Never Be

chapter 5: summer

Louis touches down at JFK around midnight; he'd asked Niall to pick him up, not wanting to bother his mom, positive he'd be in a shitty mood, anyway, didn't want to take anything out on her.

And he knows before he turns his phone back on that he'll have a voicemail from Harry. As he stands on the curbside, looking for Niall's beat up Honda Accord, he works up the nerve to check, to listen to it, biting at the skin around his thumbnail.

The first six or seven seconds is just Harry breathing into the receiver, shaky and unsteady, followed by, "I got your gift. I'm impossibly in love with you." And that was it, that was the entire message.

Louis can't believe his own damn luck, that he just had to go and pick someone in fucking Europe to fall in love with. He's a six hour plane ride away, there are five hours between them, and he isn't ever coming back.

Just. Fuck.

Niall pulls up shortly after wearing a weak smile, and he pats Louis on the back after he shoves his suitcase into the backseat and climbs into the passenger seat, looking down at his lap.

"Good trip?" Niall asks, turning down the radio.

Louis nods. "Yeah. Leaving was a bitch, though."

"I bet. You alright?"

He shrugs. "Not really."

"Is he?"

"Probably not."

Niall turns onto the highway, merging right. "At least you're in on it together."

"Yeah," Louis replies, not bothering to tell Niall just how wrong he is.

Getting back into a regular routine is borderline impossible. It's so hard to remember what he used to do before Harry invaded, leaving his mark on every inch of Louis' home, of Louis' life. The Deakin-Tomlinson house seems quiet, which Louis knows isn't true, seeing as there are always at least four people screaming or laughing or crying at any given moment, but to Louis, the noise feels empty and he can't take it.

The first week Harry's gone, Louis throws himself into his job at an absurd pace, staying late at the office, and when he gets home, he continues to type and edit well into the early hours of the morning from the desk in his bedroom. If he forces himself to focus hard enough, the fact that Harry isn't there seems to be slightly more bearable.

They've only talked once since Louis arrived back in Connecticut eight days ago. Louis had called Harry the morning after he touched down in New York, Harry picking up on the first ring.

"Hi," he answered, voice hushed.

Louis cleared his throat. "Is this a bad time? Where are you?"

"No, no, I can talk. 'm at the library, though. Applying for jobs. I didn't want to sit in my house anymore."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know the feeling. Just, uh, wanted to say that I got your voicemail."

Harry breathed deeply, probably stalling. "I didn't really know what else to say. It's all I could think of. Jesus. Lou." He cleared his throat. "That's the best gift anyone has ever given me. Ever."

Louis pushed his glasses out of the way and rubbed his eyes. "It wasn't a big deal," he countered. "It was easy, because I had all the resources at work."

"Louis..."

"And it didn't take too long, either. Just rounded up all those fucking sticky notes and a couple pictures and that was it."

"Louis."

"And, like, Sean and Karen helped me with it a lot, so I didn't have to do a lot, anyway--"