The Degradation (translation)

I believe in us

Baruch Spinoza wrote: "There can be no fear without hope, no hope without fear." It feels like I lost in advance. I struggle with my fears, but they still destroy my hope. They are stronger than me, they can endure both fire and water. I do not know how to destroy them."

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Louis' pov

I always thought the hardest part was falling in love. Find yourself among billions of other people. Meet, get to know each other, fall in love.

I thought that the most important thing happens at the very beginning.

After all, in all these fluffy films that girls love so much, the whole story revolves around how the main characters fall in love. They spend two hours getting acquainted, kissing, fighting, and as soon as they become a couple, the movie ends. End of story. Prince kisses Snow White: the end. The Little Mermaid runs to Eric's ship: the end. Since childhood, we have been taught that if we have found the right person, then everything else does not matter. That once we know who we want to be with, life becomes honey.

What nonsense it is. That's not the hardest part of a love story. Falling in love is easy. Love is even easier. But loving a person the way they deserve is one of the most difficult things in the world. I don't know the rules, no one gave me instructions. And it seems that Harry and I didn't do it right at all. I fell in love with him long before I realized it. I didn't even understand how it happened. It's just that at one point I felt like I was changing. That I needed him. And then I opened my eyes and realized that I loved him. It couldn't be simpler. Saw - met - fell in love with. You don't need to make a movie about it. This feeling came on its own, and I don't think it will ever go away. It's like a cold. In the evening you go to bed completely healthy, and in the morning you wake up with a terrible temperature. No one knows what happened last night. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I knew I loved him.

And I know he loves me, too. That's all. In fact, this is where it should end. Now on the black screen should appear the inscription "The End", and all the girls sitting in the hall will cry loudly. We're in love, we're together, the movie's over. But life is not a movie. The writers are hiding the most important part of the story from us. The one in which we learn to love. I want to learn to love Harry. I want him to feel needed, dear, priceless. But I do not know how to do it. Belle kissed the Monster, and it became Prince Charming. That was the end of it, and no one said how she managed to make him feel loved. Well, how in this world can you learn to love, if everyone around you is sure that life is white and fluffy?

We'd woken up in my car only three days ago, and the first thing we'd decided to do was erase all the memories of that night together. We've started redecorating his room. After all, replacing everything that he destroyed, repainting the walls, inventing a new environment, we seem to start from scratch. We start with a clean slate, without tearing out the previous one. His old room symbolized the past, and his new room symbolized the future. It's just a metaphor, but we believe in it.

I'm scared, so scared to know that he's sick, that he's taking drugs, that he's destroying himself. And it scares me so much that I don't know what to do. I think about it all the time, but I never say anything. What can I say? "Hey, baby, come on, use drugs and cutting yourself is not good." He already knows all this. So, here it is. I feel completely helpless,and it's maddening. I wish I could help him, get him out of this mess, but I have no idea how. So I just love him. I try my best to show how much I care about him. I also keep an eye on him all the time. Just to make sure everything is in order. We haven't been apart for three days. His dad's at some conference in New York, and we're doing repairs all the time. We go shopping in search of new furniture, order it, collect it –TO HELP - and put it in its place. Thank God he's better at assembling furniture than I am. Because I'm even less friendly with furniture than I am with being silent.