Three Years Later

The beginning

I stood outside of the door dreading walking into this meeting that I called. The meeting that would either make or break the rest of our careers. I haven't even seen these lads since I walked out. I didn't know what they were going to think. Will they care that I left? I know Louis will. I left him. I open the door and scan the room before picking the open seat across from Louis. Louis and I are facing each other and Niall and Liam are sat in between us on a couch. As I look up at Louis, I try my best to study him without him catching me staring. His eyes are dark and tired, probably from lack of sleep, his hair is all messy but it looks so good on him and he's wearing his dark green adidas jumper with grey sweatpants and vans on. How can someone look like such a mess but so perfect at the same time? I look around and notice that the boys are waiting for me to talk. I forgot this meeting was all my doing.

"You lads just could not let me be the first one here huh?" I try and chuckle at the end to hide my nervousness but it comes off as more nervous than jokingly. I'm in front of the man I love and my best friends for the first time in three years. How could I not be nervous?

"Kind of hard to do when you're ten minutes late." Liam says. He doesn't have any humor behind his words. He is the most stern I have ever heard him.

Niall just exhales and says, "what are we doing here, H? A message telling us all to meet you here at 3 in the afternoon and no context was not the best way to expect us to all show up." He looks at me with his round glasses on and I yet I can still see the seriousness in his eyes as well.

"Well you're here aren't you?" I let out

Under his breath, Louis mutters, "barely..."

"What was that?" I cock my head at him and give him a look I have given him so many times. Silence fills the room for many awkward moments before I began to speak again. "Okay. Business time. I want to do a reunion tour. I want to go back to the way things were before we called a break." Before I even have time to read the room, Louis butts in.

"HA! And how do you suppose that's gonna work? We act like the last three years never happened?" What do you mean how? We've always worked well together. Is he stupid?

"Yeah, H...it sounds nice but it's too good to be true. Too much has happened." Oh great, now Liam agrees with Louis too.

"I'm down but I don't understand? Are we just going to go back to singing the same stuff we have always sung? We haven't put new music out as a group since 2015." Niall is always on my side! Thank god! I do not have it in me to convince all three of them.

"So we write! We have all been writing individually since then so how hard could it be to write together again? And we can all sing some of our own music too. It can be like a "One Direction Gets Back Together/Does a Solo Tour Together!" It's genius!" At this point I can tell they think I'm crazy. I mean, I sound crazy. My voice is all high pitch and nervous and I'm ranting about how this plan could work.

"The whole definition of solo is being alone. A thing you know a lot about..." Louis says and I want so hard to pick an argument but I know he's right. Niall, Liam, and I look around at each other thinking about what to say. We all know he's right.

Finally Liam sighs and says, "Look, I think what you're proposing sounds real nice but how do we know it's going to work? We're old now. Our fans are all in their last few years or out of high school. They don't want to listen to songs like "What Makes You Beautiful" anymore. I get where you're coming from, I really do. I think about us getting back together all the time but too much time has past for that now. Everyone has moved on from One Direction and we have to too. We all like doing our own stuff."

"Exactly. Two of us have kids now. We don't know how to be those guys anymore. Too much time has past." Louis adds to the conversation. Yeah fucking hell you have a child.

"Yeah, why do you think I haven't called in almost three years..." I meant to say this in my head but it bursts out of my mouth and my hands raise up to cover it as soon as I realized it had escaped from my lips.

"Harry, you don't get to do this anymore. You walked out on us. Zayn left and you didn't know what it meant to be in One Direction anymore. You wanted to "find yourself." You walked out on me. Just because it has been three years it's not like any of us forgot about that. Hell! You couldn't even do one last tour before walking out on the three of us. Why after three years are you suddenly all ready to get this thing back together?" Louis has always been good at arguments. Hince, why I would leave when we argued.

"Looks, Louis has a point." Great. I lost Niall. "A week after our hiatus I texted you asking if you had 'found yourself' yet and you know what you did? You changed your number."

"Niall..I didn't know you tried to reach me. If I would have known I would've responded... I just needed to be alone so I changed my number..." I know what I did was messed up but how was I supposed to piece myself back together with these lots constantly calling me?

"Oh do you need his new number? I have it but it's not like he ever bloody uses it. All forms of communication have been one sided for many months. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fake number he gave me." Fucking Hell Louis. I would never give him a fake number. It would have killed me not being able to reach him if I needed him.

"Look? Do you think it was easy? It's not like I woke up one day and thought 'Hey how about I leave the people that supported me and loved me through everything and just never talk to them again.' It was bloody hard as hell! Everytime I walked outside I saw someone who looked like Niall. Everytime I recorded a song I heard Liam's voice saying 'can we just do it one more time? I want it to be perfect!' And everytime I walked into my flat I had pictures of Louis everywhere reminding me what I had done. It's not like it got any easier. The scent of you boys is all I can smell when I walk into my flat. I never just forgot about you guys. It's not like I enjoyed touring alone but it's something I felt like I had to do to know what could have been. Niall, you would have never gotten to sing those songs that you wrote and loved so much. You poured your soul into that album. Liam, you would never have met Cheryl how you did and never have had Bear if we stayed together. We all got something out of this break." Finally. Everything is out in the open. Everything that I have been thinking for the past three years is finally on the table.

"Oh, that's a load!What did I get? A broken heart? A text saying 'I changed the lock to the flat. Let me know if you need anything from here. You can have the London place.' Harry, this was always about you. It was always about what you wanted and not anybody else." Louis laughs.

"I never heard you begging me to stay. We broke up on our last tour together. It's not my fault we never sold our shared homes." I snap back.

"We never sold them because there was always a chance. A chance at us being us again and forgetting all the bloody crap that had been thrown at us." Suddenly silence arises again. I'm confused. Louis didn't seem like he wanted to get back together on the OTRA Tour but he had hope for us. I look at him in the eyes for the first time this afternoon and discover his eyes aren't tired, they're hurt.

I sigh again and say, "I want this to work. I need this to work. I want us to be us again. We were never 'just a band.' We were four guys traveling the world together and singing our hearts out having fun doing what we loved."

"I'm going to the loo. Try and come up with a reason why I would ever think about putting myself through that again or a plan as to how it would ever work. Otherwise, I'm out of here when the soonest car can get me." Louis responds before leaving the room. Niall, Liam and I look at each other and just sit taking this in for a second. All of us are finally in a room again without management, real or fake girlfriends, or families. Were not here because someone's loved one passed. We're here to start over.