You Are My Light {Larry Stylinson}

Chapter 6: Looking Glass

The night passed slowly. The small digital clock on the bedside locker exclaimed it's bright red numbers as a testimony to the time. Louis lay perched on the end of his small bed, observing his bedroom, shrouded in darkness; broiling in pain. He imagined the darkness being destroyed, cast out, and being replaced with a luminescent, golden glow, emanated by a tall, lanky silhouette. The only colour which Louis could see was the bright, emerald green shade of the shadow's eyes.

Louis' eyes flitted to the completed painting which was still resting upon his easel, and realised the shade of green on the grass was identical to the hue of the shadow's eyes. Louis' throat thickened as he realised.

The colour he had taken such solace in that one night...

'Harry.' He thought agonisingly, then his thoughts deteriorated down a darker path. 'Why do you think of him? Why?!' Louis' hands clenched into tightly balled fists and clamped them tightly over his eyelids.

'You have no right to think of him. He owes you nothing.' The voice in his mind began to whisper, in response Louis gave an involuntary shiver, and whimpered helplessly, unprepared for yet another attack from his self-destructive mind, stacked on top of the physical pain he was immersed in from his recent beating.

'Why can't I be normal?' He wondered weakly, as the first of the tears began to drip slowly out the corner of his eyes and snake their way down his cheeks, caused partly by the physical pain he was in, and also by his inner turmoil.

He turned his head towards the wall and covered himself in bed covers and pillows, hoping the pressure on his body would alleviate the pressure on his mind. To his immense relief, the dark thoughts in his head seemed to unexpectedly disappear; almost immediately, yet the sudden departure promised the inevitability of definite and swift return.

He curled up into the foetal position, his regular sleeping position, and began to rock himself gently as his tears continued to trickle; something which would ease him into sleep sometimes. Yet tonight, he would not go over.

He felt so... alone. He had experienced loneliness several times each day, inadequacy even more frequently; yet this was different.

He longed for the feeling of someone else to lie beside him and be with him, not in the sexual sense, just for someone to be there, for someone to hold him when he couldn't stop his mind from wreaking havoc, for a steadying hand; to be loved.

'The most simplistic, yet the most unattainable desire.' He thought. For the first time in a very long time, Louis' wished for someone to yearn to be with him as much as Louis wanted to be with them. To be wanted. With those final, piercing thoughts, Louis allowed himself to drift into an uneasy sleep.

*

Louis' eyes snapped open; he let out a loud groan as his back exploded in agony. His muscles in his back locked up as a wave of fiery pain spread along his back. He gagged but forced himself to stay in one position, eventually, to his huge relief, the pain began to dull, then subsided completely after a few minutes.

"Must have rolled onto my back." Louis pondered, whilst remaining deathly still, petrified of invoking another wave of pain. He resolved to stay in this position for another couple of minutes before trying to extricate himself from it. His thoughts drifted from himself to his mother, his ever toiling mother. The woman who would work almost a twenty four hour shift just to provide for her only, mental son.

'Mum mustn't have gotten home yet... She might have taken a double shift?' His eyebrows angrily furrowed as he worried, a habit he had gleaned from his mother. After a few pain-free minutes, Louis shuffled pathetically from the wall, and gently pushed himself up into a sitting position. He felt slight twinges of pain, but slowly pulled himself to his feet, ensuring he didn't allow anything to come into contact with his back; thankfully no waves of pain crashed against him. Yet.