The Tour Diaries 《》 N.H.

August 25, 2013
The Same Sadness, Just Louder

NOTES APP — 7:42 PM
I don’t think I belong here.
But I never think I belong anywhere.

Brooklyn, New York — Barclays Center — 2013 VMAs

I take another sip of champagne I don’t want.

The room is too loud. Too bright. Too full of people who talk in circles and smile too wide and laugh just a little too hard.

Ed throws an arm around me, grinning. “Have I told you yet that you look fucking fantastic?”

I roll my eyes. “Only twice.”

“Then I’ll say it a third time. You look fucking fantastic.”

He means it, and I know he does. And I try to believe it, I do. But the mirror in my hotel room told a different story. One where my lipstick was too red, my dress didn’t fit right, and my hair wasn’t falling the way I wanted it to.

“You nervous?” Taylor asks, sliding up beside me.

I shrug. “Nah.”

She gives me a look. “Liar.”

I huff. “Fine. Maybe a little.”

She just squeezes my wrist and steals my glass of champagne.

The thing is, I know how to play this part. The industry darling, the cool girl, the one who belongs in this room.

But I also know that later, when the lights dim and the afterparties start, I won’t want to be here at all.

And maybe that’s why, when I spot Niall across the room, I stop pretending.

---

WHATSAPP CHAT LOG — 9:16 PM

Niall: You looked at me.

Hailey: No I didn’t.

Niall: You did.

Hailey: And what if I did?

Niall: Then come outside.

---

Brooklyn, New York — A Sidewalk That Feels Too Familiar

I don’t know why I listen.

Why I slip out the side entrance and into the night like it’s last summer all over again.

Like I haven’t spent months trying to unlearn the way he makes me feel.

He’s leaning against a wall, hands in his pockets, looking at me like he already knows I was going to come.

And maybe he did.

Maybe I did, too.

I stop a few steps away. “Hey.”

His lips twitch. “Hey.”

We don’t say anything else for a long time.

Just stand there, watching each other, letting the city hum around us.

And then—

“Come with me,” he says.

And I do.

---

NOTES APP — 12:14 AM
This isn’t new.
This isn’t special.
This isn’t anything I haven’t done before.

New York City — His Hotel Room

It’s messy, the way it always used to be.

Like a habit I can’t quit. Like the coke. Maybe that's why I do drugs, it reminds me of Niall.