Complicity [h.s]

45

PART 2 OF THE 4-PART UPDATE

Niall Horan

Thirty minutes later

"I don't know what we should do...." Louis whispers outside of Harry's room.

Liam, Nova, and myself all stand with the same intent. Everyone's lost in this situation, and no one knows how to fix it. What we saw was the straw that broke the camel's back. He's spent the last ten months trying to be a better person, trying to conceal everything he once was with the intent to fix it all.

"He'll move past this," Liam assures. "He has to."

"No, he won't." Louis disagrees. "He's balling his eyes out. The last time he did that in front of us was in Vegas. And we saw what happened after that..."

"What happened after that?" Nova asks.

"He didn't speak for weeks. Let alone function."

"Why did Aven do that?" Liam shakes his head.

"Don't blame this on her," Nova says.

"Yeah, don't." I agree. "We have no idea what hell she could be dealing with in that house, remember that."

I turn back to the bedroom door, slowly opening it up. Harry stays kneeling on the floor with his back to us, staring at the mess of papers on the floor before him. I slowly walk in as the others follow, crouching to his level.

"Hey..." I begin, reaching for the pile. "We'll find a way to put these back together, okay? Not all of them are ripped up, and I'm sure you've read this thing a million times to remember the order of—"

He snaps his hand around my wrist before my fingertip meets a page. He doesn't look up at me, but his grip is like stone.

"Okay..." I reason. "I won't touch them."

I pull from his grasp until he releases.

"Leave me alone." He says sternly, keeping his vision on the papers.

I stand up, nodding as we all head back out the door to give him space.

"I feel like there's nothing we can say to him right now," Louis states.

"I don't think he should be left alone for too long, though," Nova adds.

"We have to hope he'll come around. But for now, let's just keep checking on him. Maybe this time will be different..."

One day later

I knock on the door, opening it to the exact same room I saw yesterday. Harry lies on the floor in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling. He's wearing the same clothes, and pages lay in the same scattered pile. I don't think he's left the ground.

"It's me," I say with a bottle of water, a banana, and insulin balancing in my hand.

He doesn't answer nor turn his head—I didn't really expect him to, I guess.

"I just wanted to bring you these." I step up in front of him, crouching to put the three items on the floor. "You know we're all here to talk or not talk whenever you want."

He keeps his red eyes on the concrete ceiling, totally zoned out in his own thoughts.

"I'll be in the living room." I remind him before walking out.

Three days later

I knock on the door three times, knowing he's not going to answer, but I do it out of warning. Opening the door, light leaks into the pitch-black room. It's enough light to see him lying in the bed with his back to me. The room is completely wrecked—he tore apart everything. All the investigation work he did to find Aven is destroyed: pictures, notes, maps. The keyboard he just got is demolished, and he even broke his lamp, so now he has no light in this windowless prison.