Paradise Child Book 3 (Imprisoned in my Heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 12

Harry felt stiff and sleepy and absolutely frozen by the time he realized that the sun had come up and the birds were singing and there was still no car on the driveway. He’d been awake all night, and in all that time, his phone hadn’t rung, Louis hadn’t returned, and there had been no indication that he was planning to. It was so strange and unexpected that Harry couldn’t quite get his head around it, which was why he was so stunningly calm as he picked up their duvet, put his phone into his pocket and headed back inside. He carefully placed the duvet back onto the bed and made it with an expression of complete detachment, plumping the pillows and smoothing the sheets automatically, as if he wasn’t even there. He plugged his phone in, since the battery was dying, and left it on charge in the bedroom. He put all their clothes into the laundry basket, and then into the washing machine, and set it off at too hot a wash without bothering to separate the darks, whites and colours. As the mechanisms started whirring, he numbly watched Louis’ red trousers start spinning around in the same wash as one of his white t-shirts and realized that he was going to be going around in a pink shirt the next time he put it on. He couldn’t seem to summon up any emotion towards the fact other than indifference.

After that, he went into the cupboard and then the fridge, and used the last of the milk making himself a bowl of cornflakes, which he ate in silence, staring blankly at the opposite wall while the only sound was the hot water switching itself on and the gentle clink of his spoon on the bowl. The cornflakes turned soggy because he was eating them so slowly, but he stopped caring after the first few mushy mouthfuls, because they tasted like cardboard anyway.

He was surprised when he felt something wet roll down his nose, and even more surprised when it splashed onto his spoon and glistened there for a second. Dully, he reached out to investigate, scooped the moisture onto his finger and idly tasted it, and discovered that it tasted salty. The fact that he was silently crying didn’t really register, even though he was suddenly aware of the moisture on his face.

The washing up was one of many mundane tasks to fill the empty hours, and it kept his hands busy, at least. There had been a quickly growing pile of dirty dishes on the sideboard for a while, and he washed them all scrupulously until they sparkled, dried them and put them away, rearranging the cupboard into some form of organization just for something to do. Once he’d finished doing that (and the ironing, and putting all the clothes away, and tidying the house, and sorting all of his and Louis’ CDs into alphabetical order by the last name of the artist and then chronological order of album release dates) he ended up sitting emptily on the sofa and emotionlessly looking out of the window, just waiting.

His breathing was heavy and uncoordinated; he could hear each breath that rasped harshly in and out of his lungs with each rise and fall of his chest. The sound irritated him, so he held his breath for a while, which made his ribs hurt, so he exhaled in a huff. The tears falling thick and fast down his face had only increased, and he didn’t bother even attempting to wipe them away. In the silence, his breaths had started to sound oddly ragged, and whiny, and all of a sudden he figured out that he was whimpering quietly to himself. Annoying. Short of breath, he continued panting and moaning softly for a couple of minutes, arms wrapped around himself, rocking back and forth, feeling incredibly stupid.

The world was slowly spinning, and he had tilted to one side, as if he were stuck on a lopsided fairground ride, turning and turning, unable to stop. His pants became frantic gasps that dragged through his teeth, and he was trembling all over, shaking, unable to stop himself. He waited for cool hands to twine around his fingers, stroke comfortingly down his face, twist in his hair, but the only fingers he felt were his own, raking down his arms in distress as he shuddered.

The first sob shocked him; it ripped from his throat as if someone had reached inside of him and torn it away, and he choked a breath in alarm. Yet all of a sudden, more were coming, and his whole body was racked with them; awful, ugly sounds that he was powerless to lock away. It was as if they’d been safely trapped somewhere deep inside his chest and they were crawling up his throat, hanging on with hooked fingers, and then forcing their way out from between his teeth. He thought he might be sick. Actually, come to think of it, his mouth did taste rather sour.