Insatiably You | l.s.

Chapter 17

Louis' POV:

Why provide comfort and kindness? Why bare your soul to someone, giving them access to your weakness and innermost secrets, allowing them to trample all over it? Why give trust that forms love which inevitably leads to heartache, grief and suffering? Why do all this when you could just protect yourself behind your walls? Why do this, just because he has a pretty face? 

Just because he was wounded and beaten. Just because he's delicate like a flower which needs protecting and just because he's so much like him, it doesn't mean these walls need to be crumpled. If it's anything they need to be rebuilt stronger and taller.

It's been over six years, yet every time I close my eyes I remember that night. Every time I go to bed I remember the memories we made and every time I see a gardenia I remember his smile.

Every moment that passes makes me miss him worse, and every breath I take it's now for the two of us. Every moment I live, every memory I make will always be for him. They will always be for Brendan. 

Everything I do is for him and him alone. No one will ever replace him nor will they come close to it. 

He was my best friend, my soulmate and my escape. He knew me better than anyone did and I thought I knew him the same, until one day I found out I really didn't. Until one day he left me all alone.

There is nothing I will regret more than that. Nothing I will regret more than not knowing. And nothing that will make me stop hating Mark for his role in it all. 

If he had just told me things could have been different. If Mark wasn't such a coward, maybe then, every time I opened my bedroom door I wouldn't have seen Harry, but him instead. 

Maybe then, every time I looked at Harry I wouldn't have been searching for similarities and clinging to them, but instead appreciating Harry for who he really was, and not who he reminded me of.

Above all, if Mark had told me, maybe then, every time I got too close to Harry I wouldn't feel as though I was relapsing and closer to drowning. 

I wouldn't feel like suffocating every time I saw the similar thick brown hair and coloured eyes. I wouldn't feel like dying when I saw that same innocence and goodness which was inevitably ruined for both of them. I wouldn't feel like crying every time Harry made me feel anything close to what Brendan did, (even if those feelings for Harry, were only out of foolish lust.) And most importantly, I wouldn't feel like lashing out at Harry every time he made me momentarily forget Brendan, as I knew, if Mark had told me what was actually going on with him, he wouldn't have left me all alone.

However, while I knew these things, I also know that no matter how badly I just wanted to leave Harry to fend for his own, I couldn't. 

I wouldn't make the same mistake again no matter how hard it is for me. I would be there for Harry since I couldn't for Brendan, even if it was slowly killing me by doing this. 

I need to be strong for Harry. 

I can't break down and cry even though I want to rip out my heart and burn it, due to their similarities and how much it physically pains me to be in Harry's presence. I can't let him see how much everything is affecting me. I can't let him know that every time I asked about his well-being mine was slowly dying on the inside. I can't let him know that I needed to start therapy again because of him. And I can't let him see that every time I try to forget my past and just be there for him (like I tried to do this evening and the ones following that Thursday) there is always going to be something coming back to haunt me. Always something and someone trying to reclaim their possession of me.