Dreaming Of You // Harry Styles

When I woke up it was still day. I lifted my head confusedly to found Jeanne sleeping underneath me, facing down. I was drooling over her. I dully laughed. Of course I was. I straightened up carefully trying not to disturb her, but lightly caressed her back, pulling her hair aside. I stood up from bed just to look at her lying naked amidst the white sheets. She was so pale and rosy. The light coming through the windows made her appear more redhead than she truly was, and she was lacking flowers, otherwise she would had resembled some English painting I vaguely remembered.

I walked up to the fridge and examined through the shelves looking for nothing in particular, although I was a bit hungry. It was full of strange food as capers and goat cheese, pickled herring or Greek dolma. I just imagined her there, without me, eating by herself. I took a bottle of water from the door and drank half of it in a second, glancing towards the bed. Her sunflowers captured my attention along the way. They were still there as blooming as the first day. I approached them and slightly grazed their petals, leaving the bottle over the table.

As I came out of the bathroom I noticed Jeanne hadn’t awoken yet. I smiled, reminiscing the first time we slept together. It seemed like forever ago although it was just last week. And there I was. I glanced down, shaking my head ‘no.’ There were many moments on our time apart I truly doubted to be able to see her again. But why, if she was happy to see me? Maybe she confused me with mixed signals. Maybe she didn’t want to see me again but I just managed to make her change her mind one more time.

I turned towards a bookshelf and began to look at the covers. I smirked. There was ‘In Search Of Lost Time.’ I didn’t know why but, ever since she first mentioned it, just by the name it made me feel optimistic, as if time were this thing that could be somehow regained, although I knew Swann’s story was rather painful. I carried on sniffing round and found two copies of ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ one in French, and another one in English. I remembered Harry and Laila speaking about that book on the last chapter of ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ I got to read before meeting Jeanne. I grabbed the English version and opened it randomly, beginning to pass the pages back and forth. The text was outlined and full of annotations. I started to read casually. After a few sentences, one definitely caught my eye.

He was so childishly simple that he did not conceal his joy at seeing her, as if she were some summer landscape of birch trees, grass, and clouds, and could freely express his enthusiasm about her without any risk of being laughed at.

Forthwith I sensed a stabbing pain under my rib. I breathed in, astonished, and went to the first page. Boris Pasternak, Russia, 1957. A whole different world and time… How could he speak to me so directly? I continued to read some pages further.

What is truly great is without beginning, like the universe. It confronts us as suddenly as it if had always been there or had dropped out of the blue.

I stopped dead and wondered. What was actually the beginning of what Jeanne and I had? Was it Paris just a few days ago? Was it when I started reading her stories at some point of summer of 2013 in the middle of Take Me Home Tour? Was it when I began to write her two months earlier from Brazil? Was it our first meeting in London even if I didn’t remember anything about it? I felt my heart bouncing inside my chest.

She kept saying softly, ‘Do as you think best, don’t worry about me. I’ll get over it.’ She was saying it sincerely, without any false magnanimity, and as she did not know she was crying she did not wipe away her tears.

Why was I sad all of a sudden? Did it make any sense that those words were crushing me when I had all the reasons to be happy? Goddamn it, Pasternak. But beyond those feelings I was so drawn by my reading and Jeanne’s lead I carried on as if that book could give me some sort of answers I was desperate for.