"Are you done Louis?" I heard Harry outside the bathroom door. "Niall wrote that he would be there in half an hour."
After we came back from the cemetery, I decided to take a quick shower. Now I was standing in front of the sink, staring at the skin on my arms, a towel wrapped around my waist. The entire room was filled with water vapor, the mirror fogged up, the air heavy.
I always showered very warm. But today it was a little too warm. My thoughts were completely wandered and were only intensified by the water that was constantly pouring down on my body. - At least that's what I imagined.
The more the initially harmless thoughts gave way to self-doubt, I regulated the temperature up. Self-doubt because I wasn't sure if telling Harry at such an early point in our relationship was the right thing to do with my little secret.
I had felt the self-pity slowly gain the upper hand when I asked myself the 'why' one more time in my life and at some point, all the thoughts in my head had become so unbearable that the hot water alone no longer helped
I could still feel the after-effects of my fingernails on my battered skin. How they began to scratch relentlessly, as if it had done the slightest bit of improvement. I had scratched my skin as if there was an opportunity to get the cancer cells to emerge from my bloodstream, leave my body.
"Lou? Are you okay?" I heard the curly haired ask worriedly from outside, because he still hadn't received an answer from me
I wanted to answer yes, but I was very focused on breathing in and out calmly. -My circulation didn't like the warm and wet room.
"Louis?" He sounded like he was dying of worry.
"I'm coming in now, okay?" He asked, knocking lightly on the door with his knuckle, before he carefully pushed the door open.
At first, he looked around in the room,disoriented and probably confused, at the front of fog that was coming towards him. Then he spotted me.
As I stood there. Pathetic. Only dressed in my towel, with my forearms scratched up.
"Louis, what the hell did you do?" He came over to me and put a palm on my cheek without hesitation.
His facial expression changed from deeply concerned to absolutely shocked. The next thing he did was take a look in the shower to confirm his suspicions.
"Have you gone crazy? you are completely overheated." The emotional being, whose silhouette looked even more angelic in the white steam, with its curls, lifted me up without further ado, like a bridegroom a bride and placed my limp body back under the shower.
He took the shower head out of its holder and knelt next to me as I was crouching on the floor, leaning against the wall so as not to tip over.
The towel was still tied around my waist, preventing from making the moment any more awkward.
Harry's hand was on my chest, with the other he directed the jet of water at my body and slowly regulated the temperature down to gently bring me back to normal body heat without running the risk of suffering a shock.
When he was sure that the situation was no longer quite as critical, he dared to exhale heartily and, as a precaution, to check my skin again on other areas than just my chest.
I just let him do it. I felt too drained to protest.
"What's this?" Harry asked suddenly as he eyed my arm after I sniffed a sharp breath at his touch.
"I just scratched myself a little, nothing bad." I replied, inwardly rolling my eyes.
"I don't know what your definition of bad is, but I can see individual pieces of skin detaching from your arm, and sore secretion oozes from the scratches ... Everything is red and I could say that, even without any specialist knowledge that will certainly ignite if we do nothing. "
I wrinkled my forehead. I have not remembered it that dramatically, but just one single, short look at the wound made me wince in disgust.
"Should I let Mark know? - so that he will take care of it?" Harry asked me.
"For God's sake, don't." I pleaded weakly.
"Then tell me how else we do it Louis. Shall I? Then you have to tell me where to find bandages and wound disinfectants."
Hesitantly, I explained where he should find everything, was alone for two minutes and saw the curly haired come back through the door.
I was still sitting on the wet shower floor but felt able to get up, which I did, only to lose my balance right away and tip over into Harry's arms.
"Not so fast honey." He gave me a warm smile and reminded me strongly of his mother with that.
The taller one carefully set me down on the edge of the bathtub. The wet towel around my waist was uncomfortable and cold. As if reading my mind, he reached for a fresh one, which he must have placed on the heater beforehand, I concluded that from the fact that I was very sure that it hadn't been there before I took my shower.
With practiced hands he loosened the wrap around my hips and freed me from the moisture. I was embarrassed in many ways. Not only did I feel like a small child who didn't make it to the loo in time, but I also sat completely bare in front of Harry for a brief moment.
I felt the blood rush to my face which probably turned fiery red.
I quickly realized, however, that there was hardly any reason for it, since Harry kept the moment as short as possible and did not take his gaze from my eyes the whole time as he wrapped me in the dry flannel.
It seemed no less uncomfortable to him than it did to me.
"Better now?" He asked shyly.
I nodded wordlessly and let my head fall forward against his torso with my eyes closed.
I felt another pre-warmed towel, which Harry carefully placed over my shoulder.
"You're shaking." He explained.
"I'm going to cancel Niall, Louis. I don't think it's good if we do something exciting today. You deserve a little rest, darling." He announced and took the cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans.
"Stop Hazza. I don't want you to cancel. I'll ruin you all evening... I'll ruin everything. We'll go."
"We're not going anywhere today. And you can't ruin anything for me, as long as you're with me. We'll watch a movie today and order pizza and that's it, no contradiction."
I wanted to tell him that it doesn't work like that when he turned his cell phone display to me and let me read the message to Niall.
Hey bro, change in plans. Lou and I stay at home. We have something to do;) have a nice evening. -H
With a grin on his lips, he pressed 'send' without my being able to prevent it.
After all, he at least hadn't mentioned my breakdown.
"And now let's take care of your arms first."
Harry dripped some disinfectant on a cotton pad and looked at me. "That probably burns a bit now." He held out his other, free hand to me. "If it gets too bad you just squeeze hard, will you?"
I nodded and closed his hand in mine.
I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes tightly. It actually burned. As hell. When I began to squeeze his hand, I felt his pitying look on me and imagined that he was now hurrying up.
"Halfway there, love." He said as he let go of me with the cotton pad and wrapped a bandage around my arm.
I sighed plaintively as he went to the other side and tried unsuccessfully to twist my forearm away when he came back with this torture tool. "I'm hurrying up, okay? You have to be strong for me again for a moment, can you do it?"
Sharp air expulsion.
Suffering whine.
"Hey darling, you did it. Everything is done." A proud voice ripped me out of my tense trance. Harry pulled me into his arms and kissed my forehead gently. "I'll clean everything up and you can get dressed in something comfortable, deal?"
I looked around. In fact, the bathroom was pretty devastated. Towels were thrown carelessly on the floor and there was a large puddle of water in front of the shower. Nodding, I left the room.
An hour and a half later, the two of us were lying on the sofa. In front of us were two pizza boxes, Disney's Clouds was playing on the TV and the light was dimmed to create a cinema-like atmosphere. Harry was in front of me. our legs were intertwined and I had pushed his sweater up a bit to be able to caress the delicate skin on his waist.
He mumbled something to himself, already half asleep and I admitted to myself that it had been a good idea to stay at home.