too good to be true {l.s}

The Birthday

II

THE BIRTHDAY

October 8th

The alarm clock rings loudly, annoyingly, way too close to Harry's ears, and he's slightly embarrassed of how long it takes for him to recover control over his limbs and manage to turn off the noisy thing. The alarm clock was a gift from his parents, a fancy one at that, and it included a whole Bluetooth system where Harry could choose which song he would like to wake up to. It was meant to improve Harry's process of getting out of bed and that's exactly what it used to do: on weekdays, Harry used to wake up to Frank Sinatra's melodic voice and on weekends, he used to wake up later, even more relaxed, to the sweet sound of Echo & the Bunnymen. It was perfect and, as Harry damn well knows, nothing perfect ever lasts. At least not anywhere near the hands of Louis Tomlinson. So now, for God knows how long, Harry wakes up everyday to the loud musical apocalypse that is Justin Bieber's "Baby". It's absolutely terrible. He wakes up not knowing whether to smile or growl and it's a mess. If he tries to change the song, Louis hits him. In the head. Harry's pretty sure he's being tortured. He can't really say he minds all that much.

You are my love, you are my heart

And we will never, ever, ever be apa-

It's 7:00am.

It's a brand new day. Harry gives himself another extra five minutes in bed - "it's like you're relaxing from all your relaxing, curly" - and heads to the bathroom. In the mirror, he sees how long his hair is getting - "it's your mane, Harold" - and, not for the first time, considers cutting it short - "over my cold dead body". He brushes his teeth thoroughly and it's only when he's placing his toothbrush on its case that he notices the black square saucer. It's here every single morning so it's not like he's surprised, it's just that he almost forgot about its existence. In the saucer, there are three different pills, perfectly aligned: light blue, white and dark white. Louis would probably call it grey if Harry would let him talk about the pills, but Harry doesn't. They both know why.

Harry doesn't take too long staring down at the pills nor does he feel guilty like he used to. It's been a while since he did this for the first time and even though he's not sure how long exactly, there haven't been any side effects since, which only proves the efficacy of Harry's method. Its safety. Harry picks one by one individually - light blue, white and dark white - and holds them in his palm. Then, he gets as far away from the sink as he can and turns to face the toilet. He's done this before. There's a whole method. With his back leaning against the opposite wall, feeling the cold from the granite sipping through his pajamas, Harry throws the light blue pill into the air, a perfect parabola, and it falls right into the toilet. It makes no sound when it hits the water, but Harry pretends to hear a splash. He cheers like this is a basketball championship and he just scored the final point. Louis is making him silly lately. On a double throw, white and dark white follow the same path made by the light blue pill and all three face the same destiny. Harry cheers once more before flushing them down the toilet. What a perfect way to start the day.

Deep down, Harry is aware that this is not the best method to deal with his "condition", but he is also aware that tomorrow - and the day after that, and the one after that, until his parent's ran out of money; which, realistically, may never happen - there will always be another helper bringing another saucer to his bathroom, filled with another set of pills perfectly aligned. It doesn't matter what Harry wants, it doesn't matter that the pills cost significantly more to his parent's account than all the helper's wage combined. And since nothing really matters, Harry will deal with this in whatever way he seems fitting. It works or, at least, it makes things less terrible. "Really optimistic there, curly". See, Harry's an optimist now.