They continued bickering and drinking, Lee and Harry helping each other clean up the mess of beer on the floor. The first hour of the party went swimmingly; Harry was drunk enough not to run out of Jasmine’s house screaming. He also hadn’t cried, thinking about Louis. Thankfully, he hadn’t run into either of them.
That sense of peace shattered the following moment.
“Louis!” someone yelled.
Harry felt like chills were running down his naked back. He stiffened. He couldn’t refrain. He turned around slowly, and his eyes promptly searched for the person he hadn’t wanted to see. It took only a moment, and then his gaze found him.
He was sitting on the sofa, evidently drunk. Harry didn’t think he’d seen Louis that inebriated before. His hair was askew, his eyes glassy, lids blinking over them incoherently as he met Harry’s eyes. For the first time, they didn’t look quite so blue.
Harry swiftly turned back around. He couldn’t keep looking at him, not knowing what he was thinking. It only made him feel pain. Louis used to look at him with kindness, smirks, desire — all good things. There had been none of it since Sunday. He hadn’t fucking looked at him all week.
So, why had he just stared back at him like that? Harry didn’t get it. Did Louis want to talk? Or was he just too fucked up to know what he was doing?
He tried his best not to turn around and stare himself dead at Louis. The challenge was too demanding. It seemed all his body was capable of wanting at that moment was to look at him. It insisted upon it. If their eyes could meet again, they could walk out of there together. Maybe they could go into the bathroom, sit down in the tub, and sort this screwed-up mess out.
Perhaps all Harry needed to do was walk over and grab Louis by the hand, and they could fix it.
Harry needed them to fix it. Fuck. They had to. Everything hurt without him. Everything. Waking up, eating breakfast, falling asleep, brushing his teeth, putting on clothes, sitting in the car, listening to music, driving his foot into the leathered side of a fucking football. Every fucking little thing made him think of Louis Fucking Tomlinson, and it hurt. Everything hurt all the fucking time.
Zayn and Liam said Louis was in love with him.
And God knew Harry needed it to be true. He didn’t believe in God, but if there was one, they knew it. And if they could talk, they’d remind him that Louis was on his side. Because he’d said it. On his bed, after Harry had told him how much his family hurt him. Louis was in his corner, thought he deserved good things, and told him he was brave.
Harry turned around, neglecting his friends’ conversation.
Fuck all this. They could do it. They could walk out of there, hand in hand.
His eyes went to the couch where Louis was sitting, and just like he’d wanted, their eyes instantly met once again. But the second Harry was about to step forward, he saw who was sitting by Louis’ side. Who had their fingers in his hair, who was placing a lipstick-covered kiss on his cheek, right next to his mouth.
Louis’ mouth. His lips. His beautiful, gorgeous, charming, and mischievous lips. Harry’s Louis. Harry’s mouth.
Jasmine? Jasmine.
Louis was letting Jasmine kiss his cheek. He let her cram into his space, keep her polished nails in his soft, caramel hair, and place her glossed lips into the crevice right next to his lip. And he did it, right in front of Harry. While his eyes were staring right at his face.
Forget it. What he said about everything all the time. This was worse.
If Louis wanted to convey a message, it was done. How much rejection wasn’t that? How much was he showing Harry just how categorically over their relationship was?
Infinite. It was an infinite amount, and it was showcased in the most gruesome, unequivocal way.
Someone else. A woman. Jasmine. Louis couldn’t have done better if he’d tried.
Harry spun back around. His stomach spasmed.
Zayn’s eyes caught on his face, and concern carved into his forehead. “Mate?”
Harry brushed past him. He made it down the stairs in three steps, practically falling out the front door of the house. Everything hurt all the time, but… this.
He ended up on the lawn, dry-heaving in the lamplight. His fists were pale against the knees of his jeans, grasping for something to hold.
“Harry.”
He didn’t look up at the sound of Zayn’s voice. He tried to calm down, inhaling and exhaling, but all it did was make his stomach turn. He was going to be sick.
“Harry.”
He pushed his friend’s hand off his shoulder, vigorously twisting around. His body seemed to turn inside-out, all of his emotions pouring out.
“You said —” he gasped, aiming his finger along with all of his anger at him. “You said he loved me back!”
“H…”
“This is your fault!” he cried. “You should have stopped this! You should have told me to stop it! You should’ve said — I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him! I wouldn’t! It’s your fault!” He breathed wretchedly. “It was a mistake. You knew it, and you should’ve convinced me! It was a mistake, it was a mistake, it was fucking mistake!”
Zayn didn’t say anything back, but his face was torn with sadness and distress.
His hands pushed against Zayn’s shoulders. “Your fault! You and fucking… fucking Liam!” Zayn stumbled backward, but didn’t retaliate. Harry turned back to the dark street running past the house. His hands gripped his hair, and he felt despair slither down his spine, seizing a steadfast hold. “It’s my fault,” he said into the cold air, voice lowering. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have let him make me feel so —”
He stopped talking. He sat down on the grass, leaning back on his hands, legs stretched out before him. The ground was cool under his palms and jeans, but he felt breathless, like he’d just run a marathon. Zayn slowly walked over and sat down by his side. He stared at the grass just like Harry.
“I’m really sorry.” His shoulders slouched.
Harry felt the grass through his fingers. It was one of the best feelings in the world, but tonight it did nothing for him.
“I thought that… Well, I thought you’d work it out.”
“He doesn’t love me.” Harry shook his head. “I made it all up. In my head.”
Louis didn’t love him. Louis hadn’t kissed him on the pitch because he loved him. Hadn’t touched him and kissed him for months on end because he loved him. Because at that moment, he was upstairs, letting someone else kiss him.
Someone who wasn’t Harry.
Maybe it was the same shit for Louis. It didn’t matter who was in his bed at night, as long as there was someone.
Harry felt his face scrunch up, and his shoulders begin to shake as his eyes filled up with tears. “Why would he do that to me?” he hitched. “He must know I love him, why would he do that to me?”
Zayn’s arm wrapped around him. He didn’t reply. He didn’t have anything to say to console him, because he had no idea why he would be so cruel. Harry had spent months sleeping in his bed, and he had no clue how Louis could hurt him like that. It wasn’t the person Harry had gotten to know. It wasn’t the golden boy with the blue eyes.
Zayn held him, letting his shoulders shake against his side until the quivers faded and were replaced with cold shivers.
“I’ll get our coats,” he hummed. He squeezed Harry’s body and got up. Harry stayed put, trying not to vomit on the lawn.
When Zayn returned, he placed Harry’s coat atop his shoulders. Harry glanced up at him, finding his friend’s face harder than it had been before he left.
“Let’s go, H,” he ordered.
Harry squinted, but drunkenly got to his feet. He threaded his arms through the jacket sleeves and closed it over his beer-soaked belly.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Some people are just fucking cunts, aren’t they?”
Harry wasn’t sure what happened to Zayn in the house, but he sure as hell agreed to that statement. “Fuck him.”
“Fuck ‘em.”
Harry spun around and screamed, loud and tortured, at the house. “Fuck you!”
Before he knew it, Zayn was yelling the same, fury burning in every syllable. “Fuck you! And fuck Jasmine fuckin’ Parks, too! Biggest cunt Donny’s ever seen! Bitch!”
Harry watched him, a laugh escaping his lips despite himself. Zayn belted out a couple of sentences more, which all involved various renditions of the c-word, and then wrapped his arm around Harry’s waist and tugged him out on the pavement.
“Let’s go somewhere those cunts couldn’t reach us with a freaking stick.”
*
That weekend was probably the most difficult Harry had been through since Jasmine told him she’d out him to the whole school, a couple of days after that hellish afternoon they’d almost had sex. Just like then, his mind replayed images in slow motion.
He couldn’t for the life of him comprehend it yet. In the span of a week, he’d gotten from having sex with Louis on a bathroom rug, on the brink of telling him how he felt, to watching Louis about to hook up with the person who’d hurt him the deepest. He supposed it was something the two of them could bond over now. How much they enjoyed hurting him.
He stared at his own pillowcase for hours. He kicked a football into the brick wall of his house, attempting to destroy the façade with the force of a ball. Not thinking of it was impossible. He couldn’t even try to keep it out of his head.
He hated Louis. And he hated Jasmine.
Someone knocked on his door on Sunday night.
“Harry!” called his mum from the door. “Darling, your friend Liam’s here.”
He sat up from the spot in the armchair in the living room that had been his all day. Making his way to the door, he felt his chest curl inward with unvented anger.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said once his mother had gone. Liam was standing below the porch, his car parked against the curb. He was in a long-sleeved shirt and black jeans, white sneakers bright against the grey stone path. His face fell at Harry’s reaction.
“You all right?” He gauged his appearance carefully. “You don’t look… great.”
“What do you care?”
Liam’s kind, brown eyes turned just a tad harder. “I wanted to see if you were okay, since Zayn said you didn’t have a good time on Friday.”
Harry scoffed. “Why don’t you run back to Louis. I’m sure he has loads of details to share.”
He frowned, confused. “I’m not sure I know what you’re on about.”
“Oh, fuck off, Liam.”
He opened his mouth, affronted and offended as he stared up at Harry. “Jesus, what the fuck is up with you?”
He stared at him, incredulous. “I thought you were my friend, but I suppose you prefer to be hogging Louis’ side, innit?”
Liam shook his head. “You’re crazy. It’s possible to be friends with more than one of you.”
“Sure, just like it’s possible to tell me you think Louis loves me, and then not give a fuck whether it’s true or not.”
Liam didn’t immediately respond. Harry crossed his arms, fingers digging into his ribs. He hadn’t showered since Friday, and his feelings from that night lingered all over him. He couldn’t believe that Liam had talked him up all these weeks when Louis clearly didn’t give a fuck.
“All you’ve done is lie to my face.”
“Fuck, Harry, I haven’t lied to you. I’ve genuinely told you what I think is true. Everything I’ve said is what has happened. Things that Louis has said. I’ve not made up a single fucking thing. I’ve never tried to set you up.”
Harry swallowed. “Well, you’ve done it anyway, because he’s definitely not in love with me.”
Liam shook his head. His arms were folded over his chest now, his biceps bulging under his shirt. “I don’t believe that, but I’ve got no clue as to why you would think that’s true.”
“So, he didn’t tell you all about how he kissed me in public and then refused to look at me all week? He didn’t tell you every detail of how he looked me in the eye as he started snogging Jasmine?”
“Mate, I know nothing about that kiss you’re on about, but Louis certainly did not snog Jasmine at her party. He was fucking out of it, and we were celebrating the win. He only went to the bedroom to sleep. She was helping us find it.”
Harry’s jaw tightened painfully. “Her room?”
“To sleep!”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Because…” He swallowed, for the first time looking a bit uncertain. “Because I helped him get there.”
“You helped him go into her room?”
“Yes, but only because he was so out of it! He needed to sleep. She helped us find it, and then I left.”
“She stayed after you went?” His voice was getting louder. Panicked. “So, how do you know what happened?”
“Harry, you’re blaming me for things that are downright unreasonable.”
“Is it? Unreasonable? All I know is that you talked me into believing Louis loves me, and then walked him into Jas’ bedroom and left them there together!”
Liam looked at him silently. It took a minute before he continued. “You’re not nice right now, Harry. You’re blaming me for problems I’ve got no part in. I’m sorry if Louis isn’t in love with you, but I sure as hell thought he cared for you. I’ve only ever rooted for you.”
Harry’s arms remained crossed as he processed Liam’s words. He heard them, but his own feelings didn’t dissipate. They clouded everything. “I’m really angry with you,” he said after a moment of silence.
“I think I should go.”
“Me, too.”
Liam sighed and turned away. Harry watched him walk down towards his car. When he reached the pavement, he stopped, looking back at the porch. “For the record, Harry, I don’t see a reality where he would ever hurt you on purpose. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“Bye, Liam.”
He watched his car drive off down the street, a scowl set on his face. He stomped into the house and found his mother sitting on the sofa.
“Oh, my love. Are you okay?” she asked upon seeing his torn-up figure.
“Leave me alone,” he growled, and hurried upstairs, knowing none of this was Liam’s fault at all.