Heartbreaker ~ Larry Stylinson {English}

87. Lost

~ Pov Louis ~ 

My leg taps up and down. The seconds hand seems to be lagging behind. My hands hold each other, as if they have no one else. "Louis." 

"Hmm?" I look up at Marie who's sitting in front of me. Again, as always, she's holding her little brown book with a pen. 

"You were saying you were with Harry last week." I nod. "And then you stopped. Did something happen?" 

"Kind of." 

"Will you tell me?" 

"I asked him to show me the tapes." She seems startled, the writing stops. "The tapes of the bet." My leg starts ticking harder, the seconds hand loses. 

"Did he still have them?" I shake my head. "No. Not him, but a friend- Ex-friend of his, Luke. Harry got them from him after I insisted."

"I have to be honest, Louis. I didn't expect you to want to see them so soon." 

"I didn't think I'd ever want to see them, but there's something I've been dragging along for weeks. Something heavy. And every time I'm with Harry, it comes up. Every time again, every time heavier. Until then at some point I wouldn't get out of it. Those tapes, the bet, it's something that's been dragging me around for months. And the last few weeks I've spent with Harry... It's like I wanted to get rid of that heavy feeling. I can't explain it. I don't understand it myself. It seemed like that was what got in the way. I had to be able to close it and put it behind me before starting again."

"With him?" For the first time in the half hour I've been sitting here, I look at her. 

"Yes. Is that strange? That I want that? That I want him..." 

"No. Of course that's not strange, Louis. People who are made for each other always find their way back to each other." I smile. 

"Maybe that's what I'm afraid of. That we won't find each other again, that we are lost and will never be found again. That after everything, we weren't made for each other after all." 

"It's okay to be afraid and to doubt. Figure it out at your pace. But don't let your fears win you over. That's the only way you're lost."

Marie puts her pen down. "How did you feel watching the tapes? Disgust? Shame? Relief?" I shrug and frown softly. 

"It was strange to see it. I felt the pain again, but it seemed to gradually ease as the hatred and disgust started to go away." 

"What did you feel afterwards?"

"Something else." 

"What was it?" 

"I felt..." I sigh and shake my head. "This is so embarrassing." Marie smiles at me, tries to reassure me. 

"Everything you say is confidential. I'm not going to judge you. We're all human, Louis. We all feel things that we don't want to or can't stop. You can tell me." I look at the ground. 

"I felt excited." 

"Okay, tell me a little more about that." 

"As I started to look at the video more, I realized how appealing it was to see him, me- Us like that. That way. So intimate."

She crosses one leg over the other. "I don't think it's strange, Louis. It's completely normal. I think you're trying to replace your bad experiences with cameras and tapes with something good. Or in your case, something exciting. But I also think it's good to communicate with him about that, to tell him how you feel about it." 

"Maybe, I don't know." 

"Of course you can always experiment with yourself before you do something with him." I stop her by closing my eyes and raising my hands. 

"I don't want to talk about that," I laugh. 

"Okay okay, good. But think about it." 

"I will do that." She smiles.

"There's one more thing I want to say." Marie looks at me expectantly and I sigh. "I've forgiven him..." 

"Did you really? Or did you say that so he wouldn't feel bad?" 

"Both. I really mean it. I want to put it behind me and forgive doesn't mean forget, it will always be something that I carry with me deep inside. But I'm learning to live with it. And I want him to too. He struggles still with himself, about what he did. He can't forgive himself, so I took the first step." I sigh. "What happened is bad, but I think we have both suffered long enough. He has suffered long enough. I don't want to suffer anymore, I don't want him to do that. Life is way too short for that. If we spend all our time hating people and taking revenge, where do we land? Nowhere. I don't want to be nowhere. I want to be with him."