Underestimated me from the start / And now you have to watch it all fall apart / I’ll slash a lasting legacy across your heart / Watch me rise / While I watch you crash.
There’s no such thing as happy endings in a world so violent and cruel / You rolled the dice / I finished the game / But who’s the fool?
She also adds lyrics from “No Way Back” and “Midnight,” which the TikToker theorized was about Bill Lever, as well as a line from “Cruel Delights.”
Hey Billy, help me understand / How did you live with yourself, when it all got out of hand?
I know who you are / I know what you did / Don’t act surprised / You know I’m right / You deserve what you got for what you did at midnight
Is it wrong. Or is it right. To get high off these cruel delights.
Another pattern Naomi recognizes is the constant reference to death, but whileApotheosisseems to reference death in a vengeful way, Harlow’s latest album is much sadder, almost remorseful. Like the lyrics from “Garden of Bones.”
A garden of bones, watered with tears. Blood-soaked soil, saturated with fear. No one knows I laid her here. Alongside a part of me buried for years.
Naomi’s stomach twists at the words. She initially ignored the hundreds of internet sleuths who theorized this was some sort of lyrical confession, sure it was just a metaphor. But now she thinks otherwise. Her throat burns, wondering if the lyrics are about her sister. Picturing Harlow laying her on a filthy sofa and then lighting a match.
Naomi scans theApotheosisandLegacylyric posters again, looking for more mentions of death and blood specifically, but nothing else stands out.
She goes to her Twitter bookmarks to find the posts that conveniently compiled Harlow’s darkest lyrics to check she hasn’t missed anything and adds a few more to her wall. She does a quick search for #HarlowHayes and Easter eggs and finds a thread noting mostly trivial stuff, like hints that led to eventual song names and music video release dates, or small references to past albums. All the Easter eggs seem to be in her two latest albums, though. Strange. Naomi writes a new Post-it—“Easter eggs start withApotheosis”—and adds it to the “After” section.
As Naomi stares from the left to the right side of the board, there is a glaring fact she can’t ignore. That at the end of 2021, after Jade died, Harlow changed forever.
She reasons that this type of change in behavior can’t be a coincidence. People don’t just wake up one day and change everything about themselves. Style, sure. Artists change their style all the time. But personality? Lyrics? How they interact with fans? Not to mention cutting out family and friends.
Such a big reinvention must be the result of some type of trauma. Something major. Like killing someone for the first time. And maybe Harlow’s “apotheosis” was transforming from an innocent woman into a lethal one—into a serial killer. Many serial killers see themselves as gods…
Naomi’s mind swirls with questions.Were Harlow’s lyrics truly about murder? Did Harlow, like so many other killers before her, leave clues in the hope she’ll get caught? Did she have someone change Jade’s autopsy to hide the bruises on her neck? Did she have help covering it up? Is she responsible for her sister’s head injury? Is she really so evil that she pumped these women full of drugs and then, in Faye’s case, let her burn?
It’s possible.
Naomi spends the night tossing and turning, thinking of all the ways she could get justice for Faye. In the past, justice wasn’t an option because there wasn’t anyone to blame. But now everything has changed.
*
The second Naomi notices the bright light beaming through the window, she knows something is wrong. The sun doesn’t rise until close to seven, and her alarm was supposed to wake her at six so she could draft and post the article she promised Joel.
Heart pumping, she reaches for her phone.
9:47 a.m.Shit.
If Joel is in California, he might not ask about it for another couple hours, she reasons with herself.
But when she glances at her screen again, she sees he’s already texted her. It’s not about her article, though. It’s a link to a different one.
“No,” she whispers, scanning the news release. “No, no, no! Fuck!”
AVANT
BREAKING NEWS
All Charges Against Harlow Hayes Dropped
The star’s lawyer confirms the case has been thrown out due to insufficient evidence
BY NICHOLAS CLARK – SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
Safe to say it’s been a doozy of a week for Harlow Hayes…
