Too Young ~ Larry Stylinson

Seven

Paul is the one who finds him. The band had an interview the morning after, eleven o'clock sharp. Their bodyguard and interim father when they were away from home had been the one to retrieve Harry for it.

He stepped up the path to the small flat Harry had moved into a couple months ago. The lights were off throughout the house, nothing new, as Paul walked through the door. He had an odd certain sense of fear in his gut as he walked through the foyer, across the kitchen, and into the hallway that eventually led to the single bedroom.

"Harry?" He called out, opening the door to the office first. It was empty. He checked the unattached bathroom next.

Empty.

Paul carefully made his way towards the bathroom, dread filling his body. Something was definitely wrong. He knew it and he didn't want to find out what.

He finally pushed open the bedroom door, peaking in. "Harry? Are you in h- holy shit," Paul cut himself off, gasping in what is best described as horror, panic in the midst of trauma.

Harry was there, but he was lying on the bed motionless. In seconds Paul rushed over to the side of the bed shaking the gone boy frantically. "HARRY! Harry, wake up! This isn't funny, Wake! Up!"

Paul let out a sob as he stepped back, pulling out his phone and dialing 911. Once the dispatcher had assured him the paramedics were on their way, Paul dropped his phone, not caring if it had shattered or landed softly. He knelt down by Harry again, shoving two fingers down the boy's throat to try to get him to throw the drugs back up but to no avail.

The next thirty minutes were a blur for him. The paramedics entered the house and found Paul bent over Harry's lifeless body sobbing. They pulled the man off him, one of the responders holding him tightly while he kept crying as the others checked Harry.

The next thing Paul knew, he was in the back of a wailing ambulance, headed for the hospital with the young popstar on a stretcher in front of him, just lying there. And if it wasn't for the reality of the situation- how dreadful and gut wrenching it was- Harry could have almost looked peaceful, something that hadn't shown on his face in months.

-

Coincidently enough, it was pouring down rain when Louis, Liam, Niall, and Zayn sprinted into the emergency room, disbelief and shock written across their faces and their eyes rimmed red from crying, dried tears on their faces and some still falling.

They were all a wreck, but Louis was the worst. He was distraught, his actions frantic and his eyes darting everywhere trying to take in the overwhelming surroundings and search for answers. He had a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach and all he wanted to do was throw up, but his body wouldn't let him.

He ran into the waiting room looking for a familiar face, someone to tell him what had happened. Paul walked around a corner as Louis looked over to the same side of the room and they locked eyes. Louis raised his eyebrows hopefully, looking for some kind of expression of possibility, possibility that this might just all be one big nightmare. He was going to wake up soon for a concert or interview or photoshoot, and Harry would be right there by him.

Paul walked towards the group of boys, not saying anything until he was close enough to whisper. He didn't want his words to come out any harsher than they were already going to sound.

"I-is he...? He's okay right? You have to tell me he's okay. He has to be okay," Louis begged while he started to pull at his hair with a hand, working himself up as he kept speaking.

Paul was quiet for a moment.

"I- I'm so sorry you guys. I'm so sorry Louis."

Louis stopped breathing for a second, as did the boys behind him, as he took in the information. Immediately tears started falling down his cheeks again, the other three boys as well, but Louis wasn't even processing them anymore.

"NO! Don't say that! You're lying! He's okay- he has to be okay- stop lying!" Louis screams at the man who gives him a sympathetic look. Louis lunges at Paul, banging his fists on the man's chest, not hard enough to hurt him, but to just do something. To react somehow.

Paul grabbed the boy's hands and held them so they would stop, pulling the sobbing boy into him. "I'm sorry, Lou. I know. I'm so sorry kiddo."

"No... he can't be... please- no." the boy whimpered into his chest, shaking his head into his chest. This couldn't be real.

-

When Louis had stopped sobbing an hour and a half later, now just in shock and unable to process his own emotions, Paul pulled back and looked at all the boys, reaching his hand to his back pocket to grab something out. "Um. The medics found this in his room. It's for you guys."

He held his hand out and waited for the boys to take it. They were all still stuck in disbelief, holding each other and crying. Liam reached out with a sad, tear-filled smile, holding a sobbing Niall in his one arm, and took the folded piece of paper in the free hand. "Thanks."

Paul nodded in response, rubbing Zayn's shoulder sympathetically before turning back around and walking back to where he had come from to talk with a nurse.

Liam eventually got the boys into a quieter corner of the lobby, sitting the boys down as they held each other and whimpered. Liam sat down in front of them, beginning to open the letter he was given- Harry's last recorded thoughts presumably- and held it out in front of all the boys, visible for all of them to read at the same time.

They all read through it, assumedly over and over again by the way each boy would sob in specific intervals, like they were re-reading certain parts that made their hearts ache even more than the rest of the letter did. After they had sat there reading over and over for thirty minutes, completely silent apart from the gut wrenching cries that wracked through the four boys' bodies, Liam folded the paper back up, but nobody moved. They sat there, silent and frozen, staring off into the busy hospital waiting room but not really looking at anything.

Their minds were elsewhere, focusing on the fact that Harry Styles was forever gone. He wasn't coming back, and each of them knew they played a part in that, even if their part was not doing anything at all.

But Louis knew deep down inside of him that he was by far the biggest person to be blamed. He had broken Harry; the boy even admitted it in the letter. He had been far too stupid to show how he truly felt, to not be so fucking selfish and be honest for once in his damn life, and now he would never see the boy again. Never hear him laugh and watch his dimple pop out. Never kiss his sweet lips and see those same lips smile softly. He had broken the boy he loved so much, and because of that he was gone forever, in a peaceful sleep that he couldn't wake up from. Ever.

And so, on that miserable Thursday night, the third of December 2016, twenty-two-year-old Harry Edward Styles had taken his own life.