After the End: Book 4

51. The Most Difficult Job

A/N: me saying I'm not going to update is like one direction saying they'll be back in 18 months 🤡🤡
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Harry's POV

Lows hit a lot harder after a high. I thought maybe I just forgot what feeling good felt like. I got too close to the sun too fast, and then realty knocked me back down into my place.

I was on stage feeling the euphoria of everything, and then the voice in the back of my head emerged. It was somehow louder and more intense than everything else. It drowned out the crowds and the music and the lights. It took everything, and made it small in comparison.

I might be alive, but I don't deserve this. I don't deserve anything, but the misery I've caused everyone else.

I knew it was irrational, but those thoughts are so powerful. They leach in and they wrap around everything until there is literally nothing left. It's like a diseased limb, festering and spreading its illness.

At first it incapacitated me, but I put on my false face, turned off my thoughts, and got up for the Monday meeting anyways. It was supposed to be a check in.

Just a check in.

Melvin had left five minutes ago. Louis was arguing back and forth with Becca. He looked really upset. He wasn't supposed to be so upset. If I didn't feel so heavy in every fiber of my being, I would have tried to do something to stop the way he was exploding, but instead I stared at the Newton's cradle on the shelf. I watched the beads click, and I tried not to keel over with nausea over what I'd just agreed to.

Melvin had a point didn't he? I couldn't just not do things because they were hard. Louis career was literally in my hands.

"Do you think I enjoy my entire career hinging on the success of you? You think I feel really secure in that position?"

Louis had said that to me the day after he found out I'd relapsed immediately after coming back to his home. That's how he actually felt about things. He was willing to walk away from everything for me, and the reason was because I'd broken him down until he had nothing else to hold onto anyways. I couldn't let him go to blows with Melvin for me anymore. I had to step up. I had to.

"Harry, please," I heard Louis calling my name from across the room. I didn't turn around because I didn't want him to see how pale I'd become. My fingertips were tingling. Was I panicking? I had no idea.

I felt a hand on my wrist again and I knew it was Beccas without looking. She'd put her hand on me right before I'd given Melvin what he wanted too. I'd felt her put it there and I knew she intended to be comforting because if nothing else the previous month had told me that Becca was an extremely comforting person. I didn't want her comfort. I didn't want you think about how much she'd given to help me when I'd done everything I'd done, and feelings Beccas affection only reminded me that Becca and Louis were basically in love, and the only thing standing between them and smooth sailing forward was me and the fact that my existence had taken over Beccas career too without her truly choosing that her for herself.

At Beccas touch, I turned around. "I have to rehearse today, don't I?"

She seemed confused by the sudden question. She was looking at me the same way she'd looked at me when I'd agreed to do the album again without really consulting anyone. Louis stood behind her, and although the angry expression seemed to have seeped off his face, he'd replaced it with something tense and inquisitive. He was staring at me like I had maths problems painted on my face for him to solve.

"No," he answered for her. "No, Harry today was supposed to be an easy day."

I nodded slowly. "Shouldn't I be rehearsing if I'm singing tomorrow—"