admiration [l.t]

xv

1 MONTH LATER

He fumbled with the buttons on his jacket as he made his way out of his dorm, waving a goodbye to his roommate. The cold, crisp air immediately hit his face as he made his way outside, forcing him to scrunch up his nose and fix the beanie over his ears. His hands automatically made their way into his jacket's pockets, trying to keep them warm.

The weather had yet to become warmer, besides last week where it got up to the 60's, snow now falling from every direction, the sky a dull gray. Small footprints were being created on the sidewalk Louis had been walking on, the sound of snow crunching below his boots.

He's leaving extra early to go to classes today, not wanting to drive on snowy roads even if they have been salted and scraped. He doesn't feel like sitting in his car while he waits for traffic to move on, silence being the only sound he's able to hear besides the radio and honking horns.

A month ago, when Carson came and picked him up off the side of the road, Louis cried himself to sleep for two days straight, and the third night he just couldn't sleep. He only stared out at the kitchen in Carson's apartment from the couch he was laying on, thinking about everything he could have done to stop Bella from slipping through his fingertips. 

It was like trying to catch a falling flake of snow. It will glimmer and it will shine, but all too son it melts between your hands, leaving you with nothing but a small trace of water, a reminder that you had come so close, but you had still failed.

He ended up staying at Carson's apartment for two whole weeks, deciding he didn't want to return to his dorm anytime soon. His best mate ended up helping him in more ways than Louis would have ever thought possible.

He had endless amounts of liquor in his fridge, which helped Louis forget on the nights when forgetting seemed like the last thing possible. He had a few of his own buddies come over to try and cheer Louis up, which sometimes would end up helping and even get him smiling. But the one thing that helped Louis the most was the weed that Carson was ever so willing to give him.

It didn't make Louis forget like the liquor did only to have him puke the next morning, it didn't make him smile for a few moments before returning to his gloomy self like Carson's mates did, it made him feel like he was floating on clouds. Like there was nothing in the world that could possibly bring him down. If he began thinking of Bella, he would heavily breathe in the intoxicating drug that immediately made him forget not only about Bella, but about himself. It helped him forget how he had fucked up and how he had ruined everything and how he had a report due the next day.

He was forgetting.

The third week Louis was still smoking the weed, but he finally returned to his dorm deciding that he needed to get over himself, like Bella had told him to. There were a few days when his roommate would walk in and complain about the smoke floating around the room and about the smell that wouldn't go away for days because of how much he was smoking, but then there were also days when he would join Louis without any complaints.

Louis was happy. Louis was forgetting.

And now, as he's walking to class, he hasn't smoked a joint in the past two days. He thought that when he decided to take a break, which hasn't been easy at all, that thoughts of Bella would once again flood his brain and he would once again drown in the flowing reminders. But that hasn't been the case at all. He's forgetting, even if it is in the unhealthiest way possible.

He's walking in tune with the music blasting through his head phones, sometimes bobbing his head to the music, but finding it too cold to even move that much. There are only a few students actually walking to classes today, most of them just driving their cars or even skipping, not wanting to endure the below freezing temperatures.

Louis definitely thinks that he should be skipping right now, and instead be getting high, but he has work later today, and he had been calling in sick a lot lately, and he can't lose this job. This job, believe it or not, is the one thing that's actually keeping him sane.

He looks at all the love stories piled around the store and realizes that the main character didn't need him to be happy or that he was better off when she cheated on him and left him for someone richer and that the story line with the two getting married happily ever after is completely unrealistic.

All the stories somehow related back to his and Bella's relationship, and somehow made everything alright.

When he finally reached the building his class was in, he began to walk faster, desperately wanting to get to the air conditioning inside. Once finally making it inside and into a class, he took off his jacket and leaned back in his chair, not really caring to pay attention to the lesson today, or any lesson from here on out in fact.

An hour passed when the professor finally released all the students. Well, he didn't exactly release Louis, someone had to wake him up and tell him that class had finally ended. Louis thanked him with a smile.

Everything was alright.

He made his way back to his dorm to find his roommate gone but a small note on the dresser.

don't do anything stupid –j

Louis only scoffed and went to one of his drawers to pull out a joint, not caring anymore that he has work later today and that he could possibly lose his job if he shows up high.

When he goes to open the drawer he hid his stash in, he finds a book sitting on the counter that wasn't there before. Obviously curious and a little stunned, he grabs the book and flips through the pages, a small note falling out of it.

When turning the book back over to its cover, Louis' already feels tears beginning to form in his eyes once again. Tears that have been hidden away for the past three weeks, tears he has managed to keep down, tears that were finally gone because he had forgotten.

Throwing the book onto his bed in pain, Louis stares at it like it's the most deadly thing on earth. In a way, though, it is, because that book is her. That's the book that brought her to him. That's the book that started everything. That's the book that is now ending it.

Looking down at the note that was now being stepped on by his left boot, Louis leans down and picks it up, unfolding the paper and looking at the message it contained.

I decided it would be best to give this back to you, since I actually finished it. Who would have thought right?

But no, she was wrong. She didn't need to give this back to him, in fact he didn't even want it. He was finally forgetting, he was finally beginning to realize that she moved on, everything was beginning to be okay.

He didn't want to backtrack in his happiness, so he did the only thing he could think of doing. He ripped up the note and threw it in his trash, before grabbing the book and also ripping that up.

Every page he tore, every crease he created in the pages resembled exactly what she had done to his heart the day he walked out her dorm. He was screaming in fury, knowing that those walking around in the hallway could probably hear him, but he didn't care. He was forgetting.

He bit his lip and he strained his muscles and he just couldn't help but scream as he continued to tear at the book. But before long he found himself crying as he ripped the pages, tears now falling freely from his eyes as his tearing became weaker and his crying became louder. He fell to the floor in a broken mess, pieces of pages crowding around him. His hands made their way to his face, where he couldn't help but continuously mumble her name into his hands.

He can't forget.