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Larry Stylinson is not real
A part of me feels this sort of utter humiliation to say that out loud.
Maybe this is like the same feeling I felt as my hands trembled and clamped with sweat during my solo of "What Makes you Beautiful", or what it would've felt like if I was in an alternate universe, where Simon Cowell wasn't so particularly charmed by my cherub face, and the charming personality sixteen year old me displayed wasn't concentrated enough to brighten his day, exiling me from the X-Factor. But no, I wasn't, in fact, just overnight my admirers had turned from two random girls in a small hallway to thousands- no- millions of girls who yearned for me across the globe. But I, Harry Edward Styles only yearned for one other.
It was stupid, really, the whole thing. I swear I only meant to start it off as just some innocent crush, you know? and it really was, I promise. But I was young, so inexperienced, of course I thought I'd get married to my first love. There's the feeling of burning in my chest again, a feeling of rising humiliation in recalling it, because when I do recall the memory of when we first met, my eyes dreamily glaze half lidded to the heavens, the thin lines of my mouth had turned into a slow dopey smile, my cheeks were cherry red at the excitement and pleasure of getting to talk about him. I can recall every moment, it was so humiliating-(is that going to be a re-occuring word in this entry? I guess so) When I took a wee on his shoes, I was mortified at that time, my jaw dropped slowly and eyes wide. I braced myself for the horrible reaction that would've come...but in a few seconds I opened my eyes, his beautiful face, so cheeky yet embracing of warmth, he had reassured me with just a smile, and sixteen year old Harry was absolutely smitten.
I felt like a giddy schoolgirl around him, he was older, and most importantly much cooler. It wasn't just like Niall cool, where he'd make everyone him laugh and comfortable, Louis did it intentionally. It's kind of like...Niall felt like a light slap on the shoulder as people laugh, but his...came with a strong grip after, strong hands firm, reassuring, lighthearted- yet protecting. I think that's the most important factor that stood out to me, I'm sixteen, young and suddenly the world has their iris' onto my every move, screams of excitement turns into flash-floods and the click and clack of blinding shuttering lights from cameras. But all of it melted away once I was in his arms, my heart would become almost bradycardiac around him, in a soft mellow way, one can melt into those arms like heated butter, like covering yourself in a warm blanket on a scary night. Becoming friends was easy, it was like a personal handshake that made sense-only to the two of us.
But that wasn't enough for me, I couldn't stand there and ogle at him hanging the sun anymore, I wanted to hold him while he did so. At first I didn't notice it, the way his hands managed to find his way onto me somehow, the way he'd look to me, rubbing my shoulders, something- anything to let me know he was there for me. Sometimes it was playful, a hand to the mouth, a playful jab to the side of my stomach. Thats what very friendship did, but Louis Tomlinson, I was sixteen, but I wasn't dumb, something in us grew more intimate, and suddenly, our touches to each other meant more personal than ever. I knew he wouldnt let his hands slip down from my side to my waist, like a shield guiding me with light and warmth with anyone else. I knew he didnt let his eyes flicker to anyone else but me automatically, I knew he didnt let his gaze set on anyone else but me. It was one early morning in his bed, the sky was a saturated blue from the lack of sun, but the clouds gave us a reason to stay inside and cuddle with pancakes and coffee set in front of us, but I knew it wasn't actually the lack of sun, it was us, and he knew it too. So maybe it was the ego-boost from the millions of girls around the globe, or maybe it was the way Louis made me feel as though nothing in this world could ever hurt me, but suddenly I could act on anything. Which is why I let the flutter of the butterflies in my stomach spill out into spring and I kissed him.
After that, things between us was like the physical embodiment of running through a fair, the flashing colorful lights, the people around us who couldn't care less, a sugarrush from cotton candy of us running around, hands interlocked and laughing with excitement. Every moment with him was stolen glances, touching each other I interviews whenever we could, hugging, laughing, it could feel like that for the longest time, me and my dopey smile as I looked at him with a look of pure adoration, as he pinched my cheeks. I could stay like this, stay by his side forever, put my head on his shoulder, and have him wrap around me like a warm fuzzy blue blanket. He could hold me like I was his forever.
But then you remember that "forever" isn't possible..especially when it didn't even start in the 1st place. Its not like he labeled what we had in the first place, him and I both knew we loved each other, that was it, nothing official. I dont know...why...I never asked? Maybe it because he was cooler and older and he knew what he was doing. So I sat there on his fluffy, white, pillows everyday, which shone brighter with the sun hitting them, I'd adorn a cheeky, and bashful yet polite smile, waiting for him to make the decision on what we were.
I remember the day he got with her, I cried on my own for days, I was alone for the first time, far way from home whefe I could bury my tear streaked face onto someones shoulders, and the only person I could hold on to was the dilemma. But what I failed to connect to the story, maybe to convince myself it was all a sudden change, was that I cried days before that happened-over us. Because that feeling of being in a fair suddenly hits, there are flashing bright light everywhere, and they're not carnival rides, they're cameras surrounding, and it's not the people around, it's eyes who surround you like a globe, eager to call out your every move. We were in a fair, a great feeling, what I failed to realize sooner was that we were the entertainers.
Maybe he realized this sooner than me-always the caring, observant person he is-of course he did. That would explain why his gaze suddenly turned into one of fear, how he'd hesitate to even touch the tips of my fingers, or widen his eyes as if he just realized there were people around us, the way he'd avoid my gaze so ambitiously. Truth is him and I both knew already, I knew he became scared, and it's what broke my heart, but something in my heart shattered the moment I realized maybe he wasn't the brave boy who could shield me from anything, but he,too, was as scared all along.
When I was 21 and grew into myself, I also shed the pale skin of the shy, innocent and obedient sixteen year old boy. I thought I was grown, made respect for myself, at that time I used to get mad at the word "Larry Stylinson". I know those fans, annoying interviewers pushed Louis Tomlinson out of his comfort zone, made awkward things awkward between us, they were the reason I suddenly had to become brave for myself without him holding me. I was also mad at the media, or management, for how they'd get angry at Louis and I for even the slightest glimpse or grin towards each other, "don't fucking sit there", I can remember their harsh, and ear piercing yells quite well, I still fiddle my ears sometimes, there's no ear-set on there, I don't know why I still have that habit. I was mad at the world, if only there weren't millions of eyes watching our every move, if only being this way was okay, I didn't know why it was such a big deal, if only loving another could be accepted, then we wouldn't have to go through these trampolines, and maybe him and I wouldn't have to perform a trapeez act.
But most of all, I was mad at him, Louis, yes I was. I was so impatient and hungry, I yearned for his touch, but I never got it again, I never got an answer out of him, I never got a title, an explanation, or even a rejection, I could cry horribly and desperately claw my nails at the windows of his eyes in search of an answer. What am I to you? Are you scared? Why did you let them get to you? Why did you give up on us. For a moment...the anger in me would flare.
I begged on my knees to play in My Policeman, the book spoke to me like no other, I guess you could say it was sort of...my way of finding that answer, that truth myself, seeking out meaning of an oblivion of a relationship. You know in the book, Hazlewood starts to compare Leftists and Leftovers? I can repeat that on my tongue probably about 4 times before it eventually gets twisted, not with how unusually slow I talk. It reminds me of our career as a boy-band, as we grew more famous, it was time to discard our beliefs, health and relationships for the sake of sacrifice, because we had to get serious now, we were under the control of everyone, and it was time get our suticases, grab the mics, put on a cheeky wink and smile for the girls, and forget ourselves. Something shifted in me when I I played Tom. Suddenly I was there, in a downcast cloudy Brighton, as Tom, but the words out of my mouth felt like I was Louis. I saw the world in his point of view, I'm sorry, I failed to...fully pay attention, to remember that, even if I was the most popular of One Direction, that those flashing cameras held onto him too, that those rumors stuck to him so adamantly. I failed to make it obvious to myself that Louis had dreams of making his way, his dreams come true through his high-sratchy yet melodic soothing voice that cradled you like no other, and that Larry Stylinson could come crashing all of his dreams down. I failed to remember that he, too, was, young, vulnerable, and 18.
These days, I don't get mad at the words Larry Stylinson, in fact, don't get mad at much things these days anymore, it's either a mild annoyance or an immediate sadness within me. (Don't need more wrinkles anyways.) Maybe your 30's does that to you, maybe you just get more tired and your body gets too wear it carry all of that anger. So I let it pass, Larry Stylinson is the past, an innocent, and pure love, that ended fast. I don't outright deny it to the media, but I don't let the secrets spill out either, it doesn't matter to me anymore. With growing time, people get to you, and insecurities form under my once unblistered youthful heart,
I think...it was all those years under everyone's scrutinizing predatory eyes, that I learned to close off my heart from the world, my brain has adapted a natural defensive habit of buffering when someone asks me about who I love. Im unconfident now, the media still fights, except this time I turned from a boy who was accused of being queer my whole life to a man who was queerbaiting.
Besides that, I'm glad to have experienced a young, pure love that wasn't ruined by the realization of life yet. But that last sentence was my last attempt at convincing myself that I'd let the anger go, because in reality, and humiliatingly, Larry Stylinson still irks me, each year, in different ways. Because people still discuss it to this day like it was a Bermuda triangle mystery, because people still ask to this day. Because people still say it existed. Because people say it never existed. I don't care, both responses make me equally bothered, because go ahead, why don't you shove it in my face that Larry Stylinson never happened? Go ahead and shove the humiliating fact in my face that the first person I truly love never wanted me back the way I did him. That I'd lost a love so pure so quickly because of "Larry Stylinson". Shove it in my face, shove that interview microphone in my face, ask me about Larry Stylinson, shove it in my face that I never got to know myself wether or not Larry Stylinson was even real or not. Shove it in my face, ask me repeatedly if Larry Stylinson was real, and Ill have to reveal the embarrassing answer that, no, the one guy I truly loved so purely, and foolishly thought we'd last, never even liked me back the way I liked him.
To me, there's something so deeply void in my heart, and a deep drop of my stomach, when I realize I am just as dumbfounded as the media, that not even I know if Larry Stylinson did officially happen or was Larry Stylinson just leftovers, should be, it isn't, want it to be, but it isn't. But I know deep in my humiliated heart that Larry Stylinson never existed. Larry Stylinson was not real, Larry Stylinson is not real and Larry Stylinson will never be real.