Outing Larry

Chapter 23

Harry reached out and placed his hand on Louis' arm but Louis was quick to pull his arm away and Harry felt like he had been slapped across the face. Again. He swallowed hard and watched as Louis scooted away from him and ran his fingers through his messy hair then finally bring his eyes to meet Harry's.

'Look Harry,' Louis told him in a low voice, 'I think that maybe they are right...'

'Who is right about what?' Harry asked him cutting him off, his eyes fixed on Louis. Louis bit the inside of his cheek.

'About us being with Eleanor and Nadine. I'm sorry I was such a dick about her. I'm sure she's awesome and you seem to like her....'

'Wait, wait what?' Harry exclaimed cutting Louis off. Louis looked down and played with his phone.

'Harry you should be with Nadine,' he told him flatly. Harry stared at him with his mouth open.

'And you should be with Eleanor?' he asked him. Louis remained silent. Harry took in a deep breath.

'You don't mean that Lou,' Harry told him quietly, 'not after all...'

'Maybe I do,' Louis interrupted him, his voice cold. 'Maybe it will be better for everyone if we were just friends.' Harry stared at him with wide eyes not believing what he was hearing.

'Just friends? Are you kidding me right now Lou? After all we've been though? Seriously?' Louis met his eyes and Harry saw he was serious, dead serious. He shook his head 'No Lou, you can't possibly mean it. Don't let them convince you...'

'Nobody fucking convinced me of anything alright!' he yelled and Harry flinched. The pain in his heart was too much already and he couldn't handle Louis yelling at him right now.

'So you're telling me all this is your idea?' Harry asked him. He could barely speak. Louis fidgeted with his fingers, not looking at Harry.

'I think it would be better for the both of us if...' he began but Harry cut him off.

'I don't believe you,' Harry told him, his voice hoarse from the lump in his throat. He knew he was going to cry if Louis kept this up. He could feel the tears burning behind his eyes as he looked at the love of his entire life sitting next to him telling him they were better off as friends and that they should have girlfriends. Why was Louis talking all this shit? 'Louis,' he whispered, 'look me in the eyes and tell me that...that we are better off without each other.' Louis lifted his head and looked at Harry, his blue eyes meeting Harry's teary green eyes.

'How is any of this ever going to work Harry? We can never be. We're too fucking public. You and I are just pretend. We have to hide and this...what we have is causing problems for everyone. We can't even fucking go out and be seen together because someone might snap a picture like what happened in Wellington? You remember that huh? We were on You Tube in less than half a fucking hour. We travelled together to Sydney and what happened? We were all over fucking Twitter in ten minutes. There are fan made videos of us and stories and fucking photo shopped pictures of you and me kissing and fucking and holding hands when we've never even done any of that shit in public. I don't want to be outed. This has gone too fucking far for too long.' Harry gasped. Louis' words hit him like a ton of bricks.