Save Myself // Larry Stylinson

Chapter 27

Was this how Harry must have felt that night they'd been wrapped together in his room when he'd tried to tell Louis how he felt and Louis had met him with nothing but silence? Hadn't even dignified his words with a proper response? It was rotten and Louis wished that it was possible to sink slowly through the floorboards.

"Talk about bad timing," Louis said and he could feel the mournful tone to his voice. He wished he was better, stronger. He wished that he could take the sting of this rejection in stride and not get caught up in the lingering feeling of that dull knife in his stomach...but, fuck, it hurt. It hurt to sit there with his heart in his fist, trying to hand it to someone who didn't know what to do with it. Sure, there had been a time when Harry wanted to understand, when he didn't know how deep Louis' wounds were, but now wasn't that time. Now he didn't want it...he wanted something simpler and easier and Louis should have just been grateful that he was still even willing to listen, willing to help with the trouble Louis was in. He didn't have a right to want anything more.

"I'm sorry," he started to babble, words falling from his mouth because he couldn't stand the silence for another second, "I get it. I get what you're doing and I don't blame you and I'm sorry...maybe you didn't want me to say anything, but I'm trying this new thing where I'm actually honest with people. I thought that if anyone in my life deserved that, it was you. I just wanted you to know—I know it doesn't change anything. I can't expect that it would, but it's just...it felt necessary. It's just...I do, I do love you, Harry, so, so much and it's the most surprising feeling in the world. Like, in books is always grand and romantic and it's always, like, reciprocated and maybe it was naive of me to think that it would be like that in real life. In real life it's, like, so much harder, you know? It's like standing face to face with a tornado or something. It's like...scary and big and consuming. Like its all I can think about and it's terrifying. I was so terrified of this exact thing—of you not having the answer I wanted. But it's like, it took me so fucking long to understand why you were different, why you made everything in my life different and I'm sorry that I realized it too late. Maybe I loved you for a long time, but I didn't know. I didn't have anything to compare it to so I couldn't say it—I didn't know there was a word to sum up why you were the most important person in the world to me and..."

"Jesus, Louis, take a breath, would you?" Harry's voice was soft...and mirthful?

"I..." was all that Louis managed to force out of his mouth.

"It's just...I stopped letting myself believe I'd ever hear you say those things."

It kind of felt like the ceiling was crashing down on them. Louis was trapped in the most vulnerable place that he'd ever been in his life. Things were messy. They were a fucking disaster and he knew that rationally the only thing that he should have been thinking about was the gun sitting in his car and about everything that was about to happen regarding that, but...Harry. Harry was right there, finally in the same place as Louis and Louis didn't understand how he'd been away for so long. Harry was finally right there, but he was still so far away. It felt like there was a million miles between them despite the fact that either of them could have closed the gap with three small strides. That was the worst part of all. Harry was right there and there were so many tears streaming down his face and Louis couldn't do anything about it. He'd done it to him, and he was struck suddenly with the realization that he had probably been the reason many times before for Harry's tears and, fuck, he was a shit person. Scum of the earth. Was there even anything that he could say to fix things? Like, actually fix things.

"I'm sorry," Louis tried even though he knew there wasn't enough sorry in the fucking solar system to erase the things he'd done, "I'm sorry I left that night, fuck, Harry I'm sorry. I didn't think you could understand—I don't want you to be able to understand. No one should ever have to understand what it felt like to finally have you and then for everything to just crush me like that...I wanted to be enough for you. I wanted to be good and give you what you needed but I let all of the stupid things I did before you ruin my shot."