17BLACK

Chapter 72

ONE WEEK LATER

Harry's POV:

"Harry. You're back." Louis. It's Louis' voice. He's here. He's standing in front of me in the same outfit he left me in. The pounding organ in my chest longs for him.

"You left." I made him leave, but I want him so, so much. 

Louis looks at me with sad eyes. His arm reaches out to me and I fit myself into his waist. His body is cold all over.

"I'm sorry." And he sounds like he means it. There's a strange echo, though, as if we are underwater.

"He's lying." We both snap our heads towards the new voice to my left. I immediately try pulling Louis into me protectively but I can't move, can't control my limbs.

It's Nick. In a flash of a second Louis is ripped away from me and the world turns pitch black. I can hear Nick chuckling with grim satisfaction and then there's a spotlight in the distance.

Louis suddenly stands pressed next to me, his mouth against my ear. His breath tickles my fringe as he speaks.

His voice is different. It's colder. It's not the soft tone I'm used to from him.

"You deserve it."

...

I wake up tangled in sweaty sheets. It takes a moment to process my dream.

It seemed so real.

I yank at my hair and try to calm my shaking hands. It hurts. Everything hurts. This can't be real.

I shout in annoyance at my pain. I'm ashamed. Someone shouldn't be allowed to be that important.

Louis has redefined me. I'm not Harry anymore, I'm half Louis and half me.

And now I'm operating on just half of myself. It's not possible. I can't do this.

I kick the sheets away and feel hot tears form in my eyes.

I wince and wrap my hands around my stomach. I'm feeling actual physical pain. My heart hurts.

I put my head in between my knees and vaguely remember a short poem from so long ago. I didn't get it then, just a teenager barely beginning to explore the aspects of puberty.

People survive wars.
People survive disasters.
People survive pain.
People survive sadness.
People survive hurt.
People survive people.
So why wouldn't I, one of the people, survive this?

I get it now. It's amazing how different things are when you look at them from a different point of view.

I don't like this point of view.

Because now I understand that surviving and living aren't the same thing, not by far. Sure people survive wars and disasters and pain and sadness and hurt and other people but not without a scar afterwards. Mental or physical, people don't just walk away unharmed after things like that.

The author of the poem, who's name I do not remember now, didn't understand that all of those other people didn't just survive those events. Sure they're alive, but they aren't who they were before. The author doesn't understand that they aren't any different from those other people.

Well I don't want to be who I am now. I don't want to survive this, I want to go back to when Louis tossed his knee over my waist and kissed me good morning and hit my bum playfully in public when he thought no one was looking. I want to wake up with my face pressed against his neck, I want to see him making love to me again with his sweaty fringe and his flushed cheeks and red, bitten lips.