After the End: Book 4

56. Stage Presence

Naomis POV

Harry was vomiting.

Louis told us it happened sometimes. Harry apparently suffered from stage fright badly, which seemed laughable if you saw him on stage. He was so energetic and lively. He practically owned things up there, but he apparently didn't feel such ownership during the pre show.

He'd been bent over the trash can in his dressing room for quite a while now. His makeup artist had simply abandoned the task of making sure he was ready because he'd been too ill and shaky. He was using the free time to pace with intermittent bouts of nausea.

He'd requested that everyone be back stage with him anyways, although the request was made before he'd gotten in the car, and before he'd turned green. He seemed to be testing the waters in attempting to live a life where he wasn't intentionally disconnected from the people around him. I wasn't sure if it was intentional, but it was good for him. It gave him less time to be alone. I counted myself lucky to have the invites extended towards me.

The twins were sitting on the sofa watching him with poorly concealed concern. They'd been trying to converse with him, but drawing his attention anywhere but his own head was a bit difficult at the moment. I was sitting in his makeup chair, just quietly observing.

"Just think of the kindness gala?" Phoebe suggested. "You did great there."

I cringed, but Harry actually laughed with a loud guffaw of amusement.

"Confession time?" He suggested with another laugh. "I was shit faced at the kindness gala. It was a whole super secret relapse."

"Wait, really?" Daisy asked in surprise.

"Yeah," Harry admitted. "Naomi knows. She drove me home to turn myself into mum."

"That's true," I corroborated tiredly. "But the first night you told me it was just a drink."

Harry sighed deeply in concession.

"The second night was a party though," he informed the girls. "I was an absolute mess."

I looked at the door willing Louis to return, but he'd been gone a little while. I'd barely seen him in the past few days. He'd been distant and busy with all his wide reaching responsibilities.

Well maybe if you hadn't sprung school on him, he'd want to talk to you more.

That voice in my head was relentless, but it wasn't wrong. I knew I should have been reminding Louis about school more frequently. He'd been so stressed and I'd just dropped it on him without any proposed solutions. I should have known better than to mention it so offhandedly like that. Then there was the issue of my basic assumption that Louis would figure out childcare. I hadn't even realized how I'd left that task largely up to him until the face he'd made in reaction to my reminder. It was careless, really. The way I'd approached things had been careless, and he'd avoided speaking to me since. He'd ignored the text I sent him later about it too, only pausing to leave a thumbs up on the message explaining my mums babysitting availability.

"How much longer?" Harry asked, although he could have looked at the clock directly behind his head.

"13 minutes," Daisy answered dutifully.

Harry nodded with a solemn expression. His face flashed with something intentionally hard before he lost some color and dropped to lean over the trash can again. He looked like he was going to be sick, but he just sat there with his eyes closed in an attempt to stave it off.

"It's not always like this, right?" I questioned. We weren't backstage the previous time. I had no idea how normal this was, although Louis had told us it wasn't entirely abnormal.