The Reinvention of Harry Styles

Harry was still pacing their hotel room when Molly returned after dropping Daisy off.

“What was that all about?” Molly demanded. “I get up for two minutes, and return to find Daisy in tears, because you randomly showed up and looked at her with disgust, and left without saying a word?”

“That’s not what happened!” Harry retorted. “I kind of is, but I was surprised, not disgusted, to see that she was….” He didn’t want to say it. What if she wasn’t? What if she had a tumor, or had just gained a lot of weight in that one particular spot?

“....pregnant.” Molly finished his sentence, and he sighed frustratedly.

"Daisy," Harry said slowly, and Molly nodded, "is pregnant?"

"Yeah," Molly nodded again, and watched Harry's eyes squint as he tried to figure this out.

"The same Daisy that shocked us all by declaring she was a lesbian during a live interview? And who told us she had a girlfriend? She," Harry paused to draw a breath, "is pregnant?!"

"Yeah," Molly repeated.

"So, was she lying about being gay?" Harry asked, still trying to figure this out.

"No."

"So, was it like, a sperm donor or something?" He asked.

"Ummm," Molly laughed to herself. "You could say that; unintentional sperm donor is more appropriate."

Harry’s eyes shot open. “What? She slept with a guy just to get pregnant?”

“No, no I’m pretty sure that was not her intention.”

“I’m so confused,” Harry finally sat down on the edge of the bed, and Molly came to sit next to him. “We just saw her last week in LA, she looked….oh, that explains the oversized hoodie.” Harry nodded as he recalled Daisy’s attire the night he dragged her up on stage to sing with him.

“Yeah,” Molly nodded.

“And those cupcakes were for her baby sex party, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, and don’t call it that,” Molly laughed. “It’s a gender reveal party.”

Harry was quiet for a moment. “So, you knew, and you didn’t tell me?” He sounded hurt, betrayed, but mostly confused. Why would she keep something like that from him?

“She didn’t want me to tell anyone, and it was kind of a tricky situation.” Molly explained.

“I know, but I’m your- But we’re-” He motioned his hand between the two of them, to indicate they were ‘together’, as he couldn’t find words at the moment. “We’re supposed tell each other these kinds of things, trust each other.”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” Molly defended, but Harry was still upset. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his eyes.

“This is a lot to process right now.” He finally said and ran his hands through his hair as he sat up. “Why didn’t you just tell me Daisy was the friend you were visiting?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary, since you weren’t coming with me. Actually, what were you even doing there in the first place?” Molly added. “You can’t just show up somewhere like that without being noticed.”

“I was going to surprise you since my meeting finished early.” Harry sighed.

“Why? We can be seen together publically?” Molly was trying not to sound mad, but she didn’t see many other ways of looking at this.

“I know, and we weren’t. But I thought people wouldn’t notice, or care, and if they did recognize you, you’re Gemma’s friend, and maybe we were just meeting up because you were in the area.” Harry shrugged. It had made more sense in his head. “I wore a hat,” he added, as if he thought he would make him ‘incognito’.

‘Manager Molly’ had a lot she wanted to say to him, and most of it was not nice. But now was not the time for that, and she was sure Harry would get a similar berating from Jeff soon, so for now, Molly had to be the girlfriend. He was just trying to be nice, and surprise her at lunch. After mentally drafting and redrafting several responses, Molly finally said, “I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I know I fucked up, you don’t need to be sarcastic about it,” he shot back.

“I’m not! I’m sorry if I sound upset, but it’s because I am! This is a really big deal, Harry, I can only imagine what the media would say about this if anything got out. Did you tell Jeff about this right away? Your PR team should have been able to stop it from getting out.” ‘Manager Molly’ took over, as ‘girlfriend Molly’ clearly failed.

Harry was quiet, still leaning on his elbows and staring intensely straight ahead. “Kind of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told him, and he was mad I’d gone out like that, but when I told him about seeing Daisy…” He sat up and looked down at his hands. He looked ashamed, or guilty, but Molly wasn’t sue why. “This morning, at our meeting, Sony agreed that ‘Kiwi’ should be our next single, but I’ll have to do more promotion for it than we did for ‘Two Ghosts’ since that didn’t chart as well as they wanted it to. So, they basically said ‘Kiwi’ needs to have a music video, I’ll do some interviews - anything to get people interested in it. And I agreed because I like the song, and I think it might be fun to promote.”

Harry was quiet again and bit his lips as he tried to figure out how he was going to say this next part.

“A music video would be fun, I think there are a lot of things we could do with that.” Molly stated, but Harry didn’t really hear her.

“When Jeff found out Daisy was pregnant, and he saw the pictures of me...reacting to that….he decided not to do anything. Just let the story get out, and let people interpret it the way they want.” Harry blurted out, and took a deep breath. “He’s going to let people assume that I got Daisy pregnant,” he added quietly with a shaky voice.

Molly’s blood turned to ice in her veins as the severity of that last sentence set in. “That she’s having your baby, and it’s none of your business.” She said quietly. “He can’t do that to her, I have to let her know.”

“She’s his client too, so, yes he actually can,” Harry begrudgingly corrected her, because he wished it weren’t true.

“This is too far, Harry, this is way too far. I need to talk to him. We can still fix this.” Molly stood up and slipped her shoes back on.

“He’s already left for the next show. We should have been on that plane too, but I just couldn’t stand to be around him after that.”

Molly froze and tried to think of the next step. “There has to be something we can do!”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe no one’s talking about it?”

“I doubt it, something like this would be all over the tabloids.” Molly pulled out her phone and did a quick search.

‘Harry Styles and former duet partner Daisy Rutherford had a public falling out’

‘Daisy Rutherford surprised Harry Styles with noticeable baby bump’

‘Harry Styles leaves baby mama in tears at popular Chicago pizza place’

The headlines made it clear - this was a hot subject and it was spreading like wildfire. Most people seemed to speculate exactly what Jeff hoped they would, and Molly’s heart raced as she tried to think of a way to fix this. The pair flew two New York that night for Harry’s next show and spent the flight doing as much damage control as they could.

Harry was on the phone for most of the flight trying to reassure his mother, sister, etc. that it was in fact not true. He even called his pals Nick Grimshaw and James Corden to see if they could ‘casually’ bring it up on their respective shows and deny the rumors, or at least point out how absurd it is.

Molly, on the other end of the plane, was deep in thought. No matter what Harry told her, this was her fault. He tried to say it was just bad timing and miscommunication, but it was so much more than that, and she could have prevented it. When Harry texted her asking where they were, she thought he was just curious to see where she was eating, or if it was the place he’d recommended (and it was). This could have all been avoided if she’d asked why he wanted to know, but she didn’t expect him to just show up like that - even if he was wearing a hat.

On a larger scale, Molly felt responsible for dragging Daisy into this. Not just for getting lunch with her, which inevitably led to this mishap, but for introducing her to Harry in the first place. Molly encouraged Daisy to hire Jeff as her manager, and never thought anything like this could come of it.

How had Molly even gotten into this? She was just a girl with a marketing degree, and had no idea how the music industry worked. How had she ended up giving Harry Styles career advice? And how on Earth did she end up dating him?

This last part had puzzled her since the day he’d asked her out. How did she end up dating the guy she’d idolized in high school and written fanfiction about? Harry was the boy she imagined would take her to prom, when she ended up dateless and going single with a group of friends. Harry was the fun boyfriend she wrote about in her fanfiction who surprised his girlfriend by taking her to the Eiffel Tower, or who snuck his girlfriend backstage during 1D concerts for a quick shag before a show. But ‘her’ Harry was not real, and Molly knew that.

The real Harry was not this confident, charismatic, and outgoing guy she, and so many others, had mentally painted as the ‘perfect boyfriend’. He was a real human being who had normal problems and made mistakes. However, the results of those mistakes were often broadcast around the world and speculated on by his fans and the media. Somehow, Molly had inevitably pushed him into such a situation, or rather, set him up to fall right into it.

Molly finally returned to her seat next to Harry as they came in for landing at JFK. He put down his phone and stared blankly at his hands in his lap as the plane touched down and taxied down the runway.

“I really only see one way to fix this properly: you have to fire him, and publicly state you had no part in this.” Molly stated and stood up as the plane came to a stop.

“I can’t, we’ve signed a contract, and I would lose so much more than just him if I fired Jeff.” Harry tried to explain. “I would lose everything that comes with signing with the Azoffs, and probably face a lot of backlash afterwards.”

“Well, you’re going to lose a lot more if you don’t. Your reputation, the respect of anyone outside your hardcore fans, and,” Molly bit her lips and took a deep breath. “And this has gone too far, for me; I don’t think I can be a part of this anymore.”

Harry’s heart sank and he tried to say something to change her mind. “Molly…” he said softly, and reached his hand out toward her. She grabbed his hand, placed something in it, and closed his hand around it

“I can’t,” she said quietly, and grabbed her suitcase and left without looking back.

He could have easily run after her and stopped her, maybe apologize, but what could he really say? He thought about it as he watched her fade away, with each step getting further and further from him.

But he knew she was right. He knew this was too far, and the only way to fix it was to end it.

Notes

I hate to end this on such a sad note before the holidays : ( but the next chapter is already in the works. I’ve had this idea for a while, but now that I’m actually writing it, it seems much darker than I’d originally planned.

I hope you all are having a lovely holiday season!

Thank you for reading, commenting, and subscribing! : )