Louis Tomlinson is a train wreck. That is a way of putting it lightly. His whole world is a vast blur of darkness and bad decisions. It doesn't matter how many times he decides he's done, he always falls back in, because darkness is tricky like that for him. Louis wants for nothing—has everything he could ever ask for really, but it's all nothing. Maybe he needs to be rescued—maybe he can't be rescued. No one knows, least of all, Louis.
Years ago he'd read a Stephen King novel with the line hello, darkness, my old friend, repeated endlessly through it from start to finish. This he can agree with. This he understands, because his own life is the same way. It's so easy to slip back into darkness when it's kind of all he's ever known. So it's become his mantra. He greets the darkness when it comes, because it's the only constant he's known. He's accepted it for what it is.
Nearly four years ago, when he was just sixteen, was the first time he'd decided that he was done. He was ready to beg his mother for a way out, but she'd stopped noticing that he needed help. For the second time in Louis's life, she'd let her new boyfriend, new kids, eclipse Louis. Maybe he should learn to accept these things. He supposed, if he'd had a child like himself, he'd probably want to keep trying until he got it right. Until he was able to prove to himself that he could do it right, despite the one glaring example of imperfection he was forced to stare at every day.
Louis was born into excess, that much is true. His grandfather was the most wealthy person in Doncaster. He owned real estate across the town and some kind of international mining company that Louis didn't have a real clue about. All he knew was that money had never been an object. His grandfather gave them everything, doting on his daughterand grandchildren excessively. Louis had honestly never known what it was like to really want something, because his every whim was always met.
Louis' mum was only 19 when she'd had him. His father was just some guy who was in it for the money. He left before Louis could really remember. Which, maybe isn't the most remarkable story in the world. Plenty of people had dead-beat dads. That didn't really explain how Louis became the way he was. It wasn't a very good excuse. Then again, Louis never tried to make excuses.
When he was five, his mother got married and changed his last name to match her new one. Louis didn't mind his step-father. He wasn't inherently a bad person, but he'd stolen his mother. That was pretty unforgivable if Louis was honest. When his first sister was born, that's when things got bad. Louis was pushed into the background, a left over from his mother's former life. A constant reminder of the mistakes that she'd made as a teenager. He didn't fit in with the picture that Mark and his mother were trying to paint. So they pushed him back and kept replacing him with sister after sister until there was four of them and they outnumbered his mum's past. They gave Louis every single thing he asked for aside from their attention and affection. He'd never fit in. He'd never really been a Tomlinson, despite his name. Lottie, Fizzy, Daisy and Phoebe? They were Tomlinsons. They were sisters, same mum, same dad. They were born into a life where, even as things fell apart, they were sisters. They always had each other. They never paid much attention to their old brother. No one did.
And then, about four years ago, his mother left Mark and married Dan. It all happened really quick. Louis was sixteen, and he was really starting to fall apart. He was on drugs—so many drugs—and he was scared and lonely and the people surrounding him were probably just there because he had the money to support their habits. He wanted help. He wanted out. He wanted someone to love him unconditionally, but his mother had all but forgotten him. Again, she pushed him aside and brought another set of twins into the world. They took up everyone's time. Lottie, Fizzy Daisy and Phoebe were all obsessed. No one noticed just how lost Louis had become.
