"I'll see you tomorrow, honey. And hopefully you'll come by more often, Louis. Bye you two, have fun." Anne said goodbye to her son, whose hair she lovingly ruffled, and to me.
"Not too much fun." Gemma giggled me in the ear while hugging and winked knowingly at me.
I grinned back and looked at Harry, who was desperate to get his hair back in shape.
"Don't do any bullshit guys."
"And you don't always worry so much mom." Harry replied, turning away from his family to run down the stairs with me.
"What are we going to do until evening? It's only three in the afternoon, we still have so much time." He seemed so excited as he jumped the last two steps as he spoke to get down first and come to a stop in front of me before I could leave the last step behind.
We were now exactly at eye level. The step I was still standing on made up for our difference in size.
"Let's see, little one." I whispered against his forehead, which was suddenly so easily accessible, and smiled against the delicate skin.
He grunted dissatisfied and carefully grabbed my waist with both hands to lift me off the stairs.
He left his hands lingering in place and lowered his gaze a little so that he could continue to look me in the eye. I swallowed and ran my fingertips over the soft skin on his neck, finally resting my palms on his shoulders left and right.
"You don't know what you're doing to yourself." I said in a choked voice.
"You do not understand it. Not yet. But I still advise you to run. Run while you still can Hazza. I will destroy you emotionally, without wanting to, without your knowing and without that anyone could do anything about it. I only bring bad luck." I didn't really want him to leave, but I wanted him to be prepared for the fact that we couldn't have a normal love story. It was impossible.
"You're right Loubear, I don't understand you. But if someone destroys me emotionally; I want it to be you. This is my official permission for you... and only you to turn me into a psychological wreck."
If only he had known.
On the inside I regretted bringing it up. To release the thoughtful mood, I breathed a little kiss into the crook of his neck and opened the door to the outside to finally get out of this stairwell.
"Are you now going to tell me what we're doing?" He asked like an annoying toddler.
I didn't know an answer to his question myself. On normal days, I might have gone to the cemetery and watered the flowers on the grave, or just had a mental communication with my mother. About my life and everything that was new. I would have had a lot to talk about right now.
These silent conversations were a kind of therapy for me, even if others would think I was crazy, because I felt like she was actually listening at times, which is why I never told anyone about it. -I missed my mother really badly.
I just shrugged at Harry.
"What would you do if I wasn't there?" He asked curiously.
"I don't know. Maybe sit in my darkened room and do creepy rituals, or stick needles through my hand." I cocked my head and acted my role remarkably poorly.
"I mean for real Louis."
"Probably visit my mother." I came out with the truth.
"Then we'll do it." He spoke resolutely. "I mean, if that's okay, if I come with you." He whispered afterwards, less enthusiastically, as if he had just remembered that visiting my mother meant going to the cemetery.
"If that's what you want Harry. We could do something nicer too. I don't know, go out for ice cream, watch a movie?"
He clung to my hand. "Lou, I want to get to know you. Your life, your everyday life, I want to know how you are. How you are when you are not extra nice to me and try to please me. Everything is not always beautiful and I want to see all the facets of you, even the unsightly ones."
I sighed.
We walked together along the meadow that Harry had already admired for its flowers on the way to school that morning when the curly head stopped abruptly and gave me a faint smile. The next moment he began to pick a few flowers and arrange them into a bouquet as nicely as possible.
"What are you doing there?" I asked, confused, as I watched the younger boy picking the most beautiful and magnificent plants.
"For your mother... I hope she liked flowers?" He asked and blushed.
I felt tears in the corner of my eye because the whole situation was emotionally overwhelming. How could this boy be so perfect?
"She absolutely loved them... She would have loved you." I whispered the second sentence and tried to blink the tears away.
Unsuccessful.
"Hey, please don't cry Lou." I heard his deep voice close to me, but couldn't see him because I had closed my eyes. I felt him hug me tightly, cross his arms behind my back, and just stand still. Wordless. Because every thought spoken would have destroyed the moment, a feeling we both felt.
I heard his heartbeat and his calm breathing, the rhythm of which I mimicked for my own reassurance.
At some point I looked up into his worried face. "Okay again?" He broke the silence.
"We don't have to do that either if you don't want to, okay? I didn't mean to rush you Louis, I'm sorry."
"No. She just always wanted someone like you for me, Harry. She would have adored you. It just makes me so happy you know? I don't know how to deal with it. Everything is so much at the moment and it went so fast... I'm scared of messing up... Of messing up what is between us. I want her to be proud of me Harry."
He smiled, flattered at my words.
"I'm sure she's the proudest angel in all of heaven when she looks down at you, Lou."
I wish I could surrender to his words and just accept them, but I knew that I myself was standing in the way of what he told me. I knew my mother couldn't be proud of me as long as I kept the truth from Harry.
I was such an egoist in that I assumed he wouldn't have to know the truth until the point where the uncomfortable part began.
It was the fear of really losing him. If I told him about my inevitable fate, he would turn away from me. Just like all the others before. In general, only my family and Niall, Zayn, Gigi and... El knew it, although it was assumed by me, that Dewiat and his boys also knew it by now.
I shook my head slightly and leaned against Harry's chest, inhaling the smell of his now familiar perfume.
I had to tell him, anything else would not befair. He deserved to know. He deserved the decision whether he really wanted toget through all of this with me, or rather backed down. Ijust didn't know if it was too early to confront him with it.
I wanted to be absolutely sure. "Harry, what are we?"
I didn't look up, but felt his confused look on my skin.
"Friends, aren't we? That's what you told my mother today..." He pushed me a little away from him to get a better look, but held my wrists.
"But is that how you see it?"
"Louis, you know yourself that I like you more... so much that I entrusted you with my first kiss. I don't know why you're asking. What is the problem?"
"Harry, will you stay with me? Even if something bad happens?"
He lifted my face and nodded silently, looking at me seriously.
"Mom died of chronic lymphatic leukaemia." I couldn't hold back the sobs.
"I'm very sorry for you Lou." Harry replied, seemingly unsuspecting what kind of message I was going to bring him.
"Harry, I'll die from it too... one day" I saved myself a lot of talking around the subject. Harry didn't seem to realize what I had told him at first.
"Don't say something like that Louis, you are healthy. Look at yourself, you are the blooming life." He stared at me blankly, watching the tears run down my cheeks. Tears of despair.
I laughed humourlessly. "I know, Harry. I won't die tomorrow or the day after tomorrow either. I probably still have some time. I am in a cancer stage in which the progress of the disease is being monitored. -Watch and wait..."
"That's not true Louis." Harry bit his lip brutally and his eyes got all watery, too.
"It is, unfortunately. It's okay if you leave me now Harry. I should have said it from the start."
I received no acoustic answer, just a palm that slapped on my cheek rudely. "Sorry, that had to be done. That was because you thought I was going. Is that how I look louis? As if I was telling you all day that I'm in love with you and as soon as you come around the corner with a message like that, I'll leave? You won't get rid of me that fast, do you understand?"
He stroked my presumably reddened cheek apologetically.
"How long Louis?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe another year, maybe twenty, until the symptoms set in. Then theoretically I can start chemotherapy... But I can also leave it. The cancer is incurable. Therapy would only delay my death."
"You're going to do the therapy, aren't you?"
"We'll see, Haz... We'll see."
My meaningless statement made him sob loudly. Now I was the one who had to calm him down. I entangled him in a kiss and only broke away from him when the damp rivulets that the tears had left on his face had dried.
"You don't deserve all the suffering, you deserve something better, it's all so unfair."
"It's okay, Harry. It's okay with me. It is what it is and I've come to terms with it." I tried to make it clear to him that one way or another nothing could be done about it.
He pulled me back to his body, grabbed my hair and held onto it as if he would never let go.
Then he gave himself a jerk and looked me in the eye.
He forced a smile on his face and took a deep breath.
"Are we going to visit your mother now?" His forced smile gave way to a real one as he pointed to the bouquet that he had previously placed in the meadow.
When we stood in front of the grave, my boy respectfully knelt down in front of the grave stone and laid the flowers on the stone bed, which was illuminated by sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the trees.
He whispered something and I imagined I could hear him saying words in the direction of
Thank you for giving him to me, Johannah. I will take care of him. He'll be fine.