Perfect

HARRY
Springvale, Indiana

Standing inside the den in my own house back in Springvale, I take out my phone and drop the bag I’m carrying on the floor. The rest of my luggage is upstairs in my room thanks to the chauffeur. I look at the phone and there are no notifications which is a little strange. That’s when I remember that my phone was on airplane mode. The minute I turn it back to regular mode the thing starts buzzing like crazy. Among all the other texts and email alerts there’s one in particular that stands out.
I click on the message and a window pops up.
“It’s been a while since we gave you the latest on Harry Styles. But honestly it looks like there’s some, nay, a lot of trouble in paradise. The woman Harry thought was in love with him, well, turns out that she wasn’t. Turns out that Styles was nothing more than a drunken mistake for Mrs. Gleeson and that’s why she stomped hard on our Springvale hottie’s heart. But do bad boys like Harry even have hearts to break? #HarryStylesDumpedOrDuped”
“Harry?”
I turn to find my mother standing there in her casual evening wear, her hair loose on her shoulders and long, just like she always wears it. I can’t help feel just a tiny bit happy when I see her. But when I see the look on her face, that tiny bit of happiness goes away. “Mom.”
She comes over to me and moves a lock of my hair out of my eyes. “How was your flight?”
“Not bad.”
There are tears swimming in her eyes.
I realize too late that there are tears in my eyes as well. And before I can hide them, she wipes my cheek with a finger. “You know,” I say simply.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Harry?”
“I tried,” I say, and it’s not a lie. “I tried…but…I just…I couldn’t…”
“It’s okay,” she says.
“Mom,” I say after a pause. “Mom, I made a mistake…”
She places a finger on my lips to quiet me. “Shhhh. Baby, there’s no need for apologies. I’m not asking because I want you to feel sorry, I’m asking because I could have done something about it. Because I could have…I could have stopped her from breaking your heart, baby.”
All I can think about is how does she know? How does she know exactly what’s going on? And why isn’t she lashing out at me? Yelling or making me feel bad about it? I don’t understand. “Mom—”
She puts her arms around me and gives me a hug.
I let her.
It’s soothing, being back in her embrace.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.”
The tears are flowing now without control and she’s crying too and we’re both standing there like two pathetic fools.
“I’m sorry too, baby.”
“About what?”
“I should have protected you.”
“You can’t protect me forever, Mom.”
She breaks away and looks right at me. “Yes,” she says. “I can, Harry. You don’t know the first thing about your mother. And let me tell you one thing. Natalie Gleeson, is going to get what’s coming to her.”
“Mom, no!” I say. “I don’t want you to hurt her. Promise me you’re not going to do anything to hurt her, Mom!”
“Harry, I can’t promise you that.”
“Mom, this whole thing has led to enough heartache and misery. I can’t have you turn this into some kind of revenge. Mom, please. You have to let it go.”
She looks at me and I know she’s having trouble accepting the fact that there’s nothing she can do to help me. “Someday, Harry. You will have children of your own. You will know what it feels like to see your child in pain and not be able to do anything about it.”
This time, I’m the one who hugs her first. “Just let it go, Mom. For me.”
I can feel her calming down. “Okay, baby.”
We stay that way for a long time, neither of us willing to break the moment. Finally, she does. “Harry,” she says. “What they said about you not having a heart, you know it’s not true, baby. You know that, right?” She kisses me on the cheek repeatedly. “I know my baby boy. I know how sweet and caring you are, how much potential you have to love someone. I know your heart breaks like mine, I know.” She sniffles and then wipes away some of my tears with her fingers. “But baby, let them think that’s who you are. Don’t come clean about it. Okay? Let them think this doesn’t affect you in the least. If you were going to five parties a month before go to ten! Go out, be seen. Let them know you don’t give a shit, Harry.”
I have to laugh. “Mom,” I say. “I love how you go from being my mother to being my publicist in under five seconds.”
She snickers but the tears are still there. “Can your publicist make you a cheese omelet in the middle of the night?”
“If she did I’d have to fire her cause that’s really not what a publicist does,” I kiss her on the cheek. “But I do like the sound of that omelet.”
“Alright well go upstairs and shower first.”
“The eggs are not going to know if I stink, you know that right?”
“No, but I will,” she say, pushing me towards my room.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m going!”
“That’s like my good boy.”
I pick up the bag I was carrying and head upstairs to my room where everything is as I left it. Except for the dirty laundry that was piling up the last time I was in here. I place my bag on the floor next to my bed and get into the shower. Thoughts regarding Natalie are still going rampant through my head, but I try to push them away as best as I can. But the text Natalie sent to break up with me, the things Pierre said, and the post from #HT make it impossible to forget. I’m almost done with the shower when my phone rings. I turn off the water, pick up a towel and dry myself off before I pick up my phone.
“Hello?” I say. There’s no reply. But I can hear someone breathing on the other end. “Why don’t you talk, you perv!” I say and disconnect the call. I’m almost done putting on a pair of boxers when the phone rings again and this time it’s a text from a blocked number.
Do bad boys like Harry even have hearts to break?
For the first two seconds that I see the words on my phone screen, I’m too surprised to do anything. And then suddenly, I see the phone being flung across the room and crashing against a wall and it takes me a while to realize it was me doing the flinging and not someone who looked like me.
“Harry!” I can hear my mother knocking on the door and then she turns the knob and enters my room to find me shaking with rage. She says nothing when she sees the shattered phone bits around the room just comes right up to me and hugs me again.
I can’t stop shaking.
I can’t stop feeling the rage inside me, and the darkness.
“They think they know me, but they don’t!” I yell. “I’m not heartless, you know! I’m not fucking heartless!”
“No baby,” My mother wipes away my tears. “You’re not. Of course you’re not.”
“What right do they have to say these things about me?”
“None, baby.”
“If I’m heartless then why am I in pain?”

Notes