17BLACK

Chapter 71

Louis' POV:

I can't breathe.

Correction - I can't breathe oxygen. The smoke filling my lungs, however, is much more satisfactory. Breathing oxygen means that you're alive. Right now I'm on a cloud of pure bliss, not sure if my heart is still beating and not finding it in myself to care.

Why should I? There's nothing left. Will and Aaron have each other and Adelaide. Will's physical demon has been extinguished and there's nothing left to hurt him.

And Harry-

I inhale quickly, running away from him and the thoughts and the lies and the hiding and the false I love you's and the feelings that come along with all of it.

Something hits my side so I must have just fallen onto the floor but I can't feel much. Don't want to.

This is my favorite place to be. Physically in a cloud of smoke and mentally somewhere far, far away.

At least I'm not crying anymore. I can't really remember what I was crying over anyways.

And then I laugh. I claw at the ground and feel nothing under my fingertips and scream and hear nothing and try breathing but instead I lose even more of my sensory awareness.

My eyes wander lazily to the pile of clothes on the floor. I fell right next to them.

On top of the pile is the black Ramones shirt.

There's a flash of unwanted memories that stab through whatever shred of dignity I have left. Green eyes, curly hair, dimples, dimples, those hands that held me in just the right way, dimples, the cold rush of his ring on my side as he ran his hands over my body.

The rings. I scream and thrash my hand around, trying to get the ring off of my finger because it doesn't belong there nothing about Harry belongs here why is the shirt mocking me we had our first time in that shirt get it away get it away.

Something clicks in my mind and I realize that pulling it off would be more productive. I do just that, crying now as I throw the ring as far as I can in the small apartment.

I cover my ears as it hits the ground like it's a bomb going to explode, a part of me very well aware that the ring just makes a small clink as it hits the wood and another part of me knowing that it is a bomb, myself exploding into ruins as it leaves my finger and takes whatever connection Harry and I had with it.

12 HOURS EARLIER

Harry has apparently informed the nurse of my arrival because I'm allowed back without any trouble. I twist the ring around my finger as an outlet or anxiety and fear of facing the next part of our story. Will it move onto a better, happier part of our lives?

I take a deep breath and try to calm the fidgeting nerves in my body. I've never been nervous to see Harry.

I enter without knocking, not wanting my armor to be taken down by a single 'Come in' from Harry. It's a very delicate armor, and I'm trying my best to maintain it.

I don't look at Harry. I can't face what I've caused. I've wanted access in this very room for a week now and now that I've got it I want nothing more than to leave.

Instead I eye the floor and sit in an uncomfortable chair at the far end of the room.

I can feel him looking at me, sizing me up. I can feel him. In the room and in my head and everywhere that he shouldn't be but somehow he has made his home there.

I close my eyes. I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this.

"How are yo-" My heart is racing a mile a minute. My voice cracks and quivers and I grip the handles of the chair with a death grip.

"He doesn't matter." His voice is different, already becoming unfamiliar and not my Harry's and I can feel him slipping from my fingers.

"There's so much going on, right now, Harry. I just want you to be okay." I dare to open my eyes a little. Just a bit, barely enough to see past my eyelashes and to the blurred shape of Harry laying on the bed.

"He doesn't matter. You matter so, so much. But I'm going to need a while." 

I bite my lip and feel myself shaking. I'm a mess. He is the one hooked to machines and yet I'm still the weak one.

"Open your eyes, Louis."

"A while to do what?" The words don't sound right, they don't sound like Harry at all. I don't know how we got here. 

"These past weeks have been more than I can handle, and I need time to myself to figure out what even happened so I can start processing it. I love you, and I am not blaming you for this, but I need some quiet for just a moment."

Harry has lost most of the color from his face, his lips pale and chapped and the area under his left eye nearly as dark as the bruise under his right eye. He hasn't been sleeping.

"Say something." I can't. Something to stop this from falling off of the cliff, but I don't know what it is.

There's a tube in his arm and a heart monitor beats slowly beside him. It's beeping half-heartedly as if it's given up too.

"I'm sorry." It's not eloquent and it's not enough. It's still all I have. "I think I knew it was heading this way. I should have done something sooner before this happened." I was weak, and now we're here. Wrecking so much with only a few words. 

And there's a selfish, dark part of me that's already given up. 

No response. Maybe a bit of a rise in his heart beat.

I wait for the connection between us to ignite. I'm searching his eyes for it but it doesn't come. He's shut himself off.

"I don't want this, but I don't know what else to do. There's too much going on." He's not acting like Harry at all. I'm scared. 

"What'll you have me do?"

Harry leans forward and his foot falls from the bed.

"Wait." It's a cruel word, but he deserves it. It still lands directly in my chest. 

I feel an emptiness sink in my stomach. It is the worst feeling in the world, having the strongest thing in your world collapse around you.

"I'm sorry, Louis. I don't know what else to do." 

 I face the door. I can't allow myself to break in front of him.

The words ring over and over in my head. Wait wait wait. I've been waiting for days right outside the door, and now he's asking me as if I have a choice. As if I could do anything else. 

I feel worse than I have in my entire life. I look into his eyes and see pain.

That's why this hurts so much. Our hearts have intertwined and it's like a cancer that's spread too far. There's nothing you can do to cut it out because it's everywhere.

You just wait for it to kill you.

~~ Author's Note ~~

well this is a bummer

*sigh*