Hollow - LS

18| Sorry

18| Sorry

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"Keep searching for the colors when everything turns gray."

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Sorry

Adjective

Feeling distress, especially through sympathy with someone else's misfortune.

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What comes out at first is a babbled mess. But thankfully, Harry doesn't say anything and lets him go through whatever he was trying to say until what he is saying becomes clearer.

"M-My mother was angry when I came home, and even angrier when she realized it was you I was hanging out with. I'm not sure why though." He shrugs, because he doesn't know why. "But she was mad that I didn't text her to let her know and even more mad that I decided to hang out with someone she barely knows. She called me stupid for that, and told me that we can't hang out anymore other than at the support group meetings." He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and looks up to see Harry nodding.

Nodding like he doesn't care about what his mother said about them hanging out.

"I meant it when I said it." He reasons. "We can't hang out."

"I don't care." Harry replies. "Meet me at the playground tonight."

"But my mother said-"

Harry interrupts him. "I said, I don't care." He shakes his head, staring at him with intense green eyes. "Now, I will be there later. But will you?"

Louis knows that he shouldn't, but he can't stop his brain from letting his head nod. And that response makes Harry smile. And Louis decides right there that he would go through this all over again to see that smile. Because before they were short and small smiles, this one was a genuine one. One that made Louis suck in a breath because he couldn't believe it. Or takes his eyes off of it.

"See you later, Lou."

-

It was almost too easy to get to the playground that night.

It was Wednesday, which meant that his mother was going out with friends for their weekly hang out. Each time, they did something different, but this time Eleanor's mother was going to be there. And his mother told him that she would put in a good word for him. Even though he didn't ask for it.

At the moment, he decided to say something and said that she didn't have to do that, but she quickly shut him down with the "what are mother's for" talk with the matching "don't say anything else" look.

So, she left with the focus on him, and he slipped out the front door. He arrived at the playground a little while later, and bundled up the jacket he was wearing around him because he was cold. When he saw the playground a few feet away, he could already see Harry sitting there waiting.

"Sorry I'm late." He says, taking a seat next to him. Louis wasn't actually sure if he was late because he hadn't looked at his phone and they didn't necessarily agree to a time, but he figured it was when it got dark like the times during the support group meeting. The only thing they did agree on was that they would be meeting today and tonight.

"I thought you weren't going to show up." Harry muttered, digging his shoe across the dirt.

"I almost didn't." He said honestly. But after he left Harry at the grocery store, he was walking home and felt lighter than he felt the day before. And when he got home to see his mother, for a split second he wondered what it would be like to see Harry later. And that's when he realized he was excited at the idea of meeting up with him that night, and that his mind already decided before his heart did. And he also needed some information on something else. "But I needed to know something."

"What?" Harry turned, looking at him for the first time.

Louis turned to look at him. "How you feel about the situation. I know that it's my mother telling me what to do and who I should hang out with, but you are still included somehow in this." He shrugged, looking away. "You haven't mentioned how you feel about this."

"So?" Somehow, that one word seemed to bother Louis.

"You just appear so unaffected by this." He shrugs.

"You think I'm unaffected by this?" Harry chuckled darkly. "You think I like the fact that for the first time I actually find someone to hang out with, and then it gets taken away by someone who doesn't even know me? By someone who thinks I'm unworthy to hang out with her son, when she hasn't even spent a few minutes talking to me. I'm hurt by this, of course I am, but I'm more hurt by you."

"Why?" Louis asked, confused.

Was he hurt over how Louis reacted towards the situation? Did he not understand that this was his mother and not some random person dictating his life? That he wished he could say something?

"I'm hurt over how normal you think this is." He says, raising his arms in defeat. "How you think your mother treats you is normal-"

"I know this isn't normal." He muttered, looking away. And somewhere deep inside him, he knew that the way his mother treated him and raised him wasn't normal nor was it natural. It was almost like she didn't have a maternal bone in her body.

"Then you should talk to her about it." Harry says, looking over at him.

"I-I can't." He mumbles.

"You can, Lou." Harry says softly.

Louis sighs, like he is tired from the whole situation. "Then what should I say?"

"How you really feel." Harry said.

Louis sighed again, his eyes closing for a brief second. "I'll let you know how it goes then." He sighs again like the decision is final, even though he knows that he won't be saying anything.

"Are you kidding?" Harry scrunched his eyebrows together. "I'm coming with you."