Epiphany.
Louis got in the backseat of the car as Angus pulled out on to the road. He sat there staring at the front of the car, feeling everything and nothing all at once. So it was over. It was done. Yet it didn't feel better. It didn't feel as if their ties had been broken once and for all. He didn't feel any relief. Louis didn't feel unattached from Harry, if anything he felt even more attached to him. He still felt him on his skin, the sweat from their love making still clinging to his body and Harry's smell was on him, in him and all around him. He closed his eyes and felt Harry beneath him, in his arms, his warm tender flesh giving over to him, Harry's body accepting him inside of him and Louis wanted to cry. He hardly cared that Craig had come to the apartment when he had. It didn't matter now. Nothing mattered now anyway. For all Louis cared, Craig could do whatever the fuck he wanted. Having lost Harry, there was not much left to his life now. Still, he pulled out his phone and called Walter, just to let him know what had happened as he had advised him to do.
As soon as he got home, he went straight up to his room. No use going back to the office in the state he was in. He didn't want anyone to see him this way, so vulnerable and so broken, ready to burst into tears at any given moment. This was his private funeral and he wanted it kept that way. Personal and private. He slowly walked into his bathroom and undressed, removing each piece of clothing slowly, his mind thinking of Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. Would his mind ever stop thinking of Harry? Would his heart ever let go of Harry?
He sighed heavily and turned on the shower to hot. As the steam filled the room, Louis noticed Harry's things in the bathroom. His pink toothbrush next to his own. His deodorant. His shaving kit. His skin care products. His kiwi shampoo and tea tree conditioner. His apricot body lotion. God he missed him! His absence filled his whole being, suffocating him and pulling him under into despair. No, his heart would never let Harry go. He knew that with certainty and finality.
He stepped under the hot water and the cascade fell on him, he felt the last traces of Harry wash away from him, off his body, the water taking away Harry's scent and Harry's sweat off of him, washing it away into the drain as if he never existed but Louis knew that nothing could ever wash Harry away from his heart and mind. He was there to stay and he had to live with the fact that he wasn't the right one for Harry. Louis hung his head under the water, hoping the pain in his heart would ease, hoping that if he told himself that this was for Harry's best, for his well being, that the reason he had done this was that so Harry could be happy, the pain would somehow be more bearable but it was in fact just ripping him apart knowing he had lost the only love he had ever known in his life. And Louis cried, he let the tears come forth, letting the water wash them away into the drain.
When he stepped out of the shower, he felt numb and empty as if part of him had been lost, ripped out of him. He felt as if he was in mourning and in away he was in mourning. Mourning the passing of love, the loss of a loved one he held so dear, only it was worse because Harry was still alive and there was no respite from this pain or any moving on from it. It was all about endurance. He was sad and hollow but he wasn't angry. He was surprised that he didn't feel any anger, just a huge void deep inside him. Louis knew that the decision they had made was a necessary one especially for Harry. Harry needed space, freedom and to evolve. He had to graduate and follow his dreams and fall in love and get married and have babies. That was Harry's future, a future Louis knew he could never give him. Louis would never marry him and give him babies, two things that he knew Harry looked forward to in life, so yes it was better this way.
