I Love You But I Can't Breathe

Chapter Twenty Five

They held a funeral for Harry because somehow it was the easier thing to do than to tell the truth. Knowing he was still out there but unreachable was somehow worse than thinking he was gone and at least having a fighting chance of moving on.

Louis wore his wedding suit and he still cried, even though he wasn't crying for a death. Liam was holding onto him for most of the ceremony, resting his chin on Louis' shoulder as Louis tried to pay attention to the church babble that didn't make any sense to him. He'd carried the same headache with him for days, splitting through his whole body and refusing to be dulled by any combination of pain medication. 

They had nothing to bury, and Harry barely had any relatives, so it was in essence, a short, formal crying session between some of the townspeople.  

"Are you holding in there?" Anne asked, coming up to him once everyone had filtered out of the hall. 

Louis just nodded.

"You're such a fighter," she said. "Everyone's hoping you recover soon. Look at all the people who came here for you. We know you still have more life in you."

"Thank you?" Louis said, brows scrunched together before scurrying away. It was an odd way to put things, but everyone dealt with grief differently and maybe Anne was just mixing up her words.

Time without Harry had floated by like some sort of terrible fever-dream.

Louis went for a walk along the beach that night, trying to clear his head of the splitting migraine and trying to clear the memory of the funeral he'd attended for his still-alive husband. 

As he walked along the beach, he could feel the sand in his toes, the sunset washing across his skin, the air between his fingers where Harry's should have been interlaced. 

Louis swallowed thickly, prepared to turn around and head back home, hoping that Liam or Niall would fall asleep next to him that night so he didn't have to feel the empty side of the bed when he woke up. 

But something caught his eye. 

Red sea glass. Resting right in the spot where Harry had originally gone missing. 

And it was basically a rock, but it was a small sign that Louis knew was from Harry and somehow everything felt a little more peaceful. Louis smiled a little and picked up the smooth glass to hold in his palm. 

"I think he blinked," Niall said, interrupting his thoughts. 

Louis turned around, his heart jumping. He knew he came to the beach alone today. He thought about the weird things Anne had said to him at the funeral, the strange things Niall had said to him that he swore he didn't... the way things just seemed muddled lately and people's mouths didn't always move at the same time their words came out. Louis took a slow breath. He wasn't crazy. He was handling things well, he was dealing with Harry's fate, he was...

"How the fuck would he be blinking? His eyes are closed, you twat."

"What?" Louis asked, turning around to see where the voices were coming from. He was definitely alone on the beach. He patted his pocket for his cellphone, thinking maybe the guys had pocket dialed him or something, but the screen was dead.

He felt his hand muscles go slack and the sea glass dropped back to the sand. He looked down at his hand in confusion, feeling betrayed by the movements that didn't seem to belong to his body. 

"His hand's twitching, should we get a nurse?" Liam's voice.

"I don't want to miss this," Niall said. "You go."