Don't be Happier

Chapter three

As soon as Louis gets back to his room, he undresses and goes to the shower. He feels the hot, so hot water falling on his shoulders and the tension drifting away from his muscles. He doesn't even realise he's crying until he starts sobbing. You see, he feels guilty. He feels guilty because Harry isn't the reason why his panic attacks started to happen. That goes way back to 2016, when his mother passed away. She used to be the one Louis confided to, the one he talked to whenever he felt his world was falling apart.

Harry wasn't the reason, but seeing him was a trigger.

Inside his mind, the man wants to go to his old friend, tell him that he isn't the reason, that he shouldn't feel guilty, that things shouldn't be this way. That he misses him way too much. But he doesn't.

Instead, Louis lays in bed with no clothes on, how he usually sleeps, and drifts off in a couple of minutes.

-x-

It's 9am when he wakes up. He yawns and reaches for his phone. The thoughts of what happened last night come hitting a couple minutes later, when he sees a group one of his old classmates created on iMessage. Once a mess, always a mess. It reads.

He hates how he can easily relate to the title.

There are twenty messages he already hasn't read, but one of one is from Harry and that's what kind of makes him roll his eyes and throw his phone at the end of the bed, sticking his face on the nearest pillow and screaming.

Louis takes five minutes to get ready. He only throws on a beige sweater, black skinny jeans and his black vans. His phone rings.

"Hey, mate," Zayn says from the other side of the line. "Feeling better?" He asks.

The older man groans ignoring his question. "Is brekkie still going on?"

He can hear his friend sighing. "Yeah, was calling to come down," and before Louis can say anything he goes on "look, Lou, if it's too much we can go home," he says and the older one can sense how worried he sounds.

If panic attacks are bad for Louis himself, he can only imagine it isn't good for his best mates to see him going through it.

"I'm fine," Louis tells him, "was just in shock, too nervous. Be there in 5," and turns off the call.

-x-

When he reaches the small room that is holding breakfast, the first thing he does is look for the not so long anymore hair of his. The second is realise he's doing it and shaking his thoughts away. He walks to the table and puts his phone there.

"Morning, lads," he says and everyone turns to look at him.

"Morning, man," Luke says, "disappeared last night, huh? You've always been the weakest drinker," he plays, winking at him.

Louis rolls his eyes. "Yeah, sure thing."

He looks around again. Okay, so he isn't there.

Louis grabs an orange juice and a bowl of cereal and puts some milk in it, goes back to the table and starts eating. Can't help but feel a little antsy, worried about him and where he might be. Slowly, everyone starts to say their "see you soon"'s and leave the table. That happens until Louis is alone with Liam and Zayn, who stare at him like he's sick or something.

Without even looking up from his phone he speaks up just as Liam's is about to say something. "I swear to fucking God if anyone asks me if I'm fine one more time I'll slap both of you."

Zayn laughs. "You're an ass, Lou."

"We're just worried," Liam carries on.

Louis puts his phone back on the table and looks up at them. "Mom, dad, I'm fine, you can go have sex now."