the school of extraordinary lovers

XIV

Harry's dad was away the majority of those last years. Contrary to logic, this didn't make his loss any easier. If anything, the distance deluded Harry. It kept him ignorant to the truth of the matter. He never witnessed the long futile hours his dad spent combing through ancient books because he did so in hotels across the world. He didn't hear the weary conversations his parents had because these were conducted late at night.

He thought of himself as a realist back then, but he never grasped the reality of their situation — that his father's absence might become a permanent arrangement — until it was too late. It always made more sense that his dad would fix everything. He was brilliant and he worked harder than anyone else and if anyone could, it was him.

Even at Sandoli, as Harry prepared to perform with Louis, he kept thinking any second, his mum would rush backstage and say, "He's done it. Your dad's done it." But when he peeked around the curtain, there she was in her seat upfront. Pale and despondent when she thought no one was looking.

He's not sure when understanding struck him, but it seemed to do so all at once. Suddenly, there was sweat everywhere on him and the air con intended to cool the backstage area wasn't working. It wouldn't have helped either way. Harry suffered from a cold, anxious sweat more than anything else. He used to have asthma as a baby, but was cured by some potion his grandmum cooked up. And yet, he felt on the precipice of an attack.

He shut his eyes, feeling himself teetering forward.

"Hey," Louis said. "Look at me."

Harry didn't. Couldn't. "I can't breathe."

"Come with me," Louis said.

Harry wouldn't remember the short walk they took later. There were black spots in his vision and his feet dragged with each step. He knew they didn't have long. Perhaps fifteen minutes before they were due on stage. When he came to, he was standing in a nearby stairwell at the nearest landing with an open window beside him. Harry turned his face toward the window, basking in the Hawaiian cool. Louis handed him a bottle of water that seemed to have materialised out of nowhere and Harry drank from it greedily.

"Better?" Louis asked after a while.

Harry nodded, resting his head on the windowsill a moment. He peered out at the beach in the distance. Palm trees bobbed and swayed. Cars zipped by on the winding motorway below. Even that was scenic compared to their crowded roads back home.

"Can you believe we're here?" Louis said. "All those years spent in Ravetown and now we're in fucking Hawaii."

Harry slowly lifted his head, careful not to move more quickly than he was able. "You've travelled," he said. "Haven't you been to Paris and New York?"

"That was different. How do you feel now?"

Harry's vision blurred almost instantly. "Did you know Hawaii Standard Time is behind Greenwich Mean Time by ten hours? So it's his birthday already in most parts of the world."

"I did know that," Louis said.

"This is the most I've thought of him in one day. Even yesterday, I was so sure he'd call and say he was alright. But he's not alright at all, is he? He's probably dead," Harry said. He knew he was crying because of the breeze, turning cold where it met the moisture on his skin. "He's dead and I've been in denial this whole time. What's wrong with me? I can't perform. I can't do any of this."

Louis stepped close. "You don't have to," he said. He hesitated visibly before lifting careful hands to Harry's face. "We don't have to go out there. It's actually crazy to expect you to."