Like Home

Saturday, December 21, 2013

The snow had just begun to fall as he parked in front of the pub; the large flakes creating a holiday atmosphere on the small English village that rarely saw snow. The flakes clung to his wool jacket, leaving unique damp marks across his shoulders and down his back. He paused to shake out his hair before stepping into the pub, the cozy fireplace heat enveloping his chilled face.

Expectedly, the pub was quiet. Days before Christmas, many of the residents of Holmes Chapel were hosting holiday parties in their homes or preparing for the festivities to come. Save for a few of the regulars conversing with the barkeep, Harry Styles was the only patron in the pub.

Until he saw her.

She was older, taller, but there was no question that the girl sitting in front of the fireplace was none other than Kit Carrington. A pair of tattered boots were kicked under the Queen Anne armchair, her knobby knees splayed apart and resting against the arms of the chair, a thick novel in her grasp. Suddenly, he was transported back to his childhood, back to the small stone house on Byley Lane where the same girl would sit in front of the fireplace, reading anything she could get her hands on and concurrently chattering a mile a minute. She was the only person he’d ever met who could do both activities at once, and he remembered being oddly fascinated by her talent. And, by her.

In a world of straight lines and combed hair, Kit danced through life, messy haired and endlessly barefoot. She wasn’t exactly the prettiest girl in town – gangly and all limbs with her stringy hair and wide eyes set just far enough apart to look odd. Everybody liked her, and yet, close friendships were elusive. No one spoke poorly about her, and yet, no one talked to her. She wasn’t the girl a young boy was supposed to have a crush on, and yet, he did. She wasn’t Emily Albright, with her soft chestnut curls and pretty floral dresses, or Sophia Windsor and her affinity for taking boys behind the tool shed. She was the girl who would chatter incessantly to anyone who would listen – and to those who wouldn’t – about dinosaurs or an episode of Coronation Street from seven years ago. She was the girl who would use Crayola paints to give her hair streaks because the local drug store didn’t carry proper dye. She was the girl who would rub back pain cream all over her body as a perfume because she adored the medicinal scent to it. She was odd, dramatic, energetic and, quite simply, the most wonderful thing in the world.

It had been a few years since he’d seen her last. She was still gangly, as though her body had been rolled through a pasta making machine, but the few inches she’d grown since school put her limbs in closer proportion with her body. Her eyes, still bright and wide, were offset by the thick tortoise-shell glasses, slipping slightly down her upturned nose. She wore a very Kit-like sweater, an oversized knitted number with a large Christmas tree affixed to the front and pilling wool balls adorned to the tree. It would have been a hit at an ugly sweater holiday party, but the hilarity of the sweater was likely completely unintentional.

Her hair, fine and blonde with a mind of its own, was still worn in a long braid down her back. A few fly-aways poked out around her ears, the dry heat of the pub causing the strands to nearly stand on end. As a child, he remembered she’d had a penchant for glitter and colourful Poundland hair clip-ins. Her unique sense of style didn’t stop there – she would often be found wearing cut-off overalls with patterned tights or a nightshirt with a cat on it, cinched up around her waist and tied into place with a hair scrunchie, just because she was Kit Carrington and if she didn’t create her own drum beat to march to, she couldn’t march at all.

“Mr. Styles?”

Harry turned to the barkeep, unaware he’d been speaking to him. “I’m sorry?” he asked, his memory lane flashback fading as he focused on the barkeep and the present situation.

“Your takeaway will be a few more minutes,” the barkeep told him again, sounding unnecessarily apologetic for the wait. It was a tone Harry was used to hearing when someone felt they hadn’t catered to him in the way they thought they should. He wished they would treat him like a normal patron, someone who occasionally had to wait for their food when they showed up fifteen minutes early.

“That’s not a problem,” Harry assured him, waving his hand dismissively. He unbuttoned his jacket, taking off his scarf and looping it around his arm. He shifted his weight, briefly wondering if he should interrupt the girl from his past before taking a few long strides towards the fireplace. He couldn’t leave without seeing her.

“Kit Carrington.” He stated as he approached her. His voice was even, almost emotionless, but a smirk tickled his lips as he spoke her name.

Kit jumped suddenly at the sound of Harry’s voice, the break in the quiet atmosphere startling her. She looked up from her book; her recognition of him almost instantaneous, though the man standing in front of her hardly resembled her brother’s childhood friend – a skinny, mop-topped boy who would spend his weekends eating all of her cereal and throwing pinecones at her from the boys-only tree fort. His hair was longer, though still unruly as it had always been, curling around his ears, and his face had lost a bit of the babyish features he’d had while they were growing up, but she’d know his dimpled grin anywhere.

“Harry Styles.” She answered, uttering his name in the same slow, drawn out tone he’d used for hers. “My goodness… Hi!” She exclaimed after a moment, letting her book fall to the floor with a loud thud as she jumped up, unabashedly wrapping her long arms around his neck. His shoulders were broader and, for the first time in their lives, he was officially taller than Kit. “You’re a proper little ragamuffin now, aren’t you?” She teased him, ruffling her fingers through his shaggy mane. She may not have seen Harry in over three years, but Kit wasn’t known to be bashful.

He laughed a throaty chuckle, running his own hand through his hair. “Grooming’s overrated, isn’t it?” He kidded, remembering one of the nicknames Tim Carrington had bestowed upon Kit as a child – Frizzy Lizzie, after her middle name. Though he knew he’d shouted it from their tree fort, along with an array of other insulting jibes, he wondered if Kit knew he only said the names because Tim had. He hadn’t meant them.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Kit agreed, tucking a strand of her staticky hair behind her ear. “Gosh!” She exclaimed again, holding her hands out in surprise. “The last time I saw you… you and Timothy were chugging stolen beers in the loft, before your prom. Trying not to spill all over your pink little flower,” she added teasingly.

She remembered that day as though it was yesterday. In typical older brother fashion, Timothy hadn’t wanted Kit to be anywhere near him and his friends, but when Kit offered to sneak to the kitchen and steal beers for them, he grudgingly obliged. Tim spent many years assuming his younger sister was fascinated with him and his life, but the only thing in his life Kit was fascinated with was Harry.

She wasn’t the only one who had a crush on Harry Styles, of course. Nearly every girl (and their mothers) in his class and hers thought he was perfect – and those who said they didn’t think so were liars. He was never without female attention, and Kit, with her skinny legs, frizzy hair and vexatious personality – not to mention the younger sister of his best friend – had been completely off his radar.

“It was a boutonnière,” Harry corrected, factiously stern, though flattered she remembered the colour of his accessory. The night of his prom, Kit had tirelessly teased him about the colour of the flower, calling him The Pink Ranger, Harriett and Tinky Winky. He remembered arguing with her about the last name, insisting that it wasn’t funny or clever because Tinky Winky was purple, not pink. It hadn’t stopped Kit, though, and Harry had debated hurrying down to the local floral shop to purchase a new boutonnière, just to find something Kit would like.

“Oh, pardon me,” quipped Kit, flashing Harry a grin. She hadn’t told him then, and she couldn’t tell him now, but he looked incredibly handsome the night of his prom. She’d hoped with all of her heart that his date wouldn’t show up and she could step in and save the day, à la Ross Gellar, but even if his date had lost her mind and for some reason hadn’t showed up, Harry had at least a dozen other girls waiting in the wings – girls with smooth hair and B-cups and girls who weren’t Kit Carrington.

“So, what are you doing here, anyway?” Kit pressed, absentmindedly tugging on her braid. “You have a minute to sit?” She gestured to the chairs, diagonally facing the inviting fireplace, and hoping he would join her. The thirteen year old inside of her was beside herself at the prospect of sitting in front of the romantic fireplace with Harry Styles, but the eighteen year old she was now barely thought of it in that way. There was no question that Harry was even better looking now than he was in school, but her school girl crush on him had long since faded. Some believed in absence makes the heart grow fonder, but Kit was more familiar with out of sight, out of mind.

Not that Harry had been out of sight or mind for anyone with a television set. Since appearing on The X-Factor shortly after his prom, the dimpled charmer from Cheshire had become the heartthrob of the century to more than just the girls from Holmes Chapel. Kit knew his family and friends like Timothy would help keep him grounded, but with the fame and fortune he’d found, he couldn’t still be the boy whose name she would covertly scribble all over her journal. He was the big time now.

Harry paused, her suggestion rolling in his mind. He knew his food would be ready shortly, and his family was waiting at home for dinner. But this was Kit Carrington, the first girl he’d ever had a crush on and the only one to stay in his mind so profoundly after so many years. He found himself stepping towards the chair before he’d even made up his mind.

“Of course,” he determined, settling into the chair across from Kit. He smiled at her, watching as she carefully poured another cup of tea from the small pot. “Looks like you’re getting yourself proper ratted tonight, aren’t you?” he teased, amused that she was sitting in a pub on a snowy day drinking tea, when she could easily do the same thing at home.

Kit chuckled, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug. “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “I think I really need to start going to those meetings,” she added before taking a sip. The drink was hotter than she’d expected and she coughed, spitting the mouthful back into the mug. “Ouch!” She hissed, unaware of her off-colour behaviour – or at the very least, not caring. The tea was hot, so she spit it out. In her mind, there was nothing crass about her actions.

“Careful,” Harry advised her, chuckling as Kit dribbled her tea back into the cup. It was such a Kit move. The girls he knew now would have rather burned their entire esophagus than spit out the drink, and it was one of the things he loved most about coming home to Holmes Chapel. The girls, the people, were all real – though no one was as real as Kit.

“Burn your mouth, you might not be able to talk,” he told her. “Though… I don’t think that would stop you, would it?” he added teasingly.

Kit rolled her eyes, adding a splash of milk to her mug. “Well… yeah, probably not,” she agreed, seeing no point in arguing with a true fact. Even if her mouth was taped shut, Kit could still find a way to talk. “I can’t help it if I have such interesting things to say, though!” She added haughtily, her words punctuated with a snorting giggle, showing she was unaffected by Harry’s light jab.

“Mm-hmm,” Harry hummed teasingly. “So, what?” He wondered, pulling his coat off and folding it across the arm of the chair. “You still living up here?” He couldn’t picture Kit still living in the same small town. She was always bigger than Holmes Chapel, bigger than Manchester, bigger than the entire United Kingdom. She was too bombastic to stay in the village. The whole world needed to know the likes of Kit.

“Oh, God no!” Kit exclaimed, a bit too loudly. She scoffed, shaking her head vigorously. “No, no… nooo! No,” she added again for good measure. “I moved to London in the summer. Studying English Lit at King’s and… spending my weekends drinking something a bit higher proof,” she laughed, holding up her tea cup in a cheers manner, even though it wasn’t entirely true.

“You always were the smart one,” he mused, his ears perking up when she mentioned she lived in London. He briefly wondered why he hadn’t seen her, and then remembered that London was a huge city, he was never there, and they ran in completely different circles. He felt stupid for even thinking he would see her in the city, and was relieved Kit wasn’t a mind reader.

Kit shrugged dismissively. School had always come easily to her, but she had the added bonus of virtually no social life to interrupt her evenings and weekends of studying. Being in London was different – it was easier to find birds of the same feather in a huge city than in the small village she grew up in, but she still found herself in more often than out. She didn’t think a social butterfly like Harry could ever understand her preference.

“Well, compared to Timothy, I suppose,” Kit answered, rolling her eyes as she mentioned her older brother. Tim wasn’t stupid, not by far. But he’d had a hard time applying himself in school and struggled right through to the end. There was a clear double standard between the Carrington children – if Tim brought home a C+, a national holiday of celebration was declared. If Kit brought home anything less than an A-, she was lectured on her lack of effort.

Harry echoed Kit’s snicker. “How is your idiot brother anyway?” asked Harry, not wanting to discuss his old mate that he still kept in sporadic contact with, but as Tim was the connection between Harry and Kit, he thought it might be polite to ask. Tim was still a terrific friend to Harry, but he was more curious about Kit and what she did with her free time in London. He supposed he could ask, but the thought of asking Kit about her city life and wondering who she spent time with made him flush without uttering a word.

“Oh, he’s alright,” Kit answered vaguely. She wasn’t about to launch into a tirade about her brother’s life in Manchester – mediocre work, mediocre girlfriend, mediocre apartment. “He’s coming down tomorrow for the holidays,” she added. “Bringing some new girlfriend with him, so that should be fun,” she laughed, rubbing her hands together gleefully, insinuating that she planned on interrogating the poor girl for days on end.

Harry laughed, feeling sorry for Tim’s girlfriend already. Kit was never one to bite her tongue or hold back her opinion. “Well, make sure you tell him hi for me, alright? And play nice,” he warned good-naturedly as his gaze shifted up, noticing the barkeep approaching him with his takeaway bags. He found himself feeling disheartened at the sight, not wanting to leave.

“I always play nice,” Kit assured him, knowing Harry would know she was fibbing. She watched him thank the barkeep by shaking his hand, a gesture that she surprisingly found endearing. She stood up as Harry did and offered him a bright smile.

“It was really lovely to see you,” she told him, her voice almost wistful as she looped her arms around Harry’s waist again. She almost suggested they try to have a coffee in London sometime but scoffed at herself, biting her tongue before the silly suggestion escaped. He was Harry. She was Kit. A chance encounter and a short-lived visit were one thing, but their lives outside of Holmes Chapel were as different as night and day.

“You too, Kit,” Harry answered, a small chuckle escaping from his lips as strands of Kit’s wild hair made their way into his mouth. Not wanting to be rude and brush her hair from his face, he let the follicles tickle against his lips as he embraced Kit, easily enveloping the skinny girl in his arms. He reminded himself not to think about how she seemed to fit perfectly with him, but it was too late and the thought was on the forefront of his mind.

“Take care of yourself, yeah?” he said, reluctantly pulling away from her. He wondered briefly if he should suggest a planned meeting in London – drinks or coffee, or something more up Kit’s alley, like a taxidermy workshop or the Hampton Court Maze. But despite his celebrity, Harry didn’t think Kit would want to spend time with him. He was her older brother’s friend, and she had her own life in London. She had school and mates she had things in common with. Harry didn’t fit into that life.

“You too,” Kit told him, letting her arms drop from Harry’s waist. She tucked her hair, slightly damp from Harry’s lips, behind her ear as she watched Harry pull his winter garments back on. He buttoned his jacket, adjusting the sleeves before bending over and picking up the bags. Straightening up, he smiled at Kit.

“Bye, Kit-Kat.” He told her, reaching out and gently touching her arm before he could stop himself.

“Bye, Harry Canary.” Kit replied, gently kicking her stockinged foot against his ankle. He smiled at her once more before he turned to leave. As he walked away, Kit glanced down at the chair he’d just vacated. A worn billfold was tucked between the cushions, having fallen out of Harry’s pocket when he discarded his jacket. She picked it up, bounding towards Harry and calling out his name before he reached the doors. “Harry!” Kit called out, reaching out to grab his elbow.

Surprised to hear Kit following him, Harry turned to face the girl, beaming at her as he assumed she wanted to suggest getting together in London. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised but maybe the blast from the past was enough for her interest to be piqued, too. “Yeah?” he asked her, the bright smile remaining on his face. Maybe instead of the taxidermy workshop – which wasn’t something he would enjoy at all – they could go on a ghost tour. He only hoped he wouldn’t get too frightened.

Thrown off by Harry’s jubilant smile, Kit found herself pausing for a moment before holding the wallet out to him. “It must have fallen out of your jacket,” she told him unnecessarily.

“Oh.” Harry answered flatly, his face falling. He could feel his cheeks heat up at his assumption and he hoped Kit couldn’t notice the red hue creeping up from under his scarf. He cleared his throat, reaching out and accepting his wallet from Kit. “Thanks,” he told her, offering her another smile, though more sheepish this time.

“Normally I’d have kept it, but you know where I live, so…” Kit shrugged playfully, her comment causing an idea to form in her head. She shifted her weight, voicing her suggestion to Harry before she talked herself out of it.

“Hey, speaking of…” she began. “I know it’s incredibly short notice, but I was just thinking… My parents are throwing this Christmas, open house hoopla thing tomorrow night. I know you’ve probably got plans, but… if you don’t? I know Timothy and my mother would love to see you…” She trailed off, not wanting to mention that she wanted to see him more as well.

“I mean, no worries if you can’t,” she quickly added, presuming Harry had better things to do with his time home than spend it in a crowded little farmhouse, eating her mom’s uninspired mince pies and being forced to drink too much mulled wine. “But… if you can? Half seven or so?” She smiled, her tone taking on a hopeful pitch.

Harry’s bright smile returned at Kit’s invitation. Over the years, he’d been to many Christmas gatherings at the Carrington house. They always started off as pleasant and traditional, but as the night went on, the mulled wine was replaced with tequila shots and the quiet Christmas music playing in the background became 80s rock hits. The house always felt like his second home and though he hadn’t stepped foot in it in years, something told him it would feel exactly the same.

“I’d really love that,” he told Kit earnestly. “Thank you for the invite. Can I bring anything?” He asked out of respect, even though he knew his offer would be rejected. It always was.

“Just yourself,” Kit told him, matching his wide smile. “And your family, if they’re free, of course,” she added. “I’d love to see Gemma,” she told him, grinning at the thought of Harry’s older sister and her former babysitter – the best sitter, in her mind, because Gemma would let her stay up too late and watch old episodes of Cops on cable.

“I will definitely bring them,” Harry promised. “Thanks, Kit,” he said again, flashing her a dimpled grin. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, then.”

“Tomorrow night,” Kit echoed, beaming. Maybe Harry was still the boy from Cheshire after all

Notes