Dear Harry

                                    

                                          
Dear Harry,
                          
How long has it been now? 19 years? Almost twenty, I think if I count it out. It’s a bit strange to write you this letter and send it to your management, hoping it will reach you through the stream of fan mail you’re probably getting every day now.
                          
It’s as if it was yesterday when we were spending almost all of our days together, in one of our bedrooms. I remember when you showed me it was you who wrote some of my favourite songs. I could hardly believe it, that shy, timid, hurt and vulnerable boy I had grown to love was actually a famous song writer.
                          
Harry, I want you to know I thoroughly enjoyed every second of every minute of every hour of every day we’ve spent together. I still feel sorry about that fight we had. It shouldn’t have ended that way. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I shouldn’t have turned around and walked away. I shouldn’t have waited for you to come back to me. I shouldn’t have been too stubborn to pick up my phone and call you, so convinced of me being right in this situation where nobody ever could be right.
                          
I know I probably misinterpreted a lot of what happened or what didn’t happen, and I know I should’ve known better. I’ll call it blinded by jealousy. Something like that.
                          
It took me a while to get over it, over us. That night when you moved out of our apartment, I broke down. I know you think I wasn’t there when you came to get your things, but I was. I heard your voice mail saying you would come, I was too much of a coward to answer the phone, and I was even more of a coward, afraid to face you. I hid under the stairs in the hallway and I cried the entire time.
                          
 I tried living in our flat for a little longer, but I couldn’t. Every single object or corner breathed your presence, or rather, your absence. I moved out two weeks later, letting most of our furniture for the next renters, a boy and a girl who were moving in together for the first time. They reminded me of us when we moved there, so I gave it to them for free, even our bed that you picked yourself because you loved the iron headboard so much.
                          
I moved back in with my father, how sad is that. Being 23 and moving back in with your dad. But I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t want to be alone, and my room was still the same as when I had left it so it was the easiest solution.
                          
The new renters forwarded me our mail. It hurt so much to find the folders from wedding venues, publicity for jewellers promoting their wedding rings. I even got a phone call from the store where we had made the appointment to pick out our suits. I forgot to cancel it. We would’ve gotten married that year. We would’ve started our very own happily ever after. But still, I stayed stubborn and never even texted you. The ever after came to a very premature end.
                          
I’m so sorry Harry. I really am. For all of it.
                          
It took me two more years to move on, to finally accept you wouldn’t come back to me anymore. I started going out again, with some friends I met at work. It was on one of these outings I met my future husband, David. Did I love him? Yes. With all my heart. Was it the same? No. Never. Did he make me forget you? Not even close.
                          
But he accepted it. He accepted that he would always be the next best thing. And he did his job well. We had good times together. And we raised three beautiful children. Well, it’s a never ending job, I suppose, but they truly are beautiful. We had them through a surrogate, his sister donated an egg and I’m their biological father. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, if I still know you as well as I used to, I think you would probably tell me I’m giving you too many details right now. But anyway. Two girls and a boy. Jude, Kate and Samuel. Jude is almost 15 now, Kate 12 and Sam's 8. We would’ve celebrated our 15th anniversary this year, David and I. Would’ve, because I’ve lost him too. Not to an argument, but to a terrible illness that ate him alive. Almost literally. I feel guilty to have to put my children through the same thing I went through when I was a kid, even though I know it was not something I could help.
                          
I suppose those were the only times he really did make me forget about you, about what we once had. The grief was too big for me to let anything else in.
                          
Is it childish that I kept a scrapbook from our relationship? I was actually putting it together when we broke up, if I can call it that when we never officially said it, to give it to you on our wedding day. After you left, it was in one of the cardboard boxes that I left in my dad’s garage until I moved back out and in with David. I moved it again, but left it on the attic until I read about you in the paper. The famous song writer Harry Styles had taken up his own singing career. It made me go upstairs and take out the scrapbook again. I put every article I could find about you in it, cutting it out from the paper or a magazine. I think David knew about it, but he never asked or said anything about it. That’s how great he was.
                          
God, Harry, I don’t even know why I’m writing you this letter. What do I even expect? You never let out anything about your private life, but I’m pretty sure you’ve found someone else by now. Someone who appreciates you for who you are and who loves you at least as much as I did. As I still do. Don’t get me wrong, the last thing I want with this is to break up your relationship, if you have one, or disturb your life. I just need to get it off my chest, I suppose.
                          
I need to vent to someone, with David gone, and Jude coming home with her first boyfriend. It makes me wonder how come your mother reacted so well to me, all I want to do is rip the guy’s head off when I see him look at my daughter like that, and I’m pretty sure I had the same look in my eyes back then.
                          
Oh Harry, I wish I could do it all over again, although I don’t know what I would choose. I’ve regretted losing you every single minute, but I don’t regret what I got instead. I’ve loved David and he’s always been a wonderful husband to me, even in his last minutes he cared more about me and our children than about himself. And I love our children so much, I would give my life for them to be happy and to become the kind of people I want them to be.
                          
Harry. Haz. Can I still call you that? Do you have someone else calling you that now? I guess all I wanted to say is, no matter how much I’ve always loved you, no matter how much I’ve regretted how it ended between us, I’ve been happy. And I still am, in a way. Even though I feel a hole in my heart when I look at the other side of the bed, where something inside me still expects, or hopes, to find my husband. Even though I feel alone when the kids are in bed and there’s nothing else for me to do than watch tv or listen to some music. Most of the time it’s your music though, I have to admit it.
                          
David got me your first album for my birthday. Doesn’t that show how much he loved me, no matter what?
                          
I like to look at the cover when it’s playing, and imagine your green eyes are actually watching me. That makes me sound like a silly teenage girl, doesn’t it? And it’s probably what millions of people around the world imagine when they look at that picture of you. But I remember how it feels when you lay your eyes on someone. How it made me feel warm and loved. And I’m not hurting anyone with just imagining that, right?
                          
I’d better stop ranting, and quit writing this letter you’ll probably never even read. But please Harry, do know that I never, ever stopped loving you.
                          
Love,
                          
Liam