Addicted To You .L.S.

Twenty Six.

Now (June)

"Thanks for coming." I step aside to let Rachel into the house.

"Louis, was that the—" My mother catches sight of Rachel, with her flaming hair, mustard yellow sweater she's buttoned wrong, the chunky skull pendant dangling from the bike chain around her neck. "Oh," she says.
"Mum, you remember Rachel."
"I do," mum smiles, it's almost genuine, though her eyes linger on Rachel a moment to long. I wonder if it's Rachel's appearance or mum just remembering that night. Rachel stayed by side until my parents showed up. I hadn't given her a choice; I wouldn't let go of her hand.
"How are you, Mrs. Tomlinson?" Rachel asks.
"Well. And you?"
"Fabulous." Rachel grins.
"There's something wrong with my computer, Rachel's going to check it out for me." I say.
"Bye!" Rachel says cheerfully, following me up to my room. When we close the door behind us, she tosses her purse on my bed, collapsing next to it.

"Okay, I've only got forty minutes. I have to drive up to my dads. It's his birthday."
"Can you crack a thumb drive in 40 minuets?"
A smiles tugs up the ends of her red-painted lips. "No way. I'm good with taking computers apart and putting them back together. Code is another thing, it'll take a while."
I hand over the drive. "I appreciate you trying. My method involved typing in as many passwords as I could think of."
She laughs. "Probably not the most effective way."
"Agreed."

"So, how'd it go talking to Harry's supervisor?" Rachel asks, grabbing a pillow to prop her chin on. She tucks on leg underneath her, the other hangs over my bed.
"He's out of town, but he's coming back next week. I'm going back then to talk to him."
"And obviously getting inside the house went smoothly," Rachel says, holding up the drive, wiggling it in the air.
I shrug, "Gem hates me."
"I really doubt that," Rach replies.
"She wants to," I say. "And she should. She would. If she knew the truth."
Rachel shifts on my bed, turning the thumb drive over in her hands. But she looks at me when she says, "the truth?"
I don't say anything else, because when you hide, it's instinctual. It's something you have to train yourself out of and I never trained myself out of secrets, even when I wanted to.

"Lou, can I ask you something?" She looks me in the eye, and there's a question there.
The question.

I can look away and stay quiet. I can say no. I can be that guy, hiding from the truth, denying his heart. But it'll eat at me. Through me. Until there's nothing real left.
I twist our rings on my thumb and they bump against each other, trading nicks and scratches earned throughout the years.

"Sure. Ask away."
"You and Harry, you two were..." She switched tactics, suddenly so blunt, just like in her letters; starting off in one direction and veering off into another mid-sentence. "You like boys, don't you?" My checks heat up and I pick at the hem of my comforter, trying to decide how to say it.

  Sometimes I wonder what my mother would think, if she'd try to sweep it under he rug, add it to the list of things to fix.
  Sometimes I wonder if my dad would mind that someday he would walk me down the isle and give me away to a man instead of seeing me stand and wait for a woman to walk down, gaining another son instead of a daughter.
  Sometimes I wonder what it would've been like if I would've been open from the start. If we'd never had to hide. How much it would've changed things if we'd been honest?
I'll never know. But I could be honest now, here, with Racheal. Maybe because she'd met me at my worst moment of my life. Maybe it's because she stuck around, even after. Maybe because I don't want to be afraid anymore. Not of this. Because compared to everything else—the addiction, the hole that losing Harry left, the guilty knot that Gem twists into me—being hung up on this isn't worth it.  Not anymore.

Which is why I say, "Sometimes."
"So you like girls, too."
"It just depends. On the person." I'm still fiddling with the comfortable, wrapping the loose strands of thread around my fingers.
She smiles, open and encouraging. "Best of both worlds, I guess."
It makes me laugh, the sound bursting out of me like the truth. It makes me want to cry and thank her. To tell her that I've never told anyone before and to tell it and have it be accepted like it's no big deal feels like a gift.