Save Myself // Larry Stylinson

Chapter 14

"Its nice of you to say that,"

"Its not nice, Louis, its true. If he cared about himself, about his health, about you, he would have changed. He would have fought to keep you, but the only thing he's fought for is to keep you as his, like, personal ATM or something,"

Harry was impassioned then, and his words were silly and Louis sputtered a small laugh at them, which seemed to ease the tension in Harry's forehead. "But I'm so good at being an ATM,"

"Are not," said Harry, sticking his tongue out.

"I am, you just don't give me the opportunity to shine,"

Harry smiled at him delicately, "but seriously, whatever happened that changed things with him, do you not feel like it's better?"

"In some ways, yes," said Louis, "but I was always all he had. Now he doesn't have anything,"

"You can't be responsible for someone else, Louis. He's an adult. He could choose to save himself and he hasn't,"

But, the one thing Harry was overlooking here was that maybe no one had ever told Matt he could save himself. No one had ever told Louis until he'd swallowed a bottle of pills and landed in a psych ward.

...

Louis had just dropped Harry off at work and was now sitting in the silent car with Zayn in the back seat. Zayn didn't really speak much unless he really thought it was worth his time. He'd said a lot last night, and it was strange to Louis because he'd never imagined him being the kind of person that made people want to open up. He was a complete idiot when it came to feelings. He was totally useless and he didn't even know how to feel his own feelings, let alone feel Zayn's or speak to them.

They were only a couple of blocks from where Zayn had instructed Louis he lived when he spoke again.

"I was talking about Liam, you know?" He had the window down and Marsha was freezing, but Zayn apparently needed a cigarette at all moments of the day.

"Oh?" Louis tried to make it sound like a question, even though he'd mostly figured it out the night before.

"Yeah," said Zayn on an exhale, "sometimes I wish it could be literally anyone else, but life's fucked, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," admitted Louis, because life being fucked was something that Louis probably knew better than most.

"We hooked up at a party last year," he began, leaning between the front seats so that Louis could hear him over the cold wind whipping around them, "and I was like...dating 3 or 4 other people," and of course supermodel Zayn was dating tonnes of people at once, it just wouldn't make sense otherwise, "and I don't know. It was different. First time it's ever been different. Maybe its because he doesn't kiss my ass and call me pretty all the bloody time, I don't know."

"Have you, like, told him?" that's what people did, wasn't it? Louis had read enough books to sort of have a grip on how dating went. Someone had to say something, right?

Zayn scoffed at his words, "my final project last year was a paining of his smile. A giant fucking paining that was pretty obviously him, and I titled it Payn for Pleasure, like a fucking play on both of our names, you know? He didn't even get it. Or he did and he didn't care," Zayn leaned back to his place, "either way, it was a fucking painting of him and he just said, 'it's really pretty Zee," Zayn chuckled darkly, "He's a clueless fucking lump,"

Louis couldn't help the laugh that fell from his lips.

He could hear the grin in Zayn's voice, "didn't realize my excruciating pain was so fucking funny,"