If You See This Boy

The Reality Where You're Still Here

"N...No! I'm not..." I stammer as he glances over his shoulder.

"It will just be for a moment, promise. Louis will be back soon, yeah?" he says as he takes the plates from my hands.

Nervously, I nod and follow after him with a small look back toward the large kitchen area. "Where are we going?" I ask quietly, looking after the tufts of honey colored hair that curl around the young man's ears and just barely touch the back of his collar. 

"My office," he tells me as he continues down the long hall. "You've been there before, don't worry."

The memory is there, the dream from only days before of sitting in front of a desk on a not-so-comfortable couch with that man in chair on the opposite side of the desk, his hands clasped together on the surface. 

He pushes open a door with a metal nameplate screwed to the frame but before I can look at it, he pulls me inside by the wrist. "Take a seat," he gently motions to the familiar couch and a few different chairs in the room before he takes a seat behind the desk.

I move to take a seat on the couch and there's a moment when the blandly colored fabric fades to our couch. The white tile beneath my bare feet fades to worn down carpet, our carpet. My fingers stall, reaching for the familiar soft of the couch cushions from where I stand beside it.

"Harry?" 

The fabric blends into a pale grey again, the touch of it no longer inviting but foreign as the carpet fades with a startled blink. No, no, no... Come back. I lift my hands to touch my hair, feeling desperately for any sort of head wound that would warrant this. I had to have hit my head. The bowls in the cabinets may have been stacked wrong and had fallen on me. 

"It's okay, take your time," the young man quietly instructs from his spot on the other side of that damn desk.

I glance at him, frantically hoping to see Louis sitting there instead with his too wide smile and too mischievous eyes. Nervously, I seat myself on the very edge of the couch, keeping my hands strictly away from the fabric.

"Want to tell me what you were doing today?" he asks as he drums his fingers quietly on the wooden surface of his desk. It's such a familiar gesture, the beat the same incessant one that's driven me mad many times before.

"Louis and I were making breakfast," I tell him reluctantly. It's too private to tell him, he shouldn't need to know about Louis. I should be able to keep him safe and in my arms. "Where is Louis?" I ask again because it would be perfectly fine to even be lied to in this obscure, concussed reality as long as Louis was still somewhere. 

The young man shifts a little in his chair, "I will tell you if you can answer some of my questions first. Is that okay, Harry?" 

"Okay," I agree softly. Nervously, I run my fingers through my hair again searching, pleading that there might be some gash or bump.

"Where are you?" he asks.

Lifting my head, I glance at him before looking around the room for any sign of our things. "You've asked me that before. I'm in London," I answer.

He nods in affirmation before continuing, "Tell me about how you grew up. What made you, you?"

"I, um, grew up in Holmes Chapel, a small town in Cheshire... My mum and dad split when I was very young and my dad took my sister when he moved away. I met Louis in Holmes Chapel when his family moved in down the street. His mum had just had, or was about to have, his first little sister. He gave me his boots when I decided it was a good idea to go to the pond in my socks to see the ducks that had already flown away for the winter. We were instant friends from then on," I softly retell the story, the memory fogged a little in the recesses of my mind. "Louis went missing five days before he was to turn seven..."