It is What it is

Mistakes

Hi , Louis wrote down, staring at the word for several seconds. The black ink stood out against the clean, unlined paper. Some spots were still shimmering, the ink not dried yet, and Louis ran a finger over it. The word smeared, staining the paper.

A stain, he thought, and ran the smeared finger over the tattoo on his right arm, some of the ink rubbing off. It was a stain, just like the tattoo on Louis' arm, but that couldn't be erased anymore, would permanently remain as it was.

Leaning back against the headboard of the bed, Louis dropped the pen. He was sitting on the bed in his hotel room that was illuminated by the small bedside lamp. For two weeks, Escapade had been touring the US, keeping Louis distracted from the recent confrontation he had faced with his past.

Now, in the quiet of the luxury hotel room, he was allowing himself to let his thoughts drift to the past, to the moment Harry had told Louis he loved him for the first time. He had looked so innocent and scared, surprised by himself.

Louis' whole heart had belonged to Harry in that one moment.

Tracing his finger over the tattoo again, he thought of how much it had hurt when it had been made, how the fresh ink had stood out against his skin, the Oops! a stark contrast, as if it had been stamped onto his skin. It was smooth now, had faded a bit in colour, melted into Louis' skin.

They had gone out on a limb to get those tattoos. Right after Louis' eighteenth birthday, in January, they had taken the train to Manchester to get them done. Harry had been begging his mother for weeks to allow it, until she had finally given in — under the condition that he got his tattoo somewhere where it would be easy to cover up.

It had been a foolish idea, really. An idea that only a lovesick idiot could have come up with. Since they hadn't been out to anyone, they had used the first words they had said after confessing their love as code words. It hadn't been easy being around each other in public, and it had given Louis' an odd, exciting kick, whenever they had used them. The first time, they had been at one of Louis' football games, and Niall and Harry had come up to the sidelines before the game, wishing him luck. A ball had hit Harry's arm, and he had kicked it back, missing the aim completely. With a foolish smile, he had said, "Oops". Louis' heart had skipped a beat at that, and Harry had stared at him for a second before he had repeated it again, looking into Louis' eyes and making the meaning clear. From then on, whenever they had been in public where it had been impossible to tell each other "I love you", they had said "Oops" and "Hi" instead.

It had been Louis' idea to get the words permanently tattooed onto their bodies.

Harry had been so fearless. While Louis had liked the idea of getting a piece of Harry tattooed onto him, the idea of a needle piercing his skin hadn't been too attractive. So Harry had gone first, smiling at Louis all the while, holding on to Louis' hand and only wincing a little at the pain.

Louis remembered that the finished tattoo had looked exactly like the Hi he had just written into his pocketbook. Black ink in Louis' handwriting, smudged on Harry's skin.

They had rushed into that, had wanted everything, much too soon. Louis had been certain at that time that Harry would be by his side forever, that nothing would ever change that.

It had taken a single sentence to break the spell.

Sighing, Louis turned the pages in his notebook, an unfinished songtext glaring at him from the paper. There were plenty more in that book, plenty of lyrics he had written over the past three years, collected in a small, ratty notebook that Louis carried everywhere. Every thought of Harry, every memory of a past Louis wanted to lock away in his heart was engraved in that book.