Don't Pester The Ski Patrol • L.S.

16

There's no changing things now. I'm going to have to go back to the Hills to develop whatever product Johannah has in mind for me, meaning my media relevancy is going to skyrocket, and I'm guaranteed to never get to be anonymous like I so desire. As much as I'd rather cut off my hands and feet at the bone instead of this, I think about what I'm protecting, and it feels worth it.

As much as doing a product line makes me want to drop dead, I couldn't let that picture get out. I know Harry hates me now, but that doesn't mean I can let him be the subject of harassment - yes, harassment. I know exactly how it would go if that picture came out: Every press outlet, media office, and fan account will not rest until they uncover Harry and Prairie's identities, and he will be relentlessly taunted until they get something new to talk about. It would ruin his life if the media found out about us. I refuse to be the thing that does that to him, not while he's sober and trying his best to be a good dad.

I have decided to go to Harry's lodge again to set things straight. I'm going to tell him I'm sorry for everything I've done, and that I'm leaving and he never has to worry about seeing me again. I shouldn't have gotten as close to him as I did, and I definitely shouldn't have hoped we would somehow be together. That was foolish; a little boy's dream.

I can't quite afford to dream like that. I'm setting myself up to be let down.

Well, it's a good thing I know how to turn on being a drone-dead celebrity by flipping a switch in the middle of my brain. I'm going to use the last of my emotion to give Harry a proper exit, and then next week I'll go back to the worst version of myself. The version that everybody finds the most alluring.

So it fucking goes.

There's a tiny sprite flying around in the emptiness of my skull that tells me I'm being dramatic and that Harry was one of the only people that adored a more authentic version of myself, but I can't think like that or I'll cry. I have to just get out of his life and let him live his life up here on this mountain. I've taken up too much space in his world, and the right thing to do is get out and leave the space for someone who isn't what I am. Don't feel sad for me, because it's fine. It is what it is. I'll get over it.

(Or I'll die trying.)

I get to his lodge a little after 9PM so that Prairie is most likely asleep and I can talk to him privately. This is cowardly of me; I know I owe her a goodbye as well, and it destroys me to not give her one. I just don't even know what I would say to her, and I don't want to walk into his house and defy his feelings towards me by talking to his daughter. To me, it feels inappropriate. Perhaps this is wrong; I can't think about it much longer.

I knock on the door timidly, deciding I shouldn't just barge in with how things were the last time we talked. The thinness of these old wooden walls allows me to hear some shuffling, and then the floor creaking. I get an awful wave of trepidation as I am anticipating the worst.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when Harry opens the door and immediately takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

He's fucking kissing me. There's no way in hell this is happening. Maybe he's confused me for a new lover he's taken on in the past forty-eight hours that is just as handsome and far from notorious. There is no part of me that feels I am worth the warmth of his pulchritudinous mouth on mine.

I step back from him slightly and carefully so that he doesn't think I don't want to be kissed. "Harry, I -" I begin, but he stops me.

"Please, Louis." He tells me breathlessly. "I argue with everyone else in my life constantly. I don't want to have to argue with you, too. I don't like to argue. I'm so tired."