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

16

Later that day, after a few hours of not sleeping and a couple more of conflicting thoughts and aimless staring, Harry had one of those godforsaken realisations.

Harry realised, in a blood-curdling and gun-shot sounding moment, that he was really fucking angry.

Red bled into his vision, replacing the dreary tinge that veiled the atmosphere before. He could feel a prickling spread over the top of his shoulders and invade the pores of his neck. His ears burnt with something of a similar, dangerous colour, and the corners of his eyes twitched uncertainly. His fingers clenched into a fist and his nails dug into the flesh, holding no regards for the thin skin. His head hit off the window as he threw it back. A dull ache set upon melding itself to the bone of Harry’s skull. He growled in frustration.

Harry was fuming.

The flimsy slip of paper that was imprinted with Harry’s fingerprints lay innocently on the pillow. His fingers twitched in the urge to rip it up into little pieces until the important words were no longer shreds of disjointed sentences. Alas, Harry did still have some common sense, and so could not bring himself to destroy the last piece of Louis that was lying on his bed.

Louis. Yes, that was who Harry was angry with. Louis. The boy who had been there, but was now gone. The boy who had roped Harry in without consent and smothered him in all of his flamboyant glory. The boy who had made Harry feel something.

Harry hated him, he decided. He hated Louis’ guts for leaving him without even a mere goodbye. He hated him for lying to him. He hated him for pretending that he was going to stay. He hated him for his stupid smile and his evil blue eyes. He hated him for wangling his way into Harry’s life without even an invitation. He hated him for making an impact. 

And he hated him for being so Goddamn loveable. 

Harry understood why he did not let on that he was going to leave, he really did. But pretending that he did not understand made it easier to be angry at Louis, rather than down the path his fury seemed to be heading. Louis did not want anything to change, and that was fair enough, because it would have if Harry was told. But Harry wished he had had some kind of hint. Any type of inkling would have stopped him from getting himself into the mess that he had become, all in the space of a few hours.

If, if, if. If this, if that. So many ‘if’ questions circulated his head. If he had done something different, would Louis still be here? If he had not had a ‘realisation’, per se, the night before, would he have cared so much? What if Louis had stayed? Would he have resented Harry for it? Would they have carried on just as normal?

But there were no answers. Zilch. Zero. None at all. There never would be any answers, and the only ones that were to be conjured up would be that of a conspiracy and nothing as exact as the solid truth. The questions were useless without an answer, but they still made their bed in Harry’s mind, just for old time’s sake.

Harry’s anger was still roaring through his body. He glanced around the van, seeing remnants of Louis everywhere. Harry wanted to splash them all with acid, burn them down into a powder which he could stamp on and wash away into the sewers. The note, though, would stay untouched. Harry wanted to keep it, as if it were a curse. He wanted that curse to overpower him before it was too late, before his anger turned sideways and fell into the wrong hands. He knew that the curse would feel a lot better than what was to come.

As Harry read over the note once again, he could not help but notice his anger simmering, somewhat. It was expected that his anger would peak with every scratch of ink on the paper, but that seemed not to be the case. With every word came a splutter of water, not a puff of oxygen. It calmed down the burning flames in the centre of his chest, first, the source of the mind-decapitating feeling.