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watching people be disgustingly in love right in front of him all the

time. The fact of the matter is, though, that for all the menagerie of

friends and acquaintances he‟s accumulated in Manchester, the two of

them and Niall are the only ones he ever really wants to spend his time

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with, so he puts up with it. It‟s not like it matters, anyway. It shouldn‟t

matter. It doesn‟t mean anything to him.

He tells them he wants to go out for drinks, and they all agree, mostly

because they all seem to be waiting for him to snap at any moment. He

drags them out with him three times in one week, hell-bent on enjoying

himself. He laughs as loudly as he remembers how and downs drinks

and flirts recklessly, but it never works and he always ends up closing

out his tab and going home alone, walking aimlessly around his flat

like he‟ll remember something for him to do if he just keeps moving

long enough. He never has anything to do. Sometimes he sits on top of

his bed and stares at the wall, feeling himself sober up. He doesn‟t

think this is how he used to have fun.

Louis Tomlinson isn‟t a quitter, though, so two nights later he rounds

them all up again and drags them out to the nearest bar with a drink

special on a Tuesday. He doesn‟t stay still the entire taxi ride over,

animated and twitchy and ignoring the worried looks Liam keeps

shooting him. As if Liam even knows him well enough to know what‟s

worrying or not. Half of what Louis does on a normal day would

probably worry Liam.

The night‟s a bust, just like all the rest of them. Louis hates everyone in

the bar on sight, which probably isn‟t fair, but fuck fair. He alternates

between glaring at everyone who has the gall to look at him and

resenting everyone who passes him by. He‟s not sure what he wants,

but it‟s not here. Niall ends up leaving with a pretty girl with even

prettier tattoos halfway through the night, and Louis spends the next

two hours getting systematically drunk on mojitos and watching Liam

and Zayn flirt with each two barstools over. He wishes his drink were

big enough to drown in.

In the taxi on the way home, he pretends to fall asleep against the

window so nobody asks him about how he‟s feeling or if he‟s okay or

does he want to talk about anything. Not that Liam and Zayn seem to

remember he‟s there anyway, but it feels better to just disengage

completely.

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Next to him, Zayn is cozied up to Liam, slurring things to each other in

that infuriating secret mumbly language that only couples understand.

“You know, you are allowed to kiss me in public,” Zayn teases, and

wow, Louis really, really does not want to have to sit through this

conversation.

“Sorry,” Liam says. He sounds so incredibly sheepish that Louis wants

to fling himself out the window. “It‟s just, I dunno, I‟m just still

figuring out what I‟m doing? Like, I know how to kiss you when we‟re

alone, but when we‟re out I don‟t know when that‟s okay, and then I

get all caught up in my head thinking I‟m bad at all the boyfriend-y

parts of being your boyfriend and I don‟t do anything at all. It‟s my

fault. I‟m always sort of afraid you‟re going to notice I‟m kind of

awkward and weird and not that great at this and then you won‟t want

to be with me anymore.”

Louis hears Zayn laugh a little. “Can I tell you something? I‟m always

afraid of the same thing.”

“Really?” Liam says, all wide-eyed shock and innocence. Jesus Christ.

“Have you met me?” Zayn says. “Listen, I told you, there‟s nothing you

can do that‟s gonna scare me off, okay? And you‟re not a bad

boyfriend. You never have to be afraid of that.”

“Okay,” Liam says after a moment.

“And I want you to kiss me whenever you want to,” Zayn tells him, so

quietly that Louis feels like he‟s intruding on the moment just by being

alive.

“What if I kind of want to kiss you all the time?” Liam says. Louis

wants to throw up on both of them.

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Zayn laughs again. “I can definitely live with that.”

And now there‟s the sound of clothes rustling, and then the soft smack

of lips, and fucking hell, they‟re having a right fucking snog in the

backseat of the taxi while Louis just sits there and endures it, and the

worst part of all is that it reminds him of that night in the taxi with

Harry and how Harry had held him after they‟d fucked the headboard

into the wall and kissed him behind the ear and everything is terrible

and he is so, so lonely.

He misses Harry. He hates Harry and everything that happened because

of him and God, he misses Harry.

Admitting that to himself feels like ripping the bottom out of his

stomach and letting it all drop, but it‟s true, and he can‟t keep denying

it. Being around Liam and Zayn makes him miserable not because he

finds romance so repulsive but because looking at them is like seeing a

fucking ghost, except he‟s the one that‟s dead. It feels like the universe

is punishing him, holding Liam and Zayn up and saying look at all

these wonderful things you weren‟t good enough to have.

Breaking through his thoughts, Louis hears Zayn whisper, “I love you.”

He hears the universe whisper back, look at what you were too fucked

up to deserve.

When the taxi reaches his street, he pretends to wake up and ducks out

with a mumbled goodbye, leaving the lovebirds to make their way

home together. He climbs the stairs to his flat, walks straight to the

bathroom, and spends an hour sitting on the floor of his shower, letting

the hot water cloud the glass with steam.

He reaches for that familiar anger, and finds nothing there. Even that

has abandoned him now.

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Louis‟ step-dad left when he was somewhere between seventeen and

eighteen.

He should remember it more specifically, he thinks. Down to a date. It

seems like the kind of event that should be seared into his mental

calendar, a date that he dreads when it rolls around every year, but the

thing was, he didn‟t leave all at once. It was messier than that, a more

gradual thing. It took him ages to finish moving all of his things, and

then the calls started getting less frequent, and he was sort of just...not

around. Not totally gone, because how can someone like that ever

really be gone? But he wasn‟t there anymore.

With Harry, it‟s different. He knows exactly where Harry is and why.

He knows exactly the station where he dropped him off, exactly the

look on his face when he knew it was the last time he would ever see

him. It‟s like a death, honestly, if he really looks it in the eyes. It‟s like

a loss, like trying to lay somebody to rest and find a way to live in all

the spaces they‟ll never touch again. It‟s a shock, and it shouldn‟t be

because Louis knew it was coming, but he still feels numb with it as he

sits alone in his bed.

He doesn‟t bother lying to himself anymore. He wasn‟t very good at it,

anyway. There‟s no more point in pretending he doesn‟t care. That fact

can‟t hurt him any more than it already has, and besides, once you‟ve

accepted the sadness, you can‟t really undo it.

Louis remembers the little pamphlets in the waiting room at the

medical center back when he was in uni, one of them outlining the

stages of grief. He‟d read through most of those pamphlets at some

point or another. He reckons this is the depression part. At least that‟s

not uncharted territory.

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He spends weeks squirreling sadness away inside his flat, wrapping it

around him like a blanket, because it hurts like hell but at least it‟s

honest. Anger drove him wild, but sadness lets him be. For a while he

doesn‟t get out of bed except to feed Duchess or get food for himself,

which he always ends up bringing back to his bedroom. The dishes

accumulate, empty glasses and bottles on every surface, and there‟s a

layer of laundry on the floor so thick he can hardly see the ugly carpet

anymore. It‟s a fucking mess and he hates living in it, but he doesn‟t

have the energy to change anything and as much as he doesn‟t want to

be there, he really doesn‟t want to be anywhere else. Eventually he

gives up and just starts wearing the same pair of oversized joggers

every day, because it‟s not like anyone‟s going to see him anyway.

He knows he‟s avoiding his friends. The problem is, the more days that

go by without him talking to anyone, the more he feels like calling any

of them would only draw attention to the fact that he hasn‟t been

around, and he‟s too ashamed to admit to any of them that he hasn‟t left

his room in weeks. He can‟t stand the looks they‟d give them, how

concerned they would be, how they‟d want him to talk about how he‟s

feeling. He‟d be nothing but a burden at best and a charity case at

worst. He can‟t face that.

So he lets his phone go dead and he doesn‟t recharge it. He thinks about

it, gets as close as almost plugging it into the wall, but the gripping

anxiety of having to answer anyone‟s questions about anything shuts

him down before he can go through with it. He feels like an idiot every

time. It‟s just a phone. It‟s just a phone. Maybe he‟s just defective.

It‟s an awful, cyclical, paralyzing sadness, and he doesn‟t know how to

drag himself out of it.

He tries reading, tries watching television, tries skimming through

scripts to pick out some selections for the summer acting workshop

he‟s promised to do and is going to have to start preparing for soon,

somehow—none of it works. Nothing holds his interest anymore. Well,

nothing except thoughts of Harry, of bright city lights in his hair and

what kind of mad adventures he‟s probably getting up to on his own.

He imagines Harry found his feet quickly, that he‟s happier now than

he ever was when he had Louis like a weight around his neck all the

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time. He pictures Harry swaying on the tube, or singing something

under his breath as he walks home to his flat at night, or in Hyde Park,

running his fingers through the grass. He can‟t decide if the thought of

Harry being okay without him hurts more or less now.

If nothing else, he at least hopes that Harry thinks of him, and that he

doesn‟t hate him completely.

He loses track of the days, loses track of day and night, so he‟s not even

sure what time it is when he hears someone pounding on the door of his

flat.

He sits frozen in his bed as whoever‟s on the other side of the door

waits for a response. He wonders if it‟s Zayn like it was last time, here

to try to coax him into another conversation he doesn‟t want to have,

and wonders if he can convince him he‟s asleep if he just waits long

enough. The pounding starts up again.