nothing but his love interest. Someone with an agenda. The pictures of them in the nightclub were all there, haunting and antagonising. Only now, it seemed every news outlet had combed through her social media, picking out every single photo of them they could find. And they hadn't stopped there; they'd found photos of them at school together, some that she hadn't even realised existed.

In a day, they'd compiled a comprehensive encyclopaedia on their entire friendship from conception to now. As if they weren't real people. Just hollow figures to write stories about. True or false, it didn't matter. The clicks and the revenue were all they truly cared about. If that meant perpetuating falsehoods to get there, then it was fair game.

Hesitantly, she looked at the tweets replying to the stories, feeling sick when she realised there were hundreds. But of course, she looked. Because like a moth drawn to a flame, it's the things that hurt us the most that keep pulling us back to them.

And the ones she found didn't disappoint.