"If you weren't real I'd make you up"

Chapter 4

He's sitting on his bathroom and he's holding his pills from the last two weeks. He thinks it will make him numb enough to not feel the blade.

He's been losing his mind and his mom can't figure out why, why the medication has stopped working. The little blue and orange pills are laid out on his bath mat in a messy pile, and he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin. He can't find Louis, can't draw him up in his consciousness, only the drone of whispers and the catcalls that tell him he's wrong inside. He feels like crying, like screaming and hurting himself until that's all he can feel.

"I'm going to get you out." He says, like Louis could hear him that way. There's no one home, no one to hear him in his empty house, no one to hold him back. "Answer me, please."

He picks up the first pill in one hand, holding a glass of water in the other, sticking the pill on the back of his tongue and swallowing it down. He picks up another, doing the same. He feels less frantic with each pill, the voices falling to a low drone as he reaches the fourth, and it's starting to feel like routine as he gets closer to the point of no return.

He doesn't know why he can't find him, why he can't get rid of the chill in his blood. "Please come back." He whispers as he swallows down another, the pile shrinking with every passing minute. He's halfway done when his fingers start to go numb, his mouth too dry. He thinks he might be crying, can taste salt on his lips and wonders if it's blood, and he's so scared. He thought it would be peaceful, that he'd find peace in the breakdown but he just feels terrified and alone and he can't stop.

He knows now that he doesn't belong in this world, but he doesn't know if he belongs on the other side either. Harry has been a ghost for a long time now, and he doesn't know what happens when ghosts die. Maybe they disappear. He thinks he'd like that.

He's dropped the water, glass breaking on the tile and water rushing around him in glittering ripples in the half light. There are four waterlogged pills left and he scoops them up with numb hands, swallowing them down while he still can. He fights to keep himself upright, glass shards in his hands as he presses them against the floor.

Please find me.

The only voice in his head is his, emptiness making him feel sick. He's so dizzy, his head about to burst. He picks up the knife, wondering where he needs to cut to get Louis out, if he's hiding in his head or in his heart.

"Oh no, Harry." A voice says softly, startling the blade from his hands, blue eyes swimming his vision when he open his eyes. "Look what you've done."

He can feel Louis, breath on his salty lips and solid arms that wrap around his shoulders. He can't see clearly, just golden skin that shimmers like pond water. You came for me, he tries to say, I thought you were gone. It comes out like a cry.

Louis presses his lips to the top of Harry's head. "You're with me now, you're safe."

Harry nods, light zipping across his vision like comets. He's floating in space, he's crashing into the sun.

"Just breathe, sunshine. You'll be alright soon." Louis says as Harry slips in and out. Louis is so warm, something like comfort in the way he holds him, something like safety in his touch. The pain is gone now, just Louis' arms around him, the soft thump of his heart and the gentle rhythm of his breathing. "You're with me and I'll protect you."

Harry sinks into his chest as he begins to lose the last of his feeling, until the only thing he's aware of his Louis' voice, telling him that he's okay now, that he's okay.

Safe in his arms, he lets go.

xx

"So the hallucinations have stopped?" Mrs. Stannet looks up from her sketchpad, affixing Louis with inquisitive blue eyes. "What was his name, Harry?"

Louis nods, wondering why he can't make himself feel relieved. "I can still remember him clearly, but I can't touch him."

"You could touch him?" She asks, and he thinks that might have been the wrong thing to say.

I could interact with him. He loved me. He reaches for his inner thigh, squeezing hard at the layer of fat Harry covered with his impermanent promises. "Yeah, he felt like a real person."

"Do you want to talk about the relationship you had with him?" She asks with her sterile smile.

Louis shrugs his thin shoulders, a default movement. He was my best friend, my only friend, my lover, my own north star. "He was always bothering me to eat."

Louis is a compass that doesn't know how to point north anymore.

"Have you ever thought that Harry was a manifestation of your subconscious? Your body was trying to help you get better." She says, like that could fix the hole Harry left in his brain.

"I thought about that." He says, but he can't quite believe it. He thinks that Harry had to be real, that he could never make up someone like him. Harry was everything that mattered, the only thing that could make him feel like he wasn't horrible inside. He doesn't want to believe that it wasn't real, that all the things he felt weren't worth anything at all.

"I think his disappearance is an important step for you, you've realized you don't need an imaginary friend to make you eat."

He nods, squeezing his thigh harder, feeling the sharp rush of pain and hoping it bruises. He hasn't eaten a full meal in days, the marker on his skin is fading and so are Harry's promises. Harry left him, slipping out of his universe without a trace, leaving only his fingerprints on Louis' skin and memories that don't make sense.

"You're getting better Louis, I know you are."

He nods, feeling faint. He bites at his lip, feeling the rush of blood in his mouth as the skin gives. "I agree."

"I think the reason Harry left was because you don't need him anymore."

Louis chokes on the air in his lungs, forces a smile.

She's wrong, but he can't tell her that. Harry left because his demons got him, his monsters ate him up. He left because he was too broken to be saved. Because he was too good for this world.

"The best thing you can do is to try and forget about him, focus on putting your life together."

Louis nods, smiling through the blood on his teeth.

Louis knows Harry was real, he knows it and he's not going to let him go.

He can't.