From Everything That Was (Till Everything That Will Be)

Harry (Present)

I've loved you since we were 18
- 18, One Direction

Harry held Louis' hand as he spoke and did not interrupt once. He cried, but Louis didn't. He got this faraway look in his eyes as he spoke as if he was reliving the memories almost.

Harry squeezed his hand when he finally finished talking.

"He did it much more than once?" he asked, his voice a broken chord.

Louis nodded numbly. "I lost count by the end of it."

"Oh God, Louis," whispered Harry. "If I had known... I'm so sorry for the way I treated you after and... and just everything. God."

"You couldn't have known," Louis said.

"Still. I should have asked more. I... I should never have hung up on you."

"It's not your fault."

"Still."

"I'm better than I was then, at least," Louis said. "I could barely stand someone else touching me, not even my own mom. And I didn't feel like the owner of my own body. That's why I started working out. Why I got tattoos. I wanted to be someone he hadn't touched."

"And did it help?" whispered Harry lowly.

"No." Louis shook his head. "I think he'll always own a part of me. He stole a part of me that night. A part I can't get back."

A sob escaped Harry's lips. "How can you talk about it so calmly?"

Louis shrugged. "I adjusted. I survived. You said it yourself, I'm a survivor. Do you know how many people like me didn't survive? Many. Thousands. Compared to them, I'm fine. I should be fine because I'm still here. I live a... a good life. Sometimes I'm happy. Or something close to it. I'm happy when I'm with you. I'm grateful. Even though sometimes I feel like my own body is a prison."

Harry had too many emotions inside him to even think properly. "Has he ever... since then... you know..."

Louis shook his head. "No. I'm too old for him now." He said it as a joke, but it fell to the floor with a heavy silence.

"Do you know if he ever did it to anyone else?" Harry asked.

"Not that I know of," Louis said. "Perhaps, but if then, they've stayed just as silent as I did. At the moment, when you are there, alone with this man who is supposed to be a good person, you feel so little, and he feels so powerful, and you know, if you tell anyone, he'll destroy you more than he already is. So you're quiet. You don't say a word. Who would believe your word against his anyway? This man who is in the city council, a man pretty much everyone in the city knows, this man who donates money to hospitals and whatnot. Who would believe a scrawny little gay teenager over him?"

"I would," whispered Harry. "I do."

"Too late now," said Louis.

"It doesn't have to be," Harry said. Rage was burning in his veins. "He deserves to suffer. He deserves to pay for what he did to you, Louis."

Louis actually snorted. "And how would I do that? I have no proof."

"You have your journals."

"It's not enough."

"It's something."

"My name would be tainted. What if the word got to the school? I could get fired."

"They wouldn't."

"You don't know. Reputation is everything."

Harry sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. He didn't know what to say. "I love you," he said. He didn't know what else he could say.