After the End: Book 3

10. Discomfort

Harry's POV

It was safe to say Phoebe wasn't pleased to see me. I'd expected that, but it still sent my brain spinning. I'd always been here favorite. She had shown up for me when I was at my lowest more than once. She's forgiven me for things even when I couldn't fathom I deserved the forgiveness and now she was refusing to even look at me.

I'd expected Daisy's forgiveness. She was easy. Her heart wasn't capable of hating someone, even when they deserved it. I imagined that Louis and her both had that in common. Phoebe and him shared the spice but Daisy and him were both laced with a gentleness that got them walked on by people like me. She hadn't even sent me angry texts. Her messages had been infrequent and sad. She often told me that she was thinking about me or wanted me to know I was still cared about. It was all very tragic stuff that made me want to cry when I was drinking and unable to sleep.

Oliver didn't show any recognition for me that I could see, which actually made me want to throw up. He had meant something great to me and I had completely thrown it away. I'd walked away just like Naomi had. Louis assured me that if he had no idea who I was, he would be whining, and that his silence was a good sign. It didn't matter. I still watched as the toddler wandered the room glancing back at me occasionally while picking up toys. His hair had grown out light and wispy like Naomis, falling into his eyes. He was pushing atleast a foot and a half tall and walking which blew my mind. Last I'd seen him, he was barely standing. I had to keep reminding myself that ten months had really past. I'd really given it all up.

Walking around in the familiarity of Louis flat felt like a fever dream. I had really left. I had really been gone so long and things were so different. The pictures on the wall had just been the start of it. The toys on the floor and the evidence that teenagers lived there were new additions. The clutter and the air of emptiness were also weirdly new considering the influx of new residents. I was so used to feeling at home there, and instead I felt like I was trespassing in somebody else's unhappy family sitcom.

I didn't even want to imagine what going home to my own flat would feel like. I wasn't actually willing to wander that far yet anyways. Looking at a picture of Lux and I had almost sent me over the edge and I'd had to say something stupid about the cardigan that eventually ended up covered in her blood. I'd never seen it again after that. I regarded my flat similarly. How could I go down there and walk around and not feel like I was drowning in her? It sounded impossible.

Instead, I hovered around Daisy, letting her talk my ear off about online school and Oliver's milestones while Louis stared at me accusingly from across the room. I refused to talk about where I'd been or what I'd been doing. I didn't acknowledge mentions of Lux or Jay. I twiddled my thumbs and let Daisy talk and watched Oliver play with blocks and I tried to stop my hands from shaking.

I wanted to get high. I was trying to ignore the embarrassing urge to dive into inebriation and I was pretending that my nerves weren't on fire as they begged for poison. I didn't go out in front of others this fresh into sobriety for a reason. I just kept thinking about it and I had no clue what my next move was going to be, although I'd told Louis I was going to go ditch. I had just said that to be an asshole, but sitting and listening to Daisy felt safe so I was choosing to live in the now and ignoring the rest. I didn't have it in me to try and plan how to leave them again. I was tired and woozy and I was ignoring the way Phoebe popped her head around the corner every few minutes to stare at me as if I was likely to bolt. I was. I was a total flight risk and the way Louis sat closer to the door than the rest of us, was telling that he knew that too.

I wondered what his angle was. Was he just planning on holding me prisoner until I decided to get my shit together? I wondered if he remembered trying that for years after one direction fell apart. We'd done the back and forth game with each other from the time I was 19 until I had almost killed us at my 23rd birthday party. I had built something and watched it crumble in less time than that. My period of thriving lasted less than 2 years. My track record seriously sucked and I'd just spent 10 months proving I wasn't stable enough to be there. He couldn't trust me around the kids. He couldn't trust me for anything. Cory was scared of me. Even the hospital was now telling him not to let me out of his sight. He himself told me he didn't have time for this. What did he expect?