And Now A Piece Of Me Is A Piece Of The Beach || larry stylinson

11

🌊

And then. Well, then things started to shift a little. Harry only vaguely realised that factor, wishing himself to be none-the-wiser on the subject. Other than surfing and getting high every Friday, it would be wrong to say that his life was not somewhat mundane. So the change in perspective upon seeing that, hey, maybe things were not all that lazy, was a little disconcerting.

He was surfing, at the time. Of course he was. The sky was a little brighter that early morning, and the air felt crisper. Harry breathed in deeply, his senses being overtaken by the fresh air and the sea salt. It made his head feel light, like there something had slipped through his ear and intoxicated his mind. There was an orange glow hazing around the bone of his skull, a colour that diffused into a lemon yellow. Inside, it smelt like honeysuckle and lilac. The waves that lapped against his waist were not strong enough to pull him away from his euphoria-doused mind.

What it all added up to was happiness.

It may have seemed cheesy or corny, but it was true. It was true, and Harry really could not believe it. Of course he had been happy in his lifetime; the feeling was not one that he hardly every felt. But it did not seem to fade away as he strode through his simple life, and that was the difference. It stayed with him, like a limpet suckered to the rock. This so called happiness was, hypothetically, a limpet. And yet Harry was not adverse to that. In fact, he thought he could get used to it.

But what caused the limpet to choose Harry, to choose his bony structure and fragile skin, was the question. ‘Why me? Why now?’, was what he asked the sea that day. It took its time to reply, pondering over his ambiguous questions whilst he caught a few consecutive waves. A trill ran up his spine as he did so. The wind’s fingers were carding through his hair caringly, and the water’s force felt like kitten licks gracing the little exposed skin. Another surfer was further down the beach, waxing up his board and readying himself for the English waters. Harry wondered if he spoke to the sea, too. But then he realised that the sea was different for every single person, and that one voice of guidance came in a different form for each. Even if the true meaning of the man’s life was the sea, it would never be the same as Harry’s. It acted differently with everyone, and Harry was more than satisfied with the deal that he had been given.

Finally, the ocean seemed to have thought up its answer. It spoke in such a soft voice, whispers coming off every roll of its lapping tongues:

Because he was allowing it.

Harry was allowing himself to feel such a way. He was not holding back, nor was he pushing it. He did not feel guilty for being in such a joyous mood; he just simply let it be. What made it easier was having other people to bask in it with him, to carry him through it. Of course, there were Nick, and Lou, and Tom, and all the others, but there was one in particular who seemed to like swimming in it the most.

That Coffee Blue eyed barista.

He thrived in other people’s happiness. It was what he lived for. He wanted to make people happy, and when he did, he would live in it with them. And Harry seemed to be his next target. He was in the firing line for his enthralling, happiness-filled bullets. Of course, some of those bullets were a little off and caused the opposite effect for a short while, but Louis fixed it straight away.

The thing that was most worrying, Harry thought as he trawled out of the water, was that he knew that it would not last forever, and he did not want to become dependent upon it. His oath to never get attached to anything other than the sea still stood high and tall, and he was not going to let himself forget it.

Louis was sitting on the sand, far enough away so that he was not on the damp sand, but close enough so that Harry could see his cheery smile. Harry spotted a fluffy, grey ball curled up under his arm, and one of Louis’s hands lying over it. It was fairly obvious what (or who) it was, especially because Louis was talking animatedly to it with that (adorable) expression on his face that he only adorned when it came to-