Untouchable

Chapter 3

Harry's POV

I began to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with Louis.
Every day when I saw him, the dark circles under his eyes were only more prominent and his eyes more bloodshot. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and slurred.
"We going together?" he asked quietly as I pulled my shoes on, "Or seperate cars?"
I blinked at him. I hadn't really thought about it.
We were getting ready to go to my interview. I wasn't looking forwards to it but I wasn't dreading it. I felt like I would start speaking and never stop. I was worried that I might say too much.
"I guess together. Makes sense," I replied shortly.
He nodded and brushed his hair out of his face. If I hadn't heard him shower, I would have thought that he had simply rolled out of bed and decided that he was ready.
"If it doesn't bother you that people will see us together, that is," I couldn't help but snap, "God forbid that they might think we're in a relationship or something."
I saw him cringe out of the corner of my eye and he seemed to shrink back away from me. I didn't look up at him. I knew what I would see.
Guilt, regret, hurt.
Three emotions that I had caused.
It made me feel so sick, hurting him, but I had to.
It was a horrible excuse. I didn't have to. I chose to.
I didn't have to look at him in order to hear the choked noise that he made.
I volunteered to drive. I felt like he would fall asleep at the wheel if he did.
To say that it was incredibly awkward would be an understatement. He didn't try to talk to me. He simply leaned against the window and stayed quiet.
I kept the radio on to try and take an edge off of the stifling silence, but it didn't do much. I could feel his temptation to speak bubbling up in his throat.
But he never did.
When we arrived, I noticed a few paparazzi. I didn't know how they had known where we would be.
"Just get in as quick as you can," Louis sighed, irritated.
"I went to rehab because I tried to kill myself, not because I have amnesia. I'm not stupid," I snapped, turning off the car.
Again, I couldn't look at him.
We got out of the car and hurried towards the building. I heard questions being called at us, but I didn't pay any attention to them. I simply lifted my hand and waved politely.
When we got inside, we were almost immediatly found by an assistant and all but dragged to where the rest of the boys were waiting.
Louis hung back as I exchanged customary high-fives and hugs with Zayn, Liam and Niall.
I'd noticed how apart from them he seemed to be when they had come over to our house. Instead of being the life of the group, he faded into the background.
"Oh, goddammit, Louis!" Zayn suddenly cried.
Louis looked up, startled.
"What?" he asked.
Zayn simply took his arm and marched him out of the room.
I blinked in confusion.
"He's not sleeping again," Liam explained, "It's pretty obvious with just one look at him. He hardly slept while you were gone. He almost fainted walking up a set of stairs because he was so exhausted at one point. When he was in Doncaster, his mum apparently convinced him to take some kind of stuff to help him sleep. It's for kids and its fairly weak, but it was the only thing he would agree to."
"Said he didn't like sleeping medication. It reminded him of you know, what you tried," Niall added.
"And now I'm guessing he's stopped taking it. Do you know if he's slept?" Liam asked.
I shrugged.
"He was up in the middle of the night at one point. And he's always awake before me. But I dunno," I mumbled.
Zayn returned, an angry-looking Louis trailing behind him.
"I'm fucking fine," Louis growled under his breath.
"I said, end of discussion," Zayn replied firmly.
I shifted uneasily, absently scratching my wrist. It was a bit of a habit that I had. It wasn't self-harm, it was just something that I'd started doing when I was uncomfortable. It was like biting my nails, except not.
"Oh, good. You're all here!" a woman said, poking her head into the room.
She bustled around, clipping a microphone onto my shirt and babbling on about something that I didn't pay attention to.
"So, it's really about you, but we'll have the other boys with you, just to show that they're supportive and all," she said quickly.
"'Course we're fucking supportive," Louis muttered under his breath, then, louder, "Wait, we were told that we would just be waiting back here and he would be on by himself."
She blinked at him as if she hadn't noticed that he was with us.
Her lipstick was red, like her wild, curly hair. They were obnoxious and loud, like her personality.
"Oh? Maybe you heard it wrong," she said, "No, you'll be with him. You just won't do much speaking."
"I don't think that I heard it wrong. Maybe I got told it wrong," Louis growled, his eyes narrowing.
The woman had already gone back to fussing with me.
Niall put his arm around Louis's waist and I noticed that his fingers were digging into Louis's hip. He muttered something into Louis's ear and Louis visibly deflated, the tension leaving his body. He shook his head at Niall.
Niall's relaxed his fingers from Louis's hip and squeezed his whole arm tightly. A comforting gesture.
I started to turn away right as Louis looked towards me. I met his eyes for a brief second. They were so, so sad and defeated. I felt my own eyes prickle with impending tears.
I quickly faced away from him and coughed a few times to clear my head.
The woman was still talking but it was incredibly obvious that none of us were paying any attention.
Liam was trying, but his eyes were glazed and his expression disinterested.
Zayn was picking at a nail.
Niall and Louis were whispering behind me, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.
"Got it? Good!" the woman said brightly, clapping her hands.
"No," Louis mumbled behind me.
I wondered how sane the woman even was. She led us towards the stage, chattering the whole way. I had a feeling that we could have walked away and out of the building without her noticing.
"Okay! Wait here for just a few minutes until you get announced, then walk right up to that couch and have at it. Now, is there anything that you don't wish to talk about?" she asked brightly.
I really, really hoped that she wasn't our interviewer.
"I don't want to be asked anything," Louis growled softly behind me.
She gave him a quick, curious look and nodded.
"That shouldn't be a problem. Anyone else?" she asked.
We all shook our heads.
Louis took a small step away and wrapped his arms tightly around his chest. His teeth sunk into his lower lip.
The woman finally left, her wild, red hair bouncing away with her.
"Does anybody know what's going on?" Zayn asked, scratching the side of his nose.
"No," Liam admitted, "I tried, but. No."
Louis was now backed up against a wall, several steps away. His head was tipped back and his eyes closed. His arms were still tightly wrapped around himself.
Liam noticed, following my gaze.
"Lou?" he called.
"Hmm?" Louis replied.
"Are you okay with doing this?" he asked.
Louis opened his eyes and uncoiled his arms.
"There's a lot I'm not okay with, Liam. Why not add something else?" he snapped, raising his eyebrows.
Liam sighed, "You don't have to if you don't want to. We can say you got sick or something."
"This coming from the person who was always on my arse about missing them before," Louis challenged.
"That was because you walked out in the middle of them. And you missed more than you didn't," Liam sighed.
Louis glowered at him.
I forced myself to look away from the exchange. Somebody had to pay attention to when we were supposed to go on.
After a few more minutes of frosty silence, our name was announced. We ambled onto the stage and sat down on the couch. The interviewer smiled at us.
Thank God it wasn't the woman from beforehand.
It wasn't an interview with an audience, but it was live.
As we shook hands with her and got situated, suddenly, nerves exploded in my stomach.
I wasn't ready. I hadn't done something, anything in front of people, live, for six months. There were Felix's and my videos, but those could be edited and refilmed.
What if I said something wrong? What if I said too much? What if I didn't say what everyone wanted to hear?
I was going to mess up, I knew it.
I felt Niall's hand on my knee and he squeezed gently.
I exchanged a quick look with him.
"You'll be fine," he said, almost inaudibly.
"So, I see that One Direction is now back to being five members strong," the interviewer said.
We all nodded.
"Yeah, s' great to be back," I added, smiling.
"Everyone's in an uproar, as you can guess," she chuckled, "I imagine you've seen the trends on Twitter."
"Uh, no, actually. I wasn't allowed online at the center and I don't have my phone back yet," I said.
"I think Louis has it. I gave it to you, right?" Liam asked, leaning forwards to look at Louis.
Louis shrugged.
"Probably. I'll look," he sighed.
"That's right. You two live together now, correct?" the woman asked.
I nodded.
This was branching into a very, very uncomfortable territory.
"I mean, I'm not supposed to live by myself now and Louis offered, so," I mumbled, scratching absently at my arm.
She had an expression on her face that let me know that she knew that I was uncomfortable. I tensed up, expecting her to keep pushing at it.
She didn't.
"So Harry, tell me what everybody wants to know. What exactly happened to Harry Styles that made him try to commit suicide?" she asked instead.
She tilted her head thoughtfully.
"Um. Well, I've said before that I'm keeping the reason why private for now and I know that everybody wants to know it. I'm just not comfortable sharing it. It's driving me crazy though, I've said a few times that its not the fans or the fame's fault and people still think that it is. If anything, the fans were what kept me from trying something so drastic sooner," I said, "They gave me a reason to keep living, to keep pretending that I was okay."
She nodded.
"But it was obvious that you weren't," she commented.
"Yeah, I know. It was pretty obvious that I'd lost a lot of weight and I just didn't look healthy overall. I don't know if there's any pictures out there that you can see my cuts in, but there probably are. I didn't really try to hide them," I said, "I didn't care if people saw. A lot of people already had an idea that I was hurting myself, they only needed the proof."
"If you don't mind me asking, when was the first time that you harmed yourself?" she asked.
"The first time? I don't really know when it was. But I remember like what happened and everything, I think. I dunno, I was having a bad day in general, I think, and I was really stressed out and upset. I don't remember why. I was making myself some food and I picked up a knife to cut something. I knew what cutting was obviously, but I'd never considered it before. I don't really know what happened. One second I was fine and the next I was bleeding everywhere," I said quietly, "And after that, it just snowballed until I couldn't go a day without it. It was never about hating myself or something like that. It was just a form of release, the physical pain took the edge off of how much I was hurting inside for at least a few moments."
She nodded.
"What about your weight loss?" she asked.
"I never really thought that I had an eating disorder. I was depressed for a really long time before everything went out of control. Basically, some days I just wasn't hungry or I forgot to eat. Then some days turned into everyday. When cutting wasn't enough, I started making myself throw up. I never cared about losing weight, it was just another form of temporary release. But as you can imagine, even though cutting and purging made me feel better for a few moments, they only increased how depressed I was in the long run," I explained.
"So, what was going through your mind when you decided to try and take your own life?" she prompted.
I knew that Liam had mentioned in their first interview afterwards that I had been with Louis beforehand, but I wasn't going to say it myself.
"I mean, in the morning, it was just like every other day. I woke up, didn't eat, spent most of the day on the Internet. In the early evening, something obviously happened and I'm not going to say what, but it was enough that I just snapped. I remember not even being able to think because it hurt so bad, this thing. I got home and I just knew that I couldn't keep living. I physically couldn't force myself to live any longer. I just completely went on auto-pilot. I couldn't control myself and my mind just shut down. I remember not being able to breath because I was hyperventilating. I genuinely can't say what exactly happened after that, except I got really calm all of a sudden. I remember taking pills, a whole lot of them, and no matter how deeply I cut, it was never enough. The vertical ones were first, cause you only cut vertical when you're trying to kill yourself cause the wound can't clot as well, and I just kept cutting until I think I must have collapsed. I really don't know. My last clear memory was probably from a half hour before; everything after that is blurry," I said.
I waited a moment for her to ask me something else. She didn't, so I looked up.
She was looking with a sympathetic expression at Louis.
"Are you alright?" she asked gently.
I steeled myself and leaned forwards to see.
He had his hand over his mouth and tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Fine, fine," he said quickly, his voice breaking with every word, "Just a bit emotional. Sorry."
"Don't apologize," she said.
I had to look away. I blinked rapidly and bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn't cry.
I heard Louis sniff and try to compose himself.
"And then came the tweets from Liam that actually broke Twitter," the interviewer said, trying to get us back on track.
I sat back and let Liam talk.
"Yeah. There were pictures of us in the waiting room and it was obvious that Harry wasn't there with us, so all these theories started popping up. Most of them were actually right, being about suicide. But I figured that we owed the fans the truth, so I tweeted, yeah," Liam said.
"What was it like, sitting there and waiting? It must have felt like forever," she said.
Almost perfectly in sync, everybody looked at Louis. I risked a glance. He was still teary-eyed, but he was looking back at me with an angry, hurt expression.
I looked away, exhaling shakily.
"It really did feel like forever. It took about three hours for them to get him completely stable, but we weren't allowed to see him until the next day," Liam quickly said.
"What was it like when you first woke up, Harry?" she asked.
"That's pretty blurry too, to be honest. I don't mean to be blunt, but I really did want to die, really badly. And waking up...waking up was probably similar to what everyone else would have felt if I had actually died. I remember my sister having to leave the room because seeing me like that was really upsetting. I think I just kept screaming 'no' and begging her and my mum to kill me," I said.
I heard Louis make a hiccuping noise and Niall, who was between he and I, put his arms around him.
"I think that seeing firsthand how just coming close to losing me affected people will always keep me from going down that road again," I added.
"And then came rehab," the interviewer said.
"Yeah. I have to admit that I was a horrible patient at first. I threw a bowl of, I think it was broth, at a wall because I didn't want to eat. At lot of people don't realize that you can't just feed somebody as malnourished as I was a five-course meal. My stomach shrank as I got thinner and in the beginning, I couldn't handle a little broth without throwing up. And it hurt a lot, I got the worst stomach cramps," I said.
"At least you know what it's like for a girl on her period now," the interviewer quipped.
It was so unexpected that I laughed in surprise. Everyone else started laughing and then I couldn't stop until my sides ached and I was hiccuping.
"Comedic relief," she explained, chuckling.
"It was good," I assured her, "Anyways. Yeah. Even now it still hurts sometimes. I was eating takeaway the other night and it hurt pretty bad afterwards."
She nodded seriously, the humor gone.
"So how was the whole rehabilitation process? I can imagine that it was quite the struggle," she said.
I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek as I thought.
"Yeah. It was. I mean, it took probably four and a half months for me to not want to die anymore. Felix, my roomate, had to restrain me at times when I would basically rip at my skin with my nails. I had anxiety attacks too, a lot. I got really angry one day and I completely tore apart our room and then proceeded to have the worst panick attack that I've ever had. In the beginning, everybody always told me how strong and brave I was, but really, I think that if I could have, I would have tried to kill myself again without a second thought. My life was...it was pain, for lack of a better word. It hurt to breath, it hurt to think, but eventually, it started to hurt a little less. And then a little less. And that's when I really started to get better, I think. I probably wouldn't have been able to do it if Felix hadn't helped me. He probably did more for me than my therapist, honestly. He's my best friend," I said, smiling slightly.
I heard Niall mutter something to Louis in a low, warning tone, but I couldn't make out what he said.
"There are still days that it's harder to get out of bed in the morning and when I want to be able to feel that release again, but I'm better. I'm so much better than I ever really expected," I continued.
"That's really wonderful to hear," she said, sounding genuine, "Now for the rest of you, would anybody like to comment on what happened? You don't have to unless you want to. I understand that it's a sensitive subject for all of you."
I decided that I really liked her as an interviewer. She was sympathetic and genuine and she wasn't pushing topics that she could tell that we were uncomfortable with.
"I guess...it's hard to describe. It's so, so hard to look at somebody that you love as they're literally killing themselves for months and months, and then when it finally happens...," Zayn said quietly, his voice breaking, "I think the worst was this horrible guilt that we all felt. We had all seen that he wasn't doing well; we knew that something would eventually happen. But we never did anything and we've been kicking ourselves for the last seven months because of that."
"I think...well. It's just like, nobody knows what it was like to actually find him. We knew. Once we figured out what had happened before, we knew what he was going to do. I just remember that I was going to scream because we couldn't get to his flat fast enough. We definitely knew when we found that his door was locked, because he rarely locked his door," Liam said.
"I tried to buy myself time," I murmured.
"Yeah. We knew that. And I remember just shouting at Niall to call 999 and running to Harry's room. And when we opened the door...," Liam choked.
I'd never explicitly spoken with them about what had happened when they had found me. My heart was constricting so tightly that it hurt.
Everybody had tears in their eyes, but I could hear Louis hiccuping and trying to stifle his crying in Niall's shoulder.
"Really, had Liam not been there, Harry probably wouldn't be here. He just ran right in, tied shirts around Harry's wrists, and started giving him CPR. I wouldn't have known what to do," Zayn admitted.
"You were busy dragging me away," Louis said suddenly, his voice tight, "And I hit you. Sorry about that, by the way."
"Yeah," Zayn said slowly, apparently having not expected Louis to volunteer that information.
"And I was busy on the phone," Niall said, attempting to break the tension.
"But afterwards, waiting at the hospital, it felt like days, months, even, while we were being kept in the dark," Louis said, almost spitting out the words, "When he went to the clinic too. It felt like months between when we got to talk to him."
The group drew a collective gasp.
He wasn't going to do it during a live interview, explain how I'd ignored him for six months, how I'd done it because I was unbearably in love with him.
He wouldn't.
He couldn't.
He didn't.
He quieted and relaxed back against Niall, signaling that his piece was over.
Everybody else relaxed as well.
"It really did feel like ages between when we saw him. We saw him once a week and we're used to a lot more than that, so yeah, it was hard to get used to," Liam added quickly.
The interviewer nodded, her expression telling me that she noticed the sudden shift in the mood.
"Well, I think that that's all the time that we have for right now. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me, all of you, I appreciate it," she said.
We stood up, shook her hand again, and exited.
Louis immediatly shoved in front of me and bolted away.
Liam swore under his breath and trotted after him.
"Don't worry about it, H. He's just upset. It's hard for him to hear about all that stuff," Niall said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
"I'm not worrying about it," I said shortly, "But we took his car and it would be nice if we could leave soon."
Both Niall and Zayn stared at me. I looked straight ahead and ignored them.

Liam's POV

Louis darted around until he found a loo. He slipped inside, but I caught the door before it could close and followed him.
He paced around, hands furiously scrubbing at his eyes.
"Louis," I said quietly.
I didn't know if he knew I was there.
He apparently didn't, because his head snapped up.
"What the fuck do you want? To humiliate me even more?" he snarled.
"Jesus Christ, Louis, no! I just want to make sure that you're alright," I sighed.
"Well, isn't it fucking obvious that I'm perfectly fine?" he snapped.
"Lou, just calm down. It's okay, we all got upset," I said, trying to soothe him.
"You didn't cry like a fucking baby! Christ, Harry is going to be so pissed, I've ruined everything, he'll call me a burden to the band," Louis growled.
He seemed to be talking to himself, like he had forgotten I was there.
"Why would he say that, Louis?" I asked.
I wanted to reach out to touch him, but I knew that touching wasn't allowed.
He jolted as he noticed that I was still there.
He stilled, stopping his pacing.
He raised his eyebrows and scoffed.
"Oh, please. As if you haven't noticed. Maybe you haven't. Of course, he's probably sweet as pie to you lads. You've got no idea what he says to me when you're not around. He knows what'll hurt me, so that's what he does," he growled, baring his teeth like an animal.
For a brief second, his anger disappeared and the hurt and fear that I saw in his face made me start to reach out to hug him, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had come and I snatched my hands back.
"It's so fucking hopeless. I don't want to be mates with him again if he's going to treat me like shit the whole time," he hissed.
I stared at him. I knew that Harry wasn't exactly being nice to Louis, but Louis was making it sound a lot worse than I had thought.
"Listen, Louis. We need to go, so you need to settle down a little, okay? Harry's not going to say a word, I promise," I said, hoping that what I said was true.
Louis sagged, his shoulders slumping and his eyes tiredly looking up at me.
"Don't make promises that you can't keep, Liam. It only hurts people more," he said, exhaustion clear in his voice, "Gives them false hope and all that shit."
He pushed past me and exited the loo. His shoulders were tight and drawn up and he shoved his hands into his pockets.
I followed him.
We caught up to Zayn, Niall and Harry quickly. Louis dropped back so that he was shuffling behind the rest of our group as we were herded down the hallway.
"What the hell have you been saying to Louis?" I hissed in Harry's ear, careful that Louis didn't hear.
Harry gave me a strange look.
"Haven't been saying much at all, to be honest," he said, shrugging.
"Why did he say that you were going to be angry that he cried? He said that you would say that he was a burden to the band or some shit. He made it seem like you're bullying him when we're not watching," I growled.
Harry snorted.
"Louis does have a tendency to be a little dramatic, don't you think? Look, Liam. I'm trying to keep his and my interactions limited. I'm not 'bullying' him. I'm being civil- nothing more, nothing less. If he can't take that, oh well," he said simply.
I hesitated before saying, "You're lying."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Of course, Liam. You know everything, don't you?" he snapped.
He sped up to catch up with Niall and Zayn and I was left to wonder what the hell had just happened.