h a r r y

"When you develop an infatuation for someone, you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you." - Alex Garland, The Beach.

This quote never made sense to me until I got older, until I laid eyes on Lola. The quote always stuck in my mind though, like it was there for later to teach me a lesson further into my future. I believed Lola was meant for me, her body and soul fit into mine perfectly and I knew she needed me. I needed her too, but for different reasons.

It was Saturday, a brightly lit afternoon full of pink and blue skies. I sat at the local coffee shop with my friends, they talked and I drew.

But today I didn't draw Lola.

A girl sat at the window alone, drinking a mug full of steaming tea. Her hair was a faded pink, it resembled the sun setting on this cool day and her freckles reminded me of stars on a clear night. I drew her curved lips and brown eyes, she was such a different contrast to Lola and it was a little refreshing. She was curvy, her body intimidating to innocent men. She had a tattoo on her back that I couldn't quite make out, although curious about her I kept drawing.

"That's pretty good, Styles." My friend Sean looks over at my drawing, the rest of my friends catch on and gaze at the paper as well.

"You know you could use that talent to pick up girls." My other friend Richard comments, causing laughter to erupt.

"Who says I don't?" I smirked.

The girl looks in our direction, our eyes meeting and my heart leaps out of my chest. She smiles at me with curiosity, a glimmer in her wonderful brown eyes. I smile back briefly, looking down at the paper below me before I get caught staring.

"Looks like she likes you, Styles." Sean chuckles.

I close my artbook quickly, but as the pages flip through I notice Lola and her blues eyes staring at me from a page at the front. I feel tense, like as if she is seeing me draw this other girl. I shake my head, ridding of the stupid thought.

"Nah, he's pulling little Lola Davenport with his artsy-fartsy skills." My friend Ethan says causing the group to laugh. I force a smile on my face but the mention of Lola makes my stomach flip.

As my friends go into a conversation about our plans tonight, I notice the girl has left the coffee shop, leaving only an empty cup on the table. I sigh, annoyed I never got to finish my drawing of her. Twenty minutes pass as my friends and I order food and eat, the entire time I remained quiet as they talked amongst themselves and about their food. Lola was on my mind again as I thought about our moment Friday afternoon, it played on my mind a lot that night and still had my heart racing. Then it was as if the universe knew my mind was being controlled by the blue-eyed girl as a couple enters the coffee shop, silence falls over our table as Lola walks through the door, hand-in-hand with her boyfriend.

I shuffle my body down in my seat, hoping to conceal myself behind my friends. Lola doesn't notice anything at first, she just happily looks over the menu with her boyfriend as they order. I almost feel like I could escape without being noticed but when her blue eyes lock with mine, my heart drops to the ground. She smiles, gleaming positivity in a situation I found crap. She leads her boyfriend over to our table and I curse under my breath, my friends begin to snicker between each other and laugh at my discomfort.

"Hi, guys!" She greets. "This is my boyfriend, Louis."

Louis Tomlinson was two years older than our group, he was a college student and the towns almost-rockstar as he sought out a music career, playing gigs in town almost every weekend. He had similar eyes to Lola, elongated and sharp in colour, but he was a deeper tone of blue, like the depths of a swimming pool or the void of the ocean. He smiled at us, bidding us a friendly hello. Lola looks proud until her eyes land on me, her features falling. I force a smile on my face.

"So you guys going to the gig tonight?" Lola asks as her eyes shift away from me, a smile playing at her lips again. "Louis is going to be opening for the band!"

My heart ached. The way Lola looked at him made me envious. It was unreadable a lot of the time but when he spoke to us about the gig she watched him with admiration. I felt sick, I wanted her to look at me that way. I wondered how she looked at Louis when they were in bed, did she ache under his touch and moan his name? The same way I dreamed about it, only she was with me. As I watched Lola talk, looking to Louis briefly with stars in her eyes and glimmer in her heart, I tried to forget. I tried to forget my feelings for her, my paintings and drawings of the blue-eyed girl, and I tried to forget how she haunted my dreams every night. I wanted to forget it all.

But I never could.

"So we'll see you tonight?" Lola says, eagerly looking between us. She didn't look at me though, she avoided any contact with me, which stung.

"Yeah sure," Richard says. "We'll be there."

"Great!" She beams. "See you tonight." And with that, they both say goodbye and collect their coffees before leaving. I watched them leave with a heavy heart, as much as it hurt that Lola walked away with him, her famous goofy grin on her lips and her three sugared coffee, I knew her heart belonged to him.

"We're not going right?" Sean says, eyeing me cautiously. "I mean, Har-"

"We can go." I cut him off, they all look at me with curiosity. "It'll be fun."

The three of them look between each other, strange looks on each of their faces. I play off my jealousy, making them believe I didn't care at all about her boyfriend. So we mutually agree to attend the gig tonight, and as heavy as my heartfelt, I thought maybe it could be fun.

"So it's settled," Sean says. "We'll meet there at nine?"

We all nod in agreement. I sigh to myself in heartache, thoughts of the blue-eyed girl consuming me and my soul.

***

woo, chapter four! vote and comments are sooooooo appreciated, and help me stay motivated. ty guys.

-A