flower crowns // l.s.

✿48✿

*this chapter contains possible triggers that may be hard to read. please read at your own risk. if you need to talk my inbox is open.*

The strange feeling Louis had all day after leaving Harry never subsided, even in the middle of work. He was thankful when Niall called, thinking he could take his mind off of it, but that didn't happen.

He didn't understand it. He didn't understand how only this morning he was smiling and kissing his fiance, and now he was waiting in the hospital to figure out what's happening. What happened?

He hadn't had a chance to talk to the doctors yet. Liam told him they said he had an apparent ruptured brain aneurysm.

Louis didn't know what the hell that is, he's no doctor. He started losing his temper when nurses would say that he was in surgery and that they couldn't talk to the doctor. He may have yelled too loudly. And knocked over a stand with magazines and a lamp on it. Then security told him to calm down and put out his cigarette or he'd have to be escorted out.

"This is fucking ridiculous," he muttered to himself. Then he looked over at Liam and Niall who were sitting with scared expressions. "At least look optimistic!"

Liam, with his brows furrowed, stared at Louis. "We're all scared, but we're in this together."

"I should have never left," Louis said to himself, looking up at the ceiling so that the tears forming in his eyes wouldn't spill over.

Liam and Niall didn't say anything after that. Louis should have trusted that feeling he had. He could've done something. He doesn't know what, but maybe he could have done something.

Every time a doctor would walk into the room, Louis would stand hopefully, but it'd never be a doctor to talk to them. When another doctor walked in, he didn't bother standing.

"Mr. Payne?" The doctor called.

Louis looked up, his mouth open, and his fists clenched. He stood up when Liam did but got to the doctor before Liam. "Is this about Harry? I'm his fucking fiance. Talk to me."

The doctor looked behind Louis and then settled his tired eyes on Louis. "Let's all take a seat."

Louis' heart stopped. "No."

The doctors tired eyes now filled with sympathy. Louis knew where this was headed. He saw the same look on Lottie's doctor after the car wreck.

"Well," the doctor started, staring at Louis with determination that only came with experience with this. "He had a ruptured brain aneurysm, and as most cases with these, he experienced a Subarachnoid hemorrhage, where there's a significant amount of bleeding in the brain. We did everything we could to--"

"He's dead," Louis said, looking away from him. When the doctor said nothing, he looked up with his brows raised. "Isn't he?"

The doctor inhaled deeply. Liam and Niall were sobbing behind him. "He is brain dead. You can see him, but be warned: it may appear as though he is well and alive, but he has no brain function, Louis. We did everything we could. There was just too much blood and damage to the brain."

Louis swallowed the lump forming in his throat and followed the doctor to Harry's room. He held it together when the door opened up and he saw Harry hooked up to a machine. He wasn't going to cry. Crying would only make it real. This was just a horrible dream, because this wouldn't happen. It can't happen.

He walked over to the bed and looked down at Harry, stared at the tube in his mouth, and then moved some of his hair out of his eyes. He smiled at the memory of Harry saying that it was growing out again and that he was excited to donate his hair again. He put his hand over Harry's chest and looked at the doctor with a confused expression.