FOUR MONTHS LATER
It was Sunday, their Sunday. Louis had to beg Harry to spend the day with him because they couldn't break tradition. Not after these four months.
So once Harry shuts his door and falls onto the bed, Louis follows with a tiny smile. His nerves were eating him alive. He couldn't hold out any longer, Harry needed to know. Louis tries to calm himself and curls up to Harry, swinging his leg over Harry's waist and keeping a sliver of space between his hard tummy and his boyfriend's torso. He was more than skittish, his heart was racing but he was determined to tell Harry the truth.
"I have to tell you something." Louis murmurs over the low volume of the television. He liked to think Harry turned it down to hear him, but he knows Harry did it in case one of his family members decided to come upstairs. Louis masks his hurt with a small smile, dragging his finger up Harry's naked chest and over his tattoos. His eyes lingering on the butterfly, his favourite because of the stark contrast on Harry's fit muscular body to the delicate wings of the insect.
"Go on," Harry says, his arm wrapped around Louis lightly.
This was it. The weight on Louis' shoulders was going to disappear, he was going to come clean and tell Harry something that made him scared. He feels so alone, but he wasn't going to be alone because he will have Harry.
Louis takes a breath, nervously clenching his fists. He shuts his eyes, whispering. "I'm pregnant."
Silence is what he's met with. Ear-splitting silence taking over the room and making goosebumps rise on his skin. Harry's breath pauses, his body going stiff and face losing all content.
Louis moves slowly, taking a better look at Harry's face. His brows furrowed and lips parted, and he's staring up at the ceiling. Louis is about to call his name but the doorknob rattles, his blood runs cold when Harry shoves him away and leaps to the door.
"Harry?" It was Winona. She lets out a startled noise when Harry slams his body on the door after she's cracked it open. She knocks. "It's dinner time."
Louis sits on the bed, legs pulled to his chest and heart falling to the floor. He feels so stupid to believe that this baby would bring Harry to accept himself and break free of his own toxic chains. Here he was, the love of Louis' life, the father of his child, barricading his bedroom door because he doesn't want his family or the world to know he's gay. "I'll be down in a moment, mom," Harry calls through the door, listing to her retreating footsteps before pushing a chair under the doorknob.
What hurts the most was that Louis loved him. He has loved him since the summer semester and Harry was blind to see the true devotion Louis held for him. Harry stomped on Louis a lot, from the beginning when they met and when he broke Louis' tiny heart and especially when he mended it together again with the thought that spending every Sunday would suffice. Louis wanted the world to swallow him whole, the embarrassment coursing through his veins was enough for him to break down into tears.
"Goddammit, Louis."
Louis cries harder because this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Harry was supposed to be overjoyed and swing him around at the news of their baby. He was supposed to carry Louis downstairs and come out to his family with pride and tell them Louis was pregnant. How could the world be so cruel and make Louis believe in fairytales when his life was far from it.
"Is it even mine?"
Louis lets out a frustrated noise, so loud his voice cracks. "H-How dare you!"
His heart completely shatters when Harry surges at him, holding a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. "Shut up."
Louis shoves him, hard, so that Harry falls off the bed with a grunt. "Don't put your hands on me!" He couldn't contain himself, the sound of his voice was surely heard from downstairs.
"Fuck," Harry rubs his elbow which must've smashed on the ground during his fall, Louis couldn't care less because Harry was demolishing on his poor broken heart. "Can you keep your voice down?" Harry rumbles, anger clear on his face.
"No." Louis stands with his fists clenched, he roughly rubs his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater, Harry's sweater. "You do a lot of fucked up shit, Harry. Don't you ever put your hands on me again." He is still shouting. He just feels ignorant, lost, and used. He feels like a fool. Louis wishes he could turn back time and punched himself in the face, maybe then he'd understand that Harry wasn't going to be the Harry he wanted.
"Louis," He speaks with such venom, Louis willed himself not to shiver. "Shut your mouth,"
Louis lost it. He trudges to Harry and shoves him back on the floor, "Don't talk to me like that! It's your fault I'm pregnant!" He's never felt so much rage, Louis could barely see through his tears.
"Shut the fuck up, Louis!" Harry curses, his cheeks turning red. He pushes off the floor and towers over Louis' small frame. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, the heat radiating off his body in thick waves. "How do I even know it's mine? God knows you'd spread your legs for anyone."
Louis stumbles backward like he's been struck, Harry's words sinking to the pit of his stomach and repeating in his brain. He couldn't fathom the lengths Harry went to in order to keep up his facade of living in the closet with no strain. "Take that back," Louis demands through his teeth. "Right now, Harry."
"I bet it's not mine," Harry continues, destroying the weak walls Louis built up. "I bet it's some other bloke's kid, isn't it? You'd take it from anyone." Harry spits with spite, his green eyes never looking so fiery. "Because you're desperate, you're lonely."
Not lonely, Louis says to himself. His knees wobble, a lump appearing in his throat because Harry knows that isn't the truth. Louis wasn't lonely with Harry, and now he was pregnant. He could never be lonely again. "You have some nerve," Louis hasn't given himself to anyone but Harry, he was his first and his last, his one and his only. His breaths morph into pants, and Louis struggles to breathe.
"Whose is it, huh?" Harry steps closer, forcing Louis to press his back against the wall and face his head away. "Is it Liam's? You spend so much time with him, I wouldn't be surprised if you were fucking him too-" Harry's words cut and his head faces the other direction as the loud sound of skin on skin echos through the room.
Louis escapes from between Harry and the wall, his palm stinging. "Liam is my friend, he actually encouraged me to come to see you. To come to give you the great news." Hostility is dripping from his every word. Harry stands there frozen, with one hand on his flaming cheek and the other clenched by his side. The rage behind his eyes was suffocating, but Louis refused to be stepped on any longer.
"I put up with you, Harry. I put up with your snide remarks, your selfishness, and your attitude all because I love you. I see you on campus and avoid you because it's what you asked me to do!" Louis starts crying all over again, he hugged himself tighter. "I spend one day alone with you once a week because that's the only time you're free, or should I say, willing to spend with a loser like me?"
Harry's face falls, and so does his hand. He gulps, burning under Louis' hard gaze. "Louis,"
"No! Shut up!" Louis points a finger, staggering back when Harry reaches for him. "You don't think I know about the past few Saturdays? The nights that you have free and can spend with me but you choose to go out and party." He pulls at his hair roughly. "And I let you because I think I'm holding you down, but that's what a relationship is. You're supposed to be unavailable, you're supposed to spend time with me, you're supposed to spend more than just a day with me! I've been with you for four months, always telling myself I can do it, just two more years and we'll be free. I was so daft." He pulls harder at his hair. "I give you everything of me, Harry, no questions asked. I let you do anything, I give you the freedom and the opportunity to lie to me again and again."
"I haven't lied to you!" Harry couldn't process anything.
"You ought to get an award for being such a good liar, Harry." Louis hisses. "You can't come out because you're ashamed. You think being gay isn't you. Learn to accept yourself. It's no crime to want to be in the closet but when it's starting to affect me," he pauses, "affect me and your baby, the stress is too much. Did you know I was admitted to the hospital last week? I fainted, because of dehydration. I stopped drinking because of all this pressure you put on me. To keep us a secret. And you didn't notice that I was missing for three days?" Louis laughs bitterly. Images flashing through his mind of the doctors telling him he was just finishing his first trimester. "You couldn't have known because you don't give a shit about me. You don't care enough about me to try to see me sometime during the week, instead you rely on one fucking day."
Harry just scoffs. "That isn't true." He grunts. "You know I can't come out, I just can't."
Louis digs his nails into his palms. "Oh, yes. Your precious reputation. Can't forget about that when I was missing for three fucking days, and your baby's life was at risk." He rolls his eyes. "Are you too blind to see what's in front of you?" Harry turns away. "Look at me, Harry!"
"What?" Harry scowls.
"I am pregnant with your child, Harry. I've waited long enough to tell you and I hoped you would be as happy as I am. Obviously, I'm wrong. At least I've handled my part, I didn't deny the fact that I'm having your baby or that I'm in love with you because I'm not weak like you, Harry. I don't hide from the truth, I accept things, I accept myself."
Louis knew why Harry has never told him those three words, simply because he couldn't accept it. He couldn't accept the fact that he was gay, that he was in love with Louis and he couldn't tell anyone or show it off. That left Louis in the dark, weeping and drowning in his love for Harry that pulsed for a man who couldn't get over himself. Louis' poor heart, yearning to love something, or someone and when he finally does, it goes to a rotten relationship. It was one-sided, it was futile and it was wasted.
"Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it." Harry crosses his arms. "I don't accept that thing."
Louis scoffs in disbelief. "Go to hell, Harry."
"See you there."
Louis wanted to scream and cry in the same breath. "I never want to see you again."
"Good." Harry juts out his chin. "You can keep whatever is in there," he points to Louis' stomach, "to yourself, lonely boy."
That nickname. The same nickname that created a tsunami of insecurities Louis never knew he had. He shakes his head. This wasn't the Harry that Louis fell in love with. This was a false persona Harry put up because he couldn't accept the fact that he was going to be a father and that he was in love with Louis.
Louis hated himself for falling for someone so self-centred and miserable. Pride was a dangerous thing, Harry had too much of it and it was ruining them. Pride, something Louis was pleased of, was going to destroy the one and only love he's ever had. It was crumbling in his hands and Louis has to stand there and watch. "I'm leaving."
"Then, why don't you?" Harry edges on. His brows knitted tightly. "Why is it taking so long for you to go?"
Louis breaks all over again. His eyes welling up with tears and his hands subconsciously curling around the tiny swell under his shirt. "Because I'm a stupid fool! A stupid fool for you." Louis cries. He could feel the burn of Harry's sweater on his skin, he tugs it off and whips it at Harry's face. Harry's breath hitches but the sound is drowned out by Louis' wreaked sobs. He sees the tan skin of Louis' curvy body, his little tummy homing a bump that was never there and the band of his sweatpants digging into the small pudge. All blood rushes to his head, and he blinks away the lightheadedness.
Louis loved Harry, Louis loved him so deeply he forgot to love himself. It slipped his mind that maybe Harry wasn't right for him. Maybe he was never right for him. Maybe the handsome football captain with a voice as sweet caramel and touch as tender and warm as white sunshine wasn't what he deserved. Louis was too far gone, it was too late to save himself because he had fallen headfirst into Harry's magnetic flaming star the moment me saw him, and now he was drowning and weeping in his love for him. If only he had been smart enough two years ago, if only he had never forgiven him after the first time he tore him down. Now, Louis was scattered over the pieces of his broken heart with nothing but an emptiness submerging his head and a baby without a father.
"Stupid, stupid fool," Louis repeats, digging through his bag on the bed and slips on his own shirt. "I'm stupid for being in love with a man who cares more about what other people think rather than his own boyfriend. You want to keep that shiny, stereotypical, straight boy reputation so bad, Harry?" Louis hiccups. "Well, you can have it." He runs to the door, yanking the chair from underneath and swinging the door open. He halts, seeing every one of Harry's family there with wide eyes, Winona, Edmund and Juno.
Louis sees the bewilderment on their faces, the colour drained from their cheeks and eyes the size of the moon. Louis cries harder because they heard his and Harry's argument, they found out about their son's sexuality and his four-month-long relationship with Louis, and the fact that he's pregnant all at the same time. He doesn't blame them for doing nothing as he leaves their house. He can only blame himself for thinking a baby would bring Harry to his senses. He was just a fool.