He's Not Afraid || L.S AU

Chapter 25

WARNING: SOME PARTS OF THIS CHAPTER MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SOME READERS. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

~*~

Louis' POV 

I collapse on my bed, the duvet muffling my groans when a knock fills the room and the door opening revealing my mother standing at the door frame once I've turned the side of my head in her direction. 

"Louis, what are you doing?" 

I can immediately tell she's referring to Liam and our afternoon out together. Come to think of it, what am I doing? My mind flashed back to Harry hunched behind the swing, looking broken and...finished. 

"I don't know mum." I say helplessly. Her eyes soften and closes the door, walking to me and sitting at the end of my bed where my feet lay. 

"You like him then?" Mum asks me, rubbing the back of my leg.

I sigh, thinking about those green, emerald eyes that have somehow pierced into my eyelids every time I close or blink my eyes closed. How they shine brighter when he's happy and joyful or how they mold into forest green when he turn upset or mad. His eyes were like that this afternoon at the park. But why? I'm trying to push him away for God's sake and he's making it extremely difficult for me to accomplish it. 

"I love him," I mumble to myself. 

"Love?" Mum squeaks high pitched. "After an afternoon out together?"

Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. 'Him' is Liam and she heard me confess about...fudge.

"N-No. I-I mean, not Liam. No I-I don't love him." I stammer out stupidly, sitting up and leaning my body on the wall. Mum looks at me bemused with multiple line on her forehead. I reach up and sooth her with the pad of my thumb on her temple and she instantly relaxes, smiling a bit at me, the lines gone. 

"It's Harry isn't it?"

"What?" I ask, puzzled, placing my hand back down. What does she mean by Harry? What does he have to do with anything?

"You love him, don't you?" 

I now know 'Him' is Harry now. Am I that easy to read? First my sister, now my mother. Panic sets in, does Harry know?

Thankfully, mum cuts through my thoughts, "Don't you?"

"No." I breathe out. 

No. I can't tell her. Not after what I encountered with Fizzy. I'm not going to tolerate it if I do the same with my mum. I know I love Harry. I'm not in denial but I am moving on from him. Trying to anyway...

"No?" Mum repeats ludicrously like she's just been told I'm an alien with 8 heads from outer space and have come to take over Earth to destroy humanity. 

"Yes." 

"Yes?" She asks, confused. 

"Yes." I say.

"Yes what? Yes that you love him?" mum furrows her eyebrows together.

"No." I say.

"No?" She asks, "For Heaven's sake Louis, you're making me jumbled up."

"No I don't love Harry." I tell her. 

"Then why'd you say yes?" She asks yet again, trying to clear things up in her prospective.

"To say yes I don't love him." 

"Oh." Comes her reply after a while when really it was only 2 seconds.