The Price of Love - NIAM [IN EDITING]

21 January, 2012

Dear Mom,

I haven't written in a while because these past few weeks have been horrible. 

My best friend is gone, just like you.

He is a smile, a laugh, a spark of hope deep within the soul. He is a caring voice and gentle hands, a steady heart beat and silver tears. He is long eye lashes and curly hair, red cheeks on pale skin.. And he is lost forever.

It had been a disrupted fate and an abrupt end to all new beginnings. 

At the funeral there was crying all around me, but I was numb to it. I was numb to anything other than the depths of my own mind. 

The casket was lowered in the ground at a painstakingly low pace. I wanted to run up there and stop them. I wanted to tell them this is a mistake—that Harry isn't dead.

He can't be.

He was my anchor, my rock. He was the only reason I could stay sane and alive. But what do I do when my hero is no longer there to save me?

I didn't cry. I want to be strong, for him. (Even though he wasn't strong enough for me.)

It is horrible, the way I found him. I was walking home from the animal shelter and there he was in the dead winter leaves, all cold and lifeless. I actually had just finished writing my last entry to you.

I remember blood. Lots of it. I remember fumbling for my phone and then trying to look for his pulse. I remember the sirens and his body being lifted away. Everything else was a mere blur up until the moments of his funeral.

But then again, that too had been a blur. A separate one. A slower and more painful kind of blur, not one I forget but one that plants it's self in my brain and sprouts as horrific nightmares and breakdowns.

A week passed, then two. I stopped eating, talking, and my health is deteriorating.

After his funeral I had went to his house and into his room. It is exactly the way I had seen it last, except for something bright yellow sitting on his desk.

It was the flower crown he made me.

Maybe if I would have worn the flower crown then he would still be living, and that added sadness wouldn't have been there to push him over the edge.

I feel really guilty, denying his gift. I wear the crown everyday after that, only taking it off to shower and sleep.

Two weeks after Harry committed suicide dad forced me back to school. He understands that I need a break, but I had to go back eventually.

I decided to wear the crown despite the names I'd be called. I don't really give a fuck anymore.

It is different, being at the "Hell Hole" alone. I have no one to talk to, no one to smile with, no one to protect. I am alone, and it hurts. A lot.

When lunch came around that first day back I sat at the same table, but it felt wrong. I felt like a stranger in the place I had grown so used to.

I traced the heart Harry had drawn, and tears slipped down my cheeks.

"We were supposed to escape together," I whispered. "We were supposed to make it out together and travel the world together and finally be happy together." I wiped my increasingly wet cheeks, "What happened to our infinity? You always said we'd be best friends forever.. but I guess that meant something different to you."

My soft crying then turned into a sob and I buried my face in my hands. It isn't the same now. Nothing is right and it never will be.

Later I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up, only to see Liam Payne looking down on me with what seemed to be sympathy in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Niall," he said. His hand remained planted on my shoulder and, crazily enough, it comforted me. "I'm sorry for everything that I've ever done to you.. and Harry. It was wrong and I never meant it. It was so fucking wrong and stupid and I—"

"Your apology still doesn't change the fact that Harry killed his self.. You hurt him—us. You ruined everything," I spat. I know I was rude but.. You can't really blame me, can you?

Liam flinched at my words. "I'm so sorry." A single shimmering tear rolled down his cheek, and as if it were in slow motion, hit my hand.

I am in the same situation I was with Pepper. She scratched me and gave me a life lasting scar, but I still forgive her because it wasn't really her fault for hurting me. She was scared and didn't know what to do other than defend herself, so she did.

Maybe it is the same for Liam. Thinking back on it, he does usually only do mean things when he is around Louis and Zayn. Maybe he is forced into defending himself for some reason.

"The damage is done. He is gone forever. Your guilt is temporary but my sadness is never ending."

"Please," he begged. "Please don't hate me."

"I don't hate you, Liam," I said. "I just.. am disappointed." And it was the truth. 

Of course I had hated him. I couldn't stand his mere exsistence just two weeks ago, and I loathed the very thought of him. But something changed in him, the same change that happened in me. It wasn't a subtle change, either. It was huge.

That was basically the end of that conversation, the rest of the day was blank, nothing worth writing.

          Love, 

               Niall Horan

P.S. I had said, "You may be forgiven, but the past will never be forgotten." I think it's really deep.