His lip was pinched between his thumb and index finger, his brows furrowed in that way they always did when he was nervous. He could feel his heart pounding against his chest furiously, and he knew how pathetic it was, but he couldn't help it. Her voice had always had a physical effect on him, but to hear it for the first time in over a month? It was like his body had gone into full on meltdown mode over a 62 second voice note, craving more and yet completely aware that anything else would probably send him into cardiac arrest.

Harry pressed play on the message once again to hear her sweet, drunken voice, bringing it up to his ear so he could hear every intake of breath, every murmur and brand it into his memory. He couldn't recall how many times he'd repeated the action over and over again, but it was like his own personal drug that he couldn't get enough of.

But then, Wednesday had always been an addiction he couldn't quite shake. Nor did he want to.

"Hi, hello. It's um, it's me...Wednesday, in case you couldn't tell. Actually, this is gonna be sent from me isn't it, so just ignore that point. I don't...I haven't planned what to say here so this probably sounds really stupid and ridiculous—oh sorry, I'm in your way, sorry—there was a woman wanting to get to the toilets. I'm out at a bar with Zara by the way, she's forced a load of shots down my throat and it burns and I think I might throw up soon. But back to my point which I can't remember...umm...my point. That I'm trying to remember issssss...OH, yes I remember my point! I wanted to tell you that I've been thinking...about lobsters. Wait, that sounds weird, I don't mean I'm just sat here thinking about lobsters. I meant to say that I watched that episode of friends where Phoebe says that lobsters mate for life, and um, well—firstly I hated watching it without you, and secondly, I kind of wish I was a lobster. That we were both lobsters. Does that make sense? I think it does. Okay well yeah, I just—I hope you're okay. Hope you're not being too mean to Mitch and that you're topping up your inhaler medication correctly. I'm...I'm...I'm so good, like honestly, if you were worrying, don't. I'm fineeee, as Ross would say. But not—what?—oh god, okay Zara is coming and she looks angry so I'm gonna go. I lo—I mean, byeeee."

His eyes closed to try and picture how she looked when she recorded the message. If she was with Zara, it meant she would have dressed up—Zara always brought that side out of her that hid in the shadows, the part that was unashamedly confident and not afraid to push boundaries. He imagined her in a mini dress, maybe colourful, most likely black. He imagined her long hair, cascading down her back in its usual straight style, skimming her ass. He imagined her plump lips, red from being chewed on as she nervously spoke, a little swollen and smudged by the champagne glass. He imagined her eyes drooping like they always did drunk, the heaviness of her lids no battle against the strength of liquor.

He'd spent a lot of time these past few weeks with her face in his mind. She'd been his constant companion, guiding him through the heartbreak and the lonely moments. The only solace in his pain. She was his morphine, his codeine. His medicine. It was bittersweet, how she could be the cause and the remedy. Soothing the wounds loving her had inflicted.

Mitch had insisted on doing everything humanely possible on the rest of the tour to keep his mind occupied, keep him away from the danger of falling into the abyss of his own feelings. From sinking into the reality of what had occurred and being hit with a nasty dose of realisation. Bowling, hiking, sightseeing, skiing. He'd suggested them all, and each one Harry had turned down. Though he appreciated the effort, he couldn't begin to muster the energy to do anything other than sleep and perform throughout tour. His routine had solely consisted of running, sound check, show, gym, sleep and repeat and the familiarity kept him focused, grounded to what he was there to do. Running and the gym forced his mind to blank. Sound checks and the shows forced him into fake happiness. And sleep? Well, sleep promised him the return of her in his arms every night, even if it was in dream form.

However, it didn't mean he hadn't sunken into moments of complete weakness at the lack of contact. Of going from talking to someone every other minute of the day to radio silence. Even if it wasn't his place anymore, even if he had no right to worry, he still did. The love inside of him, gripping his organs like tree roots, didn't allow him to rest until he had scraps of information, scraps to keep him going. Sarah had fed him those scraps he so desperately needed over the weeks. He knew she kept in contact with Wednesday regularly, was constantly checking in to make sure she was okay, asking what she was up to. And though he respected that their conversations were private between them, he couldn't help but to ask her every other day if she'd spoken to her. If she was okay. Maybe Sarah had seen the pain mixed in with the green of his eyes, the crumbling shell behind the cool exterior. Maybe that was why every time he asked if she knew how Wednesday was, she would smile gently at him, nod, and say she was doing okay.

He wished he could say the same. But the knowledge that she was doing okay, and coping was enough to keep him moving forward. The image of her lying in the dark across a cold kitchen floor still plagued his mind, even more so now that he couldn't be there to make sure she was fine. It weighed on his chest constantly, no matter how many times he reminded himself that she wasn't in the place she was in at the start of the year. One of the pitfalls of all consuming love is that the worry grips you and never leaves. It lingers like a bad unprovoked feeling, convincing you without proof that something may be wrong. And the parallels between that time and the current were great enough that his mind was in a constant cycle of worry, temporary relief, and worry again. Worry that he wouldn't be there if she struggled again. To catch her if she fell.

But then, he wondered if that was what she wanted. Or better yet, if she didn't want that at all but knew she needed it. To save herself, to be her own hero. After all, hadn't that been the reason they'd ended what they had? For her to learn to love herself unconditionally and see herself as the person he'd always seen her as? He didn't know anymore. The reasoning that had seemed so apparent to him that day had now blurred to something he couldn't decipher. With every passing day of pain, he wanted to take it all back. Fight for her harder, tell her he'd do everything in his power to protect her from hurt. But he knew that would be a lie, because he couldn't protect her from her own mind. His love could only heal so much. There are some things that we simply have to do as individuals and not let others do for us. And it was that knowledge that pissed him off the most. She was the only one who could save her.

It had taken every ounce of his strength to not message her each passing day. The urge was in the tip of his fingers, itching to start a conversation with her. Find out what she was up to, how her day was going. Even before their relationship had shifted to the romantic, conversations with her had always made his days brighter. Painted everything in richer colour. He loved being teased by her and he loved even more when she said things earnestly, small moments of her vulnerability coming out. Being stripped of all communication was like someone stealing his ability to see and telling him to deal with the new loss. Like trying to navigate the darkness without anything to hold on to. A clash of darkness and emptiness.

So, when he'd opened his eyes that morning to see the notification of one audio message from her, he'd frozen with fear. Fear that he was still in a dream. Fear that it wasn't real. Fear that it was real. After a minute of doing nothing other than trying to remember how to breath without needing the help of his inhaler, he'd gripped the phone with his shaky hands and opened the message as he sat on the edge of his bed, elbows leant onto knees. Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth in preparation for whatever unknown message she'd left for him, he'd hit play.

The first time he listened, the message had passed by in such a blur of chaos and paralysation at her voice that he didn't even realise it had ended until he was pressing to listen again. And then again. And again, and again, until he was sure that he'd managed to listen to every word, every syllable correctly. Her voice sounded like syrup, even with a hoarse drunkenness that added a rasp to her tone that made his stomach clench and desire spread throughout him.

She was his favourite sound. Since they'd ended, anytime he'd listened to music he'd thought of her. Regardless of the genre, singer, or mood. Happy, sad, country, rap. Everything came back to her. Because to him, she was music. The saddest of songs and the happiest of harmonies. Every beat on a drum brought pictures of her behind a set, lost in concentration as she did what she loved to do most. Every chord on a guitar reminded him of all the times she'd played one with her tongue caught between her lips, trying her hardest in exacerbated annoyance as she failed to master it as well as she wished. She was music. And she was his favourite song.

The sound of her that morning only amplified the raging battle in his mind, unanswered questions blazing a trail of destruction through his already fragile psyche. If she was messaging him, drunk messaging him, it had to mean she missed him just as much as he missed her, didn't it? That was the one reason he'd stayed away from any and all alcohol during the past month; he knew that once his inhibitions were loosened by the juice, the little control he had over his refrain would melt away and he'd be calling her faster than the speed of light. Her message had to mean something. It couldn't simply be a drunken mistake, one that she would wish she never made in the morning. Could it?

He thought about all the times in the past after her relationship with that prick had ended where she'd messaged him after one too many drinks. Woken up the next morning with an abundance of shame and misery at the fact her drunk self had betrayed sober her so viciously. Each time she'd sworn it was just the booze talking, that there were no feelings left there other than her own loneliness. Was that what this was? A way to feel less lonely? Or was it truly her own feelings taking control through the temporary relief of alcohol, saying what sober her was too scared to say?

He didn't have a fucking clue. Trying to understand Wednesday had always been like trying to interpret a piece of abstract art. You couldn't. Exactly the way the creator wanted it.

Rubbing his hand over his face, he sighed dejectedly. A voice note had rendered him stumped. God knows how he'd react to the physical presentation of the person it came from. If he saw her again after all this time, he might just melt down into a puddle of goo right at her feet.

When he realised that trying to understand the intentions behind her sending the message were fruitless and destined to only cause him pain, he focused on the words. Her incoherent babbling about lobsters and tequila and inhaler medication. If there was one thing he had to commend, it was how well she'd expressed her own personality in the space of a minute-long voice note. Untamed, untraceable, unruly. She'd pinballed from topic to topic so quickly he felt whiplashed.

He couldn't help but focus on the lobster part, the subliminal meaning behind her mention of them. They'd watched Friends enough times together to have that one line etched into their memories forever. 'He's her lobster.' She'd said she wished they were lobsters, asked if that made sense. And though he couldn't truly understand her interpretation of it, for him it did make sense. If they were lobsters, they'd have mated and been together for life. There's no extra baggage, no extra heartache. Life as a lobster was straightforward, easy.

Leaning forward onto his hands, he shook his head. Christ. He was really sat there wishing he was a lobster. He truly was losing his mind.

Since he'd returned from tour a few days prior, he'd been unable to go back to his house. He knew that the ghost of her would still linger in every room, her essence floating like a long since deceased spirit. The thing that scared him most wasn't her possessions laying around, or the emptiness. It would be her scent—if her perfume, sweet strawberries, would still be attached to his bed, his sheets, his entire house. That smell would singlehandedly bring him down to his knees. Where once it had excited, now it only haunted. So, he'd been staying at Mitch and Sarah's instead, gratefully occupying their spare room. It was good for him that they didn't mind his company, even after all the time spent on the road together.

When Harry had exhausted his mental capacity over that one message alone in his room, practically pulling his hair from the root in frustration, he'd sauntered out into the kitchen, finding Mitch feeding the cat.

"She messaged me."

Mitch turned to him with sleepy, confused eyes, his hand petting the cat who was far more interested in the bowl of food in his other hand.

"Who?"

"God," he deadpanned, before shaking his head. "Who do you think? Wednesday!"

"Oh," Mitch said, unable to force any sort of excitement or nerves to match Harry's. "Cool."

Harry grasped the bridge of his nose, exacerbated by the apparent lack of stress that fact brought Mitch as opposed to the complete turmoil he was currently in.

"No, it's not cool Mitch. It's the furthest fucking thing away from cool."

Mitch furrowed his brows, taking a step forward as he rounded the kitchen counter to place the bowl on the floor. "But her messaging you is a good thing, isn't it? It's what you want?"

Mitch and Sarah knew that they'd split. Knew the vague reason that it was more for Wednesday's benefit than Harry's. But they didn't know the depth of the reasoning keeping them apart, the subversive forces at play. Maybe that was why to Mitch it seemed so black and white. But to Harry, it was complete greyness.

"No. I mean yes, but...but I don't know. We said we were on a break and so far, we've both stuck to it, but then I woke up to see she'd left me a voice note. A minute-long voice note at that," he replied, his voice conveying the swirls of confusion in his own mind.

"Well, what does she say on it?" Mitch asked, standing up from where he'd placed the bowl down.

Harry hesitated for a second, looking down the hallway.

"Where's Sarah?" he asked, lips set in a tight line.

"Went to the gym," Mitch said, not quite understanding why that was relevant.

Breathing out nervously, he pulled the phone from his pocket. If it was up to Wednesday, he was sure her cheeks would tinge red at the thought of her drunken message being played out to anyone, let alone Mitch. But she wasn't there, and he desperately needed a second opinion to help him crack the code of her message. Read between the lines. And he knew that if this situation was the other way round, her and Zara would have already listened to it 50 times together whilst probably commenting on what it all meant and whether or not to message back.

"Okay, I'm going to play you the message, but you can't tell Sarah or Wednesday or anyone else. Kapeesh?"

Mitch held his hand to his heart, closing his eyes dramatically in jest.

"I solemly swear to not tell another soul."

Harry shook his head, unable to find the humour when he felt like his whole heart might explode out of his cheek. Biting his bottom lip between his teeth, he opened the message chain with Wednesday and after a moment of hesitation, hit play on the message.

Once again, her voice filled the otherwise silent air and struck Harry like a wrecking ball to the gut. Mitch on the other hand, listened intently as he leant against the counter, the corner of his lips turning up as the message progressed, finding something within it amusing. Until finally, it ended, and it was back to quiet.

"So?" Harry asked, brows knitted together as he stared intently across at him. "What do you think?"

"I think it sounds like she had a good night," Mitch replied, nodding his head.

Harry observed him for a second, lowering his head as his eyes widened. Mitch didn't say anything further, no matter how long he waited for him to do so.

"Is that it? That's your one take away from that whole message?"

"What else do you want me to say?" he said, shrugging his shoulders as he opened a cupboard, grabbing a box of cereal.

"Anything!" Harry said, moving around the counter. "What do you think it means? Why do you think she sent it?"

"I think it means she had too much tequila, and the effect of that was why she sent it," Mitch said simply, grabbing a bowl.

Harry felt his shoulders fall, his jaw clenching as he looked back down to the phone. Somehow, out of all the answers he'd wanted to hear, that had been the one smack bang at the bottom of the list. Hope that had unconsciously been building momentum inside of him since the moment he'd noticed the message began to crumble.

"So, you don't think it means anything else? I don't know, that maybe...she misses me?"

The desperation in his voice was laughable, and if he hadn't been so completely blinded by the sheer panic dominating his body, he would have reminded himself to get a grip.

"I mean, she obviously misses you. After all, she made that point about lobsters mating for life or whatever. But mate, we all do stupid shit when we're drunk. I've ordered 40 pairs of socks from Amazon once before after drinking a whole crate of beer. Sarah messaged Bon Jovi once asking what his hair smelt like when she was blasted. People are just stupid when they're drunk, so like...I know you want it to mean something, but if I'm being straight with you, I don't know that it does," Mitch shrugged.

The thought-provoking moment his William Wallace style speech left for Harry was cut short as Mitch began to tip out cereal into his bowl, the sounds of cheerio's comically hitting the porcelain far less dramatic than his words before. Harry watched his actions, swallowing back his own heartbreak.

"Okay," he said quietly, scratching the back of his neck in an uncomfortable silence that he didn't know how to fill.

Mitch looked over at him as he poured the milk out, his face softening when he realised his carefree words that were only intended to be honest had cut him far deeper than he'd wanted.

"I think you should message her back though. Knowing Wednesday, she's probably kicking herself with embarrassment over it and you reassuring her will help. Plus, you get to speak to her. That's something, isn't it?" he asked, eyebrow raised as he shovelled a spoonful of milky cereal into his mouth.

The thought alone of speaking to her made Harry feel nauseous with nerves. Despite how confident people perceived him to be, where Wednesday was concerned, he transformed back into a 14-year-old virgin who didn't know how to talk to girls. Looking down to his phone, he chewed on his inner cheek before clearing his throat and deciding that Mitch might just be the wisest person he'd ever met.