all we can do is keep breathing

five.

the rhythm it marches to is irregular.

||✚||

In love.

Louis was in love with him.

Not a crush, not a slight attraction, actually in love.

Harry had considered it, often dreaming about it being true one day, entertaining the welcome notion in his head from time to time, but he'd never thought it was true. It couldn't possibly be true.

if it wasn't true, then why does it hurt so bad...

Standing in his kitchen, Harry's thoughts whirl as he mindlessly chops up vegetables for dinner. It's taking him far longer than it should because his brain is almost completely bogged down by the ceaseless echoing of Louis' words still ringing loudly in his head.

That time in his life—seeming almost a lifetime ago, when his sister had died and nothing made sense, was so very dark. So horrifyingly etched in pitch black darkness that he never allowed himself to even think of it. He told himself repeatedly that nothing good ever came out of that time. He couldn't separate the few good memories from the mountain of bad ones, so he wrote them all off as bad. Harry was so drunk and angry at everything; it all became a blur. A huge, shadowy, painful blur that he has refused to dissect apart or revisit in years, carrying on as though it never happened.

But is it possible that in doing so he erased all that Louis really was.

Louis was...he was...everything—that much Harry can easily remember. Before Gemma died, Louis was the person who made him smile everyday, the person who made the smallest things utterly hilarious for no real reason, the person he could share an empty room with for hours and never once get bored. He trusted Louis with any and every thing, pouring out secrets meant for only his ears like it was everyday conversation.

But oddly enough, despite their undeniable chemistry, Harry couldn't picture Louis ever coming to have feelings for him or caring about him past the level of friends. He could never picture himself as anything, but a nuisance and a burden to Louis. A freeloading burden who inevitably caused him more grief than good, part of why he left in the first place. How could Harry have gotten it so wrong? How could he have not known or at least had an inkling that Louis had feelings for him all that time? He must have known. There had to have been a part of him that knew.

he loved me, he really loved me

But it doesn't even matter now, Louis doesn't love him anymore, he made that crystal clear when he screamed in Harry's face. And Harry has long laid to rest whatever emotions he had tied up in Louis. He has a new life now, a good life.

you're still a scared and selfish coward

Harry was mad about it at first—he was furious that Louis would throw names in his face like that. Spit out so harshly, they hit straight to Harry's very core. But the more he thinks about it, the more he starts to open himself up little by little, the more Harry starts to get the sinking feeling that maybe there is some truth to Louis' bold words. It's no secret that Harry avoids anything that even slightly causes him pain and to do that he had to close himself off emotionally. Harry told himself anything that would make the pain cease, anything that would give him a moments relief. But he couldn't possibly be as indifferent to the truth as Louis claims. Could he?

you are lying to yourself, harry. you're lying...

"Ow! Shit!"Harry curses loudly, wincing as he looks down at the finger he absentmindedly nicked with his knife. A steady trickling of blood pouring from the wound onto the cutting board.