Missing: The boy who disappeared

Chapter 16 - The Decision

A/N

⚠️TW:
Pregnancy talk
Abortion talk
Alcohol consumption.

Watch for time jumps and flashbacks from now on. 
11.6k words !

Also, I know this chapter may be a bit boring for some, but I needed you to understand Louis' mindset going into the next chapter in order to understand why he will act the way he does.

*This chapter has not been edited yet.*  

‘In the absence of information, we always tend to jump to conclusions. One wrong assumption is enough to break trust, especially when you didn't take the time to learn the facts, or the backstory.’ 

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Louis sat alone in their bedroom, his thoughts swirling in a maelstrom of self-recrimination. He couldn't even bring himself to look at the empty space beside him, the absence of Harry's presence a stark reminder of how fucked up this all is.

His mind replayed the events of the past few weeks on an endless loop, each misstep and poor decision magnified to monstrous proportions. He felt a deep-seated sense of shame gnawing at his insides, a visceral reminder of his own failings.

Seeing the word pregnant pressed heavily on him, crushing him beneath its suffocating weight. He wanted to scream, to lash out at the unfairness of it all, but instead, he sat in silence, his thoughts a tangled mess of regret and sadness.

Louis was aware that he needed to accept the repercussions of their actions and honestly confess to Harry about the predicament they had created.

But the thought of uttering those words aloud filled him with a bone-deep dread, a fear of the disappointment and anger he knew he would find reflected in his own eyes.

As he sat alone, Louis couldn't help but wonder how he was going to tell him. What does he say? How does he address it? When should he speak of it? Questions, too many bloody questions. It is crucial to acknowledge that the root cause of the current ‘Problem’ lies solely with one individual: himself…Or so he would like to think.

For the next two weeks, Louis carried on with his daily routine as if nothing had changed. With a forced sense of normalcy, he pretended that everything was fine, as if this secret didn't bear down on him with every passing moment. He adopted a facade of calm, hiding behind a mask of indifference in the hopes that it would somehow make the truth just “disappear.” He busied himself with mundane tasks, avoiding any moments of introspection that might force him to confront the truth.

Despite the passing of time, the reality of his situation loomed large, casting a shadow over his every thought. Where once there had been morning sickness and food aversions with Saxon’s pregnancy, now, there was nothing but a hollow void.

Louis found himself lost in a fog of detachment, his mind a blank canvas devoid of any semblance of emotion.
He kept questioning whether he was even capable of feeling anything anymore, whether he had become so numb to the world around him that even the prospect of impending fatherhood failed to elicit a bodily response.

Had he become too numb?

The thought clawed at him, a relentless whisper in the back of his mind. Was this what he had become? A shell of the person he once was, purposefully detached from the world and all its complexities?

As the days stretched into weeks, Louis grappled with his own sense of identity, struggling to reconcile the person he had become with the person he once was. And yet, despite his best efforts to bury the truth beneath layers of denial, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before it all came crashing down around him.