It would cost me nothing to push Hayes away. To not have to think about random women in hotel lobbies. And reptilian models. And the numerous fans who would have eagerly taken my place. To be rid of all of that. His fame, cumbersome, like a fucking steamship. I wondered then who he would have been without it.
The door flew open, and Hayes came charging in. It had been minutes.
“I can’t even go for a fucking walk!” His eyes were wet, his voice quaking. “I forgot my sunglasses and I haven’t a hat and I can’t even go for a fucking walk!”
He hadn’t a hat.
I would have smiled at him if I did not think it would upset him more.
“I fucking hate this,” he said before I could speak. And I wasn’t sure if he was referencing our spat or his inability to walk out on it without being recognized.
“I know what you’re doing, and I’m not just going to stand here and let you push me away. You’re trying to push me away.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Why?”
“You’re a rock star—”
“I’m aperson. First and foremost. And I have feelings. And I know this career comes with a lot of baggage, but don’t write meoff just because I’m in a fucking band. It’s what I do, it’s not who I am. It doesn’t—what is it you say?—it doesn’tdefineme.
“What happened?” he asked. “It was going well.”
“It stopped being just sex.”
“It hasn’t been just sex in a long time, Solène.” His words hung there, heavy like the Miami air.
“Where are we going with this, Hayes?”
“Where do youwantto go with this?”
“Where doyouwant to go with this?”
“I want to go all the way.” In that moment he sounded so sure of himself, despite his tears. So certain of the possibility of us.
I was still. Quiet.
“You afraid?” he asked.
I nodded.
“So am I. But I’m all right with that. If I get hurt, I get hurt. It happens, right? Someone always gets hurt. But I don’t want to miss out on us because I was afraid.”
new york, ii
It started off small.
Rose’s parents would not let her come to New York for the boys’ premiere. Her father argued that she’d be missing two days of school, which was true. But I’d seen them pull her out a full week before spring break so they could make the most of their Kenyan safari, and I knew it had less to do with their concern of her being truant than my current relationship status.
On Twitter, I gained eleven new followers, none of whom I personally knew and all with anonymous handles like @Hayes_curls17 and @MarryMeCampbell. There was one random message in mynotifications from an @NakedAugustBoyz that read: “Are you the one?” And for some reason, that simple question seemed terribly intrusive, personal. As if she’d reached out from wherever she was, and touched me.
And then, on my Instagram, beneath a photo I’d posted from Miami, of one of Glen Wilson’s pieces, someone with the peculiar handle @Holiwater had posted: “Hayes?” And nothing else.
Hayes had once explained how a certain subgroup of their fandom had fantasized all these perverse relationships between the guys. “They ‘ship’ us,” he’d said. “Like they think I’m having a relationship with Oliver or Liam or Simon, and they combine our names and they invent all these scenarios, and it’s very entertaining but it’s also quite crass.” And so I knew any handle with the name “Holi” in it was a “shipper” of Hayes and Oliver.
“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard,” I’d said when he’d informed me. “Why would teenage girls fantasize about you having sex with your friends?”
“Absolutely no idea,” he’d said.
