Bookseller / Harry Styles

Chapter 9

Sometimes you know. You know where a conversation is leading to, or what a person may want to get out of you. Sometimes you know and you watch it happen anyway. Sometimes you're not driving the car, you're stuck in the backseat, letting someone else do it for you, and you just wish to switch seats, but are too scared to do it. So you let it happen. 

Harry has a great talent, which is to be there at the right time, and with the little words he's using he's great at getting words out of you. So, as we're walking down the street he got me talking about my days since we last saw each other. I bored him with details about my academic progression, but somehow he asked me questions to further the subject, which I'd redeem boring. 

"Okay, but this is just courses and seminars, stuff nobody cares about."

"I do. I think that education is probably the most important thing that can happen in a human life." 

"Really? What about love, perhaps?" I laugh at his statement. 

"No, love is difficult. Love is unclear and it never works out, plus it's a concept made up by people. On the other hand, education is stability. Education never leaves you and it continues to grow and expand. Education gives back, love doesn't."

We walk on the sidewalk, cars passing us and the sun being in its hiding for a good hour now. A man who owns a bookstore in this day and age it's a man who's in love with his profession, that's for sure. I'm wondering how many books has he read from his bookstore. If you were to see him on the street you wouldn't guess that he's a man of culture. Sure, an intelligent man, yes, but this way? No. I'd guess that he likes to do anything but work at a bookstore in his day-to-day life. 

"Have you ever been in love?" I ask surprising myself even with this question. 

"I thought I was." His lack of details warns me to not dig dipper into this. "Have you?"

"No, I don't think I've been. Other types of love, yes, but not romantic one." I confess to him. 

He nods and stops to look into a shop's window. The shop presents a black dress, simple, yet the quality of the material stands out. 

"It look like the dress you wore at the wedding." He states before moving forward. 

"How do you remember that?" I smile. "But no, it's similar, but this probably is much more expensive than the one I wore. I know that because I did it myself." 

"Then it's even more expensive than the one in the shop. I'd love to wear something made by you." He looks at me briefly before moving his hair out of his face. 

We arrive once again in front of my building. I look at the sky and see that the clouds are angrier than when we left and by the way the wind blows, there's going to be a storm in just a few minutes. Sending Harry away is the first thing that comes to my mind, but I haven't been raised that away. To turn my back on people when I can help. Afterall, he might not even want to come upstairs and wait for the storm to pass. But I offer anyway.

"It seems like it's going to be a storm. Do you want to come upstairs and wait it out?" I say as casually as possible, getting my key out. 

He nods and holds the door open for me. My apartment building has tight corridors, or they didn't seem so tight until I saw Harry standing in them, looking almost like a giant. Just as we approach my apartment, my neighbor, Mrs. Thompson, gets out of hers. 

Damn it. 

The old lady adjusts her glasses and smiles a bit, her little devious smile, the one I know so well. The "I'm going to tell on you" smile. She and my mother are in great relations, talking weekly on the phone and I just know that this week's subject it's going to be me.