St. Ambrose Mental Health and Rehabilitation Center //// AU LiLo

Chapter 52: Boo Bear

It was difficult for Louis, finding the strength to walk his mother out that night. He'd only just got her back and was nowhere near ready to let her go again. Louis didn't know how to say goodbye to her.

"The girls made me promise I'd be back for presents in the morning," Jay says as they come to a stop by the main doors.

"I get it," Louis says, giving her a sad smile. "You should be with them on Christmas."

"I should be with all of my children on Christmas."

Louis looks down at his feet, scuffing his shoes against the freshly waxed linoleum floor. "Maybe next year."

"I hope you'll be back before then, you're doing so well."

Louis tilts his head in confusion. "Back?"

"When you're released," Jay says. "Unless you weren't planning on coming home."

Louis can see the sadness flood his mother's eyes and it knocks him back a step, forcing him to use the wall for support. He really wishes Liam was there instead of back in their room where he chose to stay to give Louis and his mother a private goodbye. Liam would know what to say, he'd know how not to break Jay's heart.

"I-I didn't think it was an option," Louis says quietly, his voice coming out strained and hoarse.

"Lou, you know you always have a place at home."

Louis squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head against the wave of emotions threatening to pull him under. "No, Mum, I didn't know that. I haven't heard from you in over a year. No visits, no phone calls, not even a letter, I wasn't allowed to reach out to you. I didn't expect for you to ever want me home again."

"You're my son, I've always loved you-."

"I never doubted that," Louis interrupts. "I understood why you didn't want me around the girls. I even got why you couldn't come by, caught up with raising them. It was you that I couldn't make sense of. Why I couldn't call you, why you never sent anything. This is the third birthday I've had here, Mum, I gave up."

Jay was crying now, a steady stream of tears flowing down her face. It was breaking Louis's heart to watch it, he had wanted to hug her tight and send her off not make her cry. Lord knows he's already caused enough of her tears.

"Mum, I'm sorry," Louis pleads. "I'm not trying to hurt you."

"I know," Jay says, pulling him in tight only to cry even harder when he embraces her in return. "I'm the one that's sorry, love. I didn't mean to make you feel abandoned. I just wanted you to get the help you needed, Lou, and if I had kept in contact I would've brought you back home the first time you asked. I wasn't strong enough to come out every weekend just to leave you here and if I had heard you crying or begging on the phone I would've been on the first train out, just like the last time."

"I'm not angry with you," Louis says, gently wiping the tears from his mother's face. "I couldn't be when all of this has been my fault, when I see how much I've put you through."

"I wouldn't trade you for the world," Jay promises, coaxing a small smile out of Louis.

"Mum, Li and I, we've made plans. He wants to go to Uni in London and I'm meant to be wherever he is."

"You're going to Uni?"

Louis chuckles at the poorly veiled shock in his mother's voice. "Not at all. I'll find a job, do what I can to help him through school."

"You're more than capable of helping yourself through it," Jay gently scolds.

"You sound just like him, Mum. I can't have you two gaining up on me now."