The Degradation (translation)

Chapter 16

Pierre Corneille said that " the power of love is manifested in pain." Another lie. Louis never moved away from me as much as he did when he started to feel pain.

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Louis' pov

I'm a strong man. I can endure a lot and not even pay attention to it. I just can't be broken or hurt.

All of the above is a lie. The same as parental love, their words are that they will always be there, that you should be yourself and that the main thing is your happiness. I've never been told that, but I thought it was normal. It's just as much a lie as the one I've been telling myself for days: that my parents' reaction doesn't matter. It does. I haven't been myself for a week. Every day, looking in the mirror and looking at the black eye for long seconds, I am only convinced for the hundredth time that the world is still a false, unreal and hypocritical place. It's not the trauma itself that hurts me, but the significance of it. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. That night, I told myself every moment that it wouldn't affect my life in any way. But my brain doesn't seem to do so. Why? I mean, don't we have the right to control our minds? Doesn't it belong to us? Apparently not.

So I had to find the culprit. Someone else besides yourself. And this "someone" turned out to be Harry. At one point, I just started blaming him for everything that happened. It's all his fault. If he hadn't decided to enter my life based only on his own desires, if he hadn't made me fall in love with him, nothing would have happened. I was estranged from him. As soon as I woke up the next morning, after the reception, I no longer wanted him to touch me, to comfort me after the situation he had created. I took my jacket, left the room, and haven't been back since. It's been almost two weeks. At first he called me every night to transmit the message. For almost four days, my phone was bursting so much that I had to take out the battery. I avoided him in the corridors of the university, even skipped our general philosophy lectures. The only thing we still had in common was the countdown emails I kept sending him. 169. Without even knowing it, I completely closed myself off from him. Another choice of my mind, I suppose. Ironic, isn't it? It closed the way it used to close. All my free time I studied, worked out, ran, even went to the city gym several times. I have never been so perfect in the eyes of others, and I have never been so disgusted and incomprehensible to myself. I was just so mad at him, at myself, at my parents, who I couldn't be mad at because I'd convinced myself that I didn't care about their reactions. My mother called as often as Harry, but the results of her attempts were no better.

Only now I realize that up to this moment nothing terrible has happened to me, I have always been lucky. And I'm so mad at myself at this very moment. I look at the phone for the thousandth time; I haven't heard from Harry, and it's all my fault. Wednesday, eleven o'clock at night, I walk around the room, thinking about him. I miss. We've never been apart for so long, and more than anything, I want to call him, but... I can't. I don't want. I will not. It's wrong to be mad at him, but I feel like I'm wrong myself. Really, what's wrong with me? Harry has been through a lot more than I have, compared to his problems with his father, mine are just child's talk. He finds the strength to live, to live for me, and I sit in my room and ignore him for weeks. How I envy him, his willpower, his desire.

Stop.

I have no right to make him pay for the fact that I saved his life. This is nonsense. He didn't make me fall in love with him, he didn't do anything wrong. My father is wrong, not Harry.

And this thought seems to rush into my mind like a whirlwind - I almost suffocate. Why am I doing this? It was as if someone else had ruled me for the past two weeks. My heart starts to tingle. I grab the phone abruptly, and I can barely unlock the screen because my hands are shaking. I call, there are beeps. A single beep. It's almost two in the morning. Two rings. He's probably asleep. Three rings. Four rings and a hoarse voice on the other end. I can't even manage an elementary "hello". I listen to his breathing.