I have been stuck in the same spot for nearly an hour.

Anyone would think I was insane if they walked into the room now as I sat completely still, looking down at the little flower hairband.

It was such an innocent item, something so normal, but the sight of it made tears well in my eyes.

It wasn't the band itself that had my eye dampening, or even the fact that I had found it after all these years of it hiding under my bed.

I was blinking back tears because I hadn't seen its owner in so very long and I wanted to. I wanted to very badly.

She was in town too.

Just got home.

The invitation to her graduation party sat on the worktop in the kitchen. Mum and Robin had already gone to the celebration but I wondered if I could handle seeing her.

If the way I was reacting to a hairband was any indication, I was probably right to assume staying in was a better idea.

But I was proud of her.

So very proud because she did exactly what she set out to do. She left this all behind to make herself better, to give herself the opportunity to live out her dream, even if that meant leaving me behind as well.

I couldn't really blame her. At the time I had dreams of my own and a silly little audition that flipped my whole world around helped me fulfill them, but I missed her every day.

I wondered if she missed me at all.

I knew she had been seeing someone. Gemma had seen her last year when I was away on tour and she had let it slip that the one girl I had been in love with since our very first kiss was seeing someone else.

I wondered if she loved him. If their first kiss had been as wonderful and heart poundingly intoxicating as ours had been. Did it still play fresh in his mind like ours played in mine?

"Harry?"

It was like my mind summoned the echo of her sweet, soft voice just to torture me. I held the hairband a little tighter and shut my eyes, trying to summon up the image of her I still had in my head. Blonde hair, emerald eyes, pouty pink lips.

"What's that?"

I nearly fell off the bed at the soft voice and warm breath that fanned over my shoulder as I spun around.

Like my mind had materialized her in front of me, there she was.

Her hair was a bit shorter and she was much more of a woman rather than the girl I remembered.

But her eyes sparkled in that same mischievous way. Like she had a secret, but she wasn't going to share it with me. Her smile was the same also, still wide and inviting.

"Emma?!"

She giggled and rounded the edge of my bed to take a seat next to me. She nodded towards the object in my hand and cocked an eyebrow at me. "Is that my hairband?"

"Yeah-Yeah it is. I found it under my bed." I said recalling a few hours ago when I had been reaching under my bed to pull out a box of old photos to show Louis and the others when I met back up with them in London in a few days.

Emma nodded and bit her lip. I imagine she didn't know what to say to me after years of not seeing or speaking to each other.

I manage to surprisingly build up the courage to speak first.

"How did you know I was here?"

She looked up at me with wide eyes, clearly not having expected me to ask although she should have.

"Anne." It was a simple answer with a shrug because she knew I didn't need to ask any follow up questions.

It was no secret my mum had some foolish idea in her head that Emma and I were meant to be together. I could imagine her sending Emma here to find me in my pity party alone was her idea of a romantic reunion. She didn't realize things just weren't that simple.

"She told me to just come in. Said you probably wouldn't open the door because of, well..." She nodded towards my window were I knew there were at least a dozen lingering fans.

"Shouldn't you be at your party?" I choose a new angle.

Emma breathed out a small laugh and looked down at her hands that were clasped in her lap. "I probably should but the person I wanted to see the most wasn't there."

My lips cocked into a lopsided smirk. "Your boyfriend didn't show up?"

She threw her head back and laughed out loud, an actual laugh. The one that I had missed.

"I don't have a boyfriend Harry."

"That's not what Gemma told me." I mumbled.

Emma's eyes lit up. "You ask Gemma about me?"

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye only to see her looking at me as I shrugged. She knew I wasn't going to say more. I was feeling uncomfortable at being caught and she knew that I would just close up if pushed anymore.

"Why didn't you go to my party?"

How could I tell her I didn't go because I was afraid?

"I waited. Every time the door would open I would look, hoping it was you, but you were here with that."

She pointed to the band still in my hands and giggled lightly.

"Harry, I lost that silly thing ages ago."

I was aware. It was right around the time I had let her go. Right after our last kiss.

"Your mums' wedding."

"Hmm?" She hummed, looking at me in question.

"You lost this after your mom's wedding."

I could almost see the memory playing back to her in her crystal clear green eyes.

That night years ago after her mother had remarried and we snuck away from the house down the street to mine, here. The way our hands had shaken, our breathing ragged, eyes memorizing each other's faces.

I had a feeling back then that it would be our last. I knew she would be off to Uni soon after.

It hurt when she left. I hadn't done much for a while after she had packed up and driven away from the house down the street.

If it wasn't for my mum signing me up for the auditions I probably never would have gotten out of the rut I was in.

In the end it all seemed to have been worth it, for the both of us.

Or at least that was how I was going to play it off.

We both sat reliving the same memory quietly.

"I know you came to visit me at the halls."

It was out of nowhere and a normal person would be lost at the quick change of direction but I wasn't.

It was a few months back, I had missed her much more than normal. I had wandered the pathways near the halls of residence for hours tucked under a jumper and beanie hoping to blend in. I wasn't sure what I would have done had I actually seen her. My plan had been to just get a glimpse of her, just look at her again because my heart was lonely but I never did see her that day. I had been spotted and after a few photos and autographs I ran.

"How did you know?" I asked although I had a feeling I knew how.

She smirked and shook her head before looking at me. "It's kind of hard to be you and sneak around, Harry. All I heard for weeks after was how the Harry Styles had been there. I asked Gemma and she said that you had been looking for me."

I was never telling my sister anything ever again.

I laughed to play off my slight embarrassment at her recalling a moment of weakness but I knew I would have to tell her the truth, it was impossible for me to lie to Emma.

"I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you how proud of you I was."

She leaned closer to bump her shoulder with mine and giggled. "I'm pretty proud of you too, curly."

"We got everything we dreamed of, didn't we?"

"Almost."

Even as the simple word left her lips I knew that our conversation was taking a turn, the air in the room was settling heaver around us. We weren't just two friends speaking to each other after lost time, we were two people that had been in love and never really fell out of it.

"I miss you."

It was so softly spoken I wasn't sure if she actually said it or if I just imagined it but when I looked to the side at her with her gentle shy smile and vulnerable stare I knew I had heard it clearly.

"I miss you too." I answered just as softly.

Her lip found its way between her teeth and I could tell she was debating on whether or not to say what was on her mind. As soon as her green eyes found mine I knew she had made a decision.

"Why did we do this to ourselves?"

I furrowed my brow and looked down, unsure of where she was going. She must have understood my lost expression because she continued without an answer from me.

"Why did we say goodbye to each other when we didn't have to? I never wanted to. I may have wanted to go to uni and become successful but I never wanted to lose you. I always wanted you there too." Her hands fidgeted in her lap and mine ached to touch them, hold them in my own but I didn't want to disturbed her. I didn't want to break her train of thought because I selfishly wanted to hear it all first. "I just don't understand why we stopped. Why it had to be goodbye."

I took a deep breath, deciding I should speak after a few beats passed and she hadn't continued speaking. "We had to say goodbye so we could be who we are now." I hesitantly looked up at her only to find her eyes boring into mine. "You needed to go to find you and I needed you to go to find me."

She watched me, eyes locked with mine. Neither of us tore our eyes away or said a word. Not for a long while.

"Are we about done yet?" She finally broke the intense moment.

I felt the left side of my mouth tug up into a half smile. "I think so." And again we fell into silence as we studied each other, trying to remember the little things about each other that we used to know so well.

It was well into our staring competition that I finally decided to say what had been yearning to say to her for so very long. Now that we were here in our lives, now that everything had worked out I needed to tell her exactly what had been going through my mind the moment I arrived home and knew she was just down the street from me like when we were just two kids.

"I never stopped you know," I licked my lip and pressed on, hoping she wouldn't interrupt me and make me lose my nerve. "Loving you. And maybe saying goodbye was the wrong way to do things. Maybe I was selfish in not calling you all those times you tried to call me when you first left, but my heart never stopped belonging to you Emma. It still does. And my life is crazy now and it would be insane for me to even think about bringing you into this but I want to, I want you. Because if you want, I'll take you in my arms and keep you sheltered and loved and everything we were before we said goodbye to each other."

I rushed the words out, eyes dropped down to my hands as I stumbled over my thoughts. They had been in my head since the very moment I saw her mum's car pull away the day she left and they were finally freed. She finally heard them and not just in my dreams.

It was so quiet, all I could hear was her breathing and my heart beat pounding in my ears.
And then the lightest touch of fingertips as the grazed over my arms, up my shoulders and finally to my face where her palms flattened against my cheeks. She gently turned my head so my eyes could lock onto hers. The slightest smile played at her lips as she leaned in until she was just a breath away.

"I never stopped either."

Her lips were just as sweet, just as soft, just as mesmerizing as I remembers. And all at once I felt like I was falling in love, only I never fell out of love.

Notes

Yea I wrote this a long time ago for a Ed Sheeran song fic challenge and I was given UNI so I had to write a story based on that song and that had the line that is in bold. So this was my entry.
I hope you guys enjoy it <3 Let me know what you think