Reign || Harry Styles

34: Disposal

The telly was on.

On screen was a dumb reality show that Elsie used to watch. He did not really know for sure, but it had something to do with this overly-wealthy family and their dose of everyday drama. Dramas that seemed like a ton of nonsense to Harry, but Elsie would have still watched it anyway.

Though Elsie was not there, Elsie was somewhere else.

I thought you were serious with Elsie, he heard his buddy's thick accent again in his head. Over and over. Dialogues from the coffee shop kept repeating themselves, like running around in circles, and he felt his head spin with each floating sentence. You're not thinking straight.

You're not thinking straight.

You're not thinking straight.

You're not—

He wanted to open the windows, climb on the windowsill, and jump.

He really, really did want to.

But he did not. He knew that he should not. Instead, he just sat there on the sofa, fingers between dishevelled hair, staring absently at the dumb reality show Elsie used to watch.

It was dusk, and he ended up not going to his Foreign Languages lecture. Because fuck lectures, he thought; he would rather be dead.

That noon was spent by drinking his faith away and his humanities astray. He did not know what exactly was bothering him, but it felt like an accumulation of pain balling up inside of his throat.

He did not know how much booze he had consumed.

He lost count after six. Six what, he could not even recall. He disposed quickly of the bottles (or cans, he could not recall) by throwing them out from the window of the bathroom, not giving a shit about where it landed or if it hurt anybody.

Now it felt like his head was drilling and pounding and pulsating, hence the fingers through his hair. He tried massaging it away, but it was all in vain. He tried taking aspirin, washing it down with water; but the water tasted like turd so he drank more booze to cleanse the foul taste away.

He had been swallowing the urge to vomit for almost three minutes now. This ball of pain inside of his throat was starting to cluster, making an even larger ball of pain. He tried convincing himself that he did not want to vomit, though so far it had not appeared to work.

The telly was still putting on that dumb reality show, the one Elsie liked to watch. Even in his state of ultimate discomfort he could still comprehend that the show lacked a lot of intelligence. Rich people doing rich people things and complaining about rich people stuff. Harry's parents also had too much money, but he had never found them complaining about petty things like these people in the show. And for that one thing, he was thankful. At least, even in his state of discomfort, he could think of one positive thing about his parents.

When he felt like the bile was about to crawl out of his throat, he trampled to the bathroom as swiftly as his crumpling body allowed him to, and retched in the toilet. He felt awful. He felt like with each vomit, he could have passed out because that was how drained he felt. All of that day's energy, gone. Everything was put into pushing the contents of his gastric system out.

When he felt like he had finished retching, another ball travelled straight up his throat and he delved back into the mouth of the toilet. There went all of his stomach acid, down the drain and into the sewer. He just hoped the sewer rats liked it. A mixture of booze, his morning egg sandwich, and a great amount of despair. A disgusting concoction of bodily waste that stank like something that had started to decompose a month ago.

He took one sharp inhale, but the sound he produced made it seem like he had an asthmatic attack. Scooting carefully to the bathroom wall, he propped himself against it and began to contemplate.

You're not thinking straight. He could hear it again—the sound of the bastard and the backstabber friend—lurking at the back of his head like some stray ghost. You're lost, Harry. You've always been.

You've always been.

You've always been.

You've always—

If he kept listening to the ghosts, he would turn insane. If he kept searching for silence, he would turn soulless. Either way, he was lost.

He had always been.

Was this what he would continue to do from that moment on? Drink his pain away and humanities astray? Or would it be better to ditch the life he had build there and move back to his parents' house? He was thinking of the isolated one in this small town called Holmes Chapel, so far away from the prying hands of his friends and the sickening lustre of Jean Franco.

Jean Franco, Jean Franco, Jean Franco.

Funny. She had not been in his head for a while, but now that he had brought her up, he could not get her out of his head, out of his head, out of his—

In one swift movement, Harry jerked back to the toilet seat and emptied the already arid desert of his guts into the bowl. There was a brawling in the pits of his stomach, gnawing like a monster of its own. And the pain . . . oh the melodic music of pain. Like there was an orchestra inside of him playing loudly and desperately in order to be acknowledged.

Yes, pain. I acknowledge you, he said to himself. The nuts and bolts in his head were beginning to unscrew, and he thought he was turning loco. But all is fine, he said again. All is fine  . . .

He then propped back against the cold bathroom wall, closed his eyes, waiting for that one speck of white light that would lead him to the other side. It was easier to die, sure. But he did not truly want to die, he just liked the idea of an ending.

An ending.

An ending.

An end—

He gathered himself to the medicine cabinet. For some unknown explanation, he felt like he needed to stop loathing. Seize the day. Carpe diem. He leaned himself against the wall, just so he would not fall. The banging in his head was the most intense he had felt that day, possibly amplified by the booze and the constant thinking thinking thinking thinking think—

Harry's mind was broken. He knew it. He was turning loco. He could really sense it. At the time Elsie would come home he imagined her seeing this alcoholic mess of a boyfriend—if, and only if, she still considered him as one—and take him straight to the mental institution. A place where he could rot away without backstabbing best friends and the girlfriend he had become tired of convincing himself that he loved.

And that woman who broke his heart.

One, then two pills were popped out of the container he was holding. Aspirin. After these, he could stop loathing. Hopefully to seize the day.

Carpe diem.

Walking carefully to the living room, he plopped back on his previous seating spot on the sofa, stayed still for a moment, before reaching out for the television remote.

As if anything could not get any worse, he saw the woman he did not want to see even in the wildest of his fantasies.

Carpe diem, he said. And he just wanted to die.

Seeing this woman on the telly in front of him, all dazzling smiles and flashing lights, he felt something deep inside of him that gnawed like a disease.

He felt pain.

And he just wanted to open the windows, climb on the windowsill, and jump.

Carpe diem, he said.

Maybe this would be the end of it.