By the time I arrived to LA all the pictures had been removed from the walls and put away in the spare room. Her slip was washed and folded in some drawer. I didn’t want to know. I hadn’t spoken to any of the boys. I was about to meet them soon to start the promotion of FOUR, and I simply couldn’t talk to them. What would I say? That I was miserable? That I was madly in love with a woman who didn’t love me back? They already knew that… After a few negatives to speak Louis realised about everything. He didn’t add one word. Either this had made him change his perception about Jeanne and me, or he was just giving me space. Either way, I couldn’t care less, but I was grateful because he was keeping his mind to himself for once.

Because I knew Jeanne could want me, and even ardently, but my feelings for her were much deeper. She liked me, found me attractive and charming, but whatever those feelings she had for me were, they weren’t enough. She had hardly shared things about her life with me. She never really opened up with me. Most of the facts I knew about her I’d learnt from other people. She could be infatuated and enjoy sex with me, but she didn’t feel the same and, most important of all, she didn’t want the same as me, and I just couldn’t keep exposing myself anymore. But even if I knew all that I was grieving, and missing her like mad, and it was impossible for me to take that last time we made love out of my senses. I was a hazard to myself.

“Don’t you love me?” I spoke to the phone one dawn after having a bit too much drinking. It would be noon there.

“What?”

“Don’t you love me, Zayn?–––I repeated, slurring my words. I never get to see you when we are not on tour…”

“Harry, you are drunk…” He chuckled.

“I am, mate–––I stated, adjusting my body to the sofa. You know better, my friend; you always know better, my enlightened friend.” That was probably the reason I suddenly felt the urge to hear his voice, because I was blue, and being the more discreet maybe he would help me clear my thoughts without asking too many questions. I heard him giggle foolishly. Was he high? “I love you, Zayn,” I claimed.

“I love you too, mate,” he asserted with his smiling voice.

“Why do I never get to see you then?–––I asked in a concerned tone. I miss you.”

“Are you sure it is me with whom you want to have this conversation? Not…?” I cringed at the single idea.

“No!–––I cut him off, jumping in my seat. I’m talking to you! I don’t love anyone else but you!” I exclaimed, quite dejected, finally straightening up.

“OK, then,” Zayn cackled. Oh, yes, I knew that laughter. He was quite high. “The answer to your question is that when we are not on tour you live in LA while I live in Bradford, England; the land of Your Majesty,” he said lightly. Things had changed so much since I decided to leave London, although I was starting to realise just then. But living in Britain wasn’t a possibility anymore. We fell into silence. I glanced around casually as if he was in the room with me. “What are you listening to?” He blurted awkwardly. Somehow I felt overexposed. “Is that French music?–––he carried on. Are you listening to French music?”

“No, no, I’m not,” I mumbled, handling the remote to turn off the hi-fi. God, that highly sensitive musical ear of him had totally busted me.

“Come on, Harry–––he said in irony. I get it. You miss her…”

“No, I don’t–––I complained–––it’s just something that popped up in my iPod.”

“Harry, French music is not something that randomly pops up in people’s iPods.” Well, he had a good point there. The fact was that, thanks to Maurice, I had finally learnt what song the freaking hipster dedicated to Jeanne in the pub, and I couldn’t stop listening to it. She certainly was like the girl from the song. She did have a secretive personality, never revealing too much of her heart. The freaking guy warned me. I should have listened to him then… “You don’t have to tell me, mate. I know you don’t want to talk about it and I respect you, but whatever happened this time you can’t expect to move on so fast. You love her…”

“No, I don’t–––I shook my head ‘no,’ grabbing my brow. I do not love her.” My lower lip quivered, as I went weak in a second.

“Harry, it’s OK to admit it…” Zayn muttered cautiously.

“I do not love her–––I repeated, shaking my head compulsively. I do not love her.”

“To say it a hundred times won’t make it any more real…” Damn you, Bradford boy.

“I do not love her,” I kept saying under my breath, trying not to listen to him.

“Why does this sound familiar?–––he asked almost speaking to himself. Yeah, I know; because of that sentence we translated from her flat…” He giggled.

“What?” What was he talking about?

“Don’t you remember?–––he let out, amused. The Latin poet that Louis translated on the van before we looked at her photos? The one written on your picture…?” Immediately all rushed into my brains at once. The morning I spent alone at Jeanne’s attic… Finding my pictures on her board… Taking notes of the sentence and shoving the paper in my pocket… The wooden box, the receipt from London, the smell of fresh ground coffee and sunflowers, the sunlight spread upon the sheets, the make-out session in the bath… My stomach churned.

“She said once there was one time she felt she was in love with me by looking at my pictures–––I muttered still caught in my daydream of lollies and saturated Parisian daylight. I had forgotten about that…” A tingling sensation overtook me completely.

“How many things have you forgotten, Harry?” Zayn observed, sounding a bit worried. His words resounded throughout my head. “It’s an epigram so it could mean the literal sense, but after all that happened between you two it sounds more like she did like you, and probably more than she expected.” I felt like soaring. “I know back then she said you were a marketing product, but I’m sure she never thought you were a prick even before she met you in person to justify doing a thing like that…”

“No, her fucking lover told me!–––I blurted unthinkingly, rebelling against the idea and the warm sensation that was swarming me in every direction. It was pure suggestion, because she was working on me on a daily basis. She got used to me and all the things the fans say about me in their stories, but it’s not real,” I said bitterly, snapping my finger. I understood Stockholm syndrome too well. It wasn’t for nothing I had written a song about it and now I was experiencing it in my bones, unable to escape something that was going to drain me away.

“If you say so, mate–––Zayn murmured hesitantly–––but I don’t know. I still don’t see the point of writing it on a picture. You need energy to do so, and you don’t have energy if you don’t care…” My mind grunted. Why do stoned people can’t just let go of things? “And then her stories…” He insisted.

“She was trying to understand the process in the mind of the fans,” I whinged, rather exasperated.

“Four times?–––he snapped. I’m sure she’s a fast learner, Harry.”

“Stop it, Zayn–––I pleaded, raising my voice. You are not helping telling me these things…”

“I’m sorry, mate–––he mumbled in a sympathetic tone. Is there something I could say to make you feel better?”

“Yes–––I claimed, rubbing my forehead. Say this will be gone soon, that I’ll forget about her, because I don’t seem to be able to move on even if I know she’s sleeping with that pompous professor of hers.” My voice began to tremble. “And the simple idea feels like my heart is literally being torn in two, but I can’t manage to hate her because every time I try to hate her I just remember how she feels between my arms and I…” I interrupted myself, pulling a fist to my mouth, my eyes burning.

“This tour will be even heavier than the last one…” Zayn said quietly.

“Don’t tell me that!–––I snapped, desperately struggling to hold back my tears. This tour is all I have not to become insane! Tell me it will be gone!” My hand fell to my lap.

“I’m sorry; it was a bit insensitive on my part…” He whispered. How would I manage to stand every interview, every event to come if I wasn’t capable of controlling myself over a simple phone call? I would have to invoke ‘joker Harry,’ and those weren’t exactly good news. I always stress people when I bring my joker self, especially Louis and Liam. I deeply breathed in to quieten me down. “It won’t be gone until you really want it gone, Harry,” Zayn explained carefully what I already knew. I could childishly try to deny my feelings, but I was aware that they were there, fresh and raw as the first day. “Even being hurt and mad at her, and half way across the world you are still so drawn to her, mate–––he muttered. It is like if she had put a spell on you, you know. Like the chant of a mermaid or something… You know you’d crush yourself but you can’t stop. Her chanting keeps pulling from you…”

“A mermaid…” I repeated, quite dubious.

“Yes, a mermaid, or also a siren, if you prefer–––Zayn asserted as if it was an obvious matter. You know, the mythological creatures who attracted men by singing?–––he inquired. The ones with a fish tail?” He carried on at my silence. I simply nodded as if he could see me. “Once they’d listened to the mermaids’ chanting the men would fall under their spell and approaching their shores to see them they’d sink, being driven to their watery end by these mesmerising creatures.” As I carefully listened to his words my jaw dropped, and I became absolutely stunned. The entire research we did to find her, all those times I had followed her down the streets as a complete fool, like that first time after I met her at the bookstore but also so many other times, and the countless times I had stared at her stupefied, like the time at the club in London or while she bathed in Sainte-Mesme, crashed altogether into my mind. I shivered. She might be lacking the tail, but Jeanne Mars was the most perfect specimen of a mermaid. Nothing Zayn could have said to me in all the years I’d known him made more sense than this.

“You are a genius, mate…” I whispered, a new determination slowly beginning to take form in my blurry mind.

When I woke up later that day I went directly to the tattoo parlour to get my mermaid, and left to London that very night to face the longest month of my life. During those days I reached unexpected levels of randomness. Some people cared, some others didn’t. I wondered if Jeanne was aware of me now that her research was over, if she had figured out my new tattoo and what it meant. Even being desperate to forget about her there was a part of me clinging to her as never before, the part of me that stayed with her at her attic in Paris, my heart.

–.–.–

Notes

How many things have you forgotten, Harry?

I remember pretty well every word she said to him, especially early words, but maybe, just maybe Harry was more caught up on other stuff, or lost in his ranting. Well, you know what he says, 'I hardly listen.' :D You can always return and re read the whole thing...

About the mermaid. When I started to write 'Dreaming Of You,' to give more depth to the story I decided to bring mythology. And I wondered what Jeanne could be like. A nymph? A fairy? Or a mermaid...? From then I wrote this mesmerising/mysterious character and all these scenes with water, as the first one in the bath, the bath at Sainte-Mesme, the time he watches her emerging from the bed as coming out of the water, walking as if she were soaring. That's why I mentioned 'The Ring of the Nibelungs' and have been putting a lot of mermaid's paintings on tumblr. I've been working the mermaid thing for so long and then the guy goes and gets a tattoo of a mermaid...

Thank you so much to all the people reading, voting, and especially leaving feedback through comments, messages and wattpad. It really means the world to me, to know you are there and puzzled ;) The end is four chapters away and things are going to turn so much before the last word because, you know me, I love surprises. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I love you all <3