"I Will Always" » Zarry* ⚠ ✅

👸🏽 12: terrifying

"How many red ornaments do you want on the tree?" Liam asks as he hangs one on a tree branch.

Louis looks up in confusion.

"How many? I'm not counting. I just want them spaced with the gold ones I already put up."

"Oh."

"Are you counting?"

"Uhm... I know I've hung eleven so far. So yes."

When Louis laughs, Liam smiles too.

"You find that funny?"

"A little bit. I've never met a man who counts the ornaments they put on a tree."

"Because you never met me."

"Obviously. That makes you quite strange."

"Kind of. It also makes me a father. One of my twins. Margie. She's fifteen. She has this thing with numbers and counting in everything she does. It's called Arithromania. And so every year we would count the ornaments on the tree. The same number. Forty seven every year, no matter what colors."

"Why forty seven?"

"Who knows? It's just a number she picked when she was nine and she stuck with it. But I think it means something special to her."

Louis smiles. "She sounds adorable."

"She is. And she's my eldest daughter by the way. So you know she makes her youngest sisters follow her lead. Even Suzie, who's only three minutes younger."

Louis watches the way Liam talks about his daughters. There is such joy in his face that even he is adorable. Now he knows where Margie gets it from.

"I know you miss them very much. Especially now that the holidays are back around."

He nods. "I do."

"Do you have plans to see them?"

He thinks for a moment then shakes his head. "Nah... I'm not gonna do that. Not yet."

"Why not?" But then Louis catches himself. "Nevermind. That's not my business."

"No. You already know. I told you about showing up to work drunk that time."

"Yeah."

"Well, that wasn't the first time drinking caused a rift. My daughters saw me drunk a few times before that. I wasn't irate or abusive or anything. But it's just the idea, you know. Your kids having to see that. They shouldn't have to. And when I showed up to work like that, it was the last straw for Suzan. She took the kids and left."

He hangs another ornament.

"I'm not an alcoholic and I don't have problems with alcohol. Each time I got drunk, I literally forced myself because I knew it was the only real relief for the shitty situation I was in. So once my family left, I knew I had to stop doing that and face reality."

"That you lost your job and now your family too because of the choices you made."

"Yep."

"So... the reason why you don't want to see your daughters is because you're ashamed of what happened? You know, that your daughters ever saw you like that?"

He nods. "Yeah. The last time they saw me in person, I was a sad drunk. But when I video chat them, it's like I'm not me. I'm someone different. I'm the old me before I quit that accounting job and dug myself into a hole with Harry."

"Right."

"So video chatting is enough for me for now. I'm good with that until I get things together."