I Love You But I Can't Breathe

Chapter Twenty Six

Thank you for everything. I'm pretty sure this will be my last story on here, it's been such a fun time, and I've been so blessed that readers have shared this story with others and have spread it around so much. I can't believe I have so many lovely comments and so many people who've read my works. My whole experience on this website has been wonderful. I still remember a time when I reached 1000 reads on my first story and me and my friend baked a cake with '1000' written on it in icing to celebrate. Writing Niall and Louis and Harry and Liam and Zayn has been more fun than I ever could have imagined and brought so much happiness into my life. Anyway, all that just to say thank you for everything <3 

It had been almost a full week of non-stop rehabilitation therapy. Louis still had moments where certain words eluded him, and the night of the accident was a bit fuzzy, but otherwise he started to feel more confident in his memories. He was able to talk again, although his head still felt a bit foggy. It frustrated him, he remembered feeling sharp and quick to make snappy jokes before the accident and now it took him a little while to process everything people were saying to him. His doctor reassured him that it was normal and that he was still healing remarkably well. 

Harry, the other boy in the room, kept fairly quiet throughout the week. Louis had stopped crying out for him after he realized that the hospital was real and that Harry was nothing more than a stranger- a stranger who he was embarrassing himself in front of. 

The curtain kept closed and the two boys kept to themselves, until one night when Louis was awake with a headache and he heard a voice softly calling out. 

"Louis? Are you awake?"

Louis' heart raced, not sure how to answer. He was still mortified about everything he'd said to Harry when he first woke up, and he didn't want to scare off the other boy. 

"Yeah," he finally replied, a note of hesitation ringing in his voice. 

"I can't sleep and my legs hurt," Harry whined. 

"I'm sorry," Louis said, because he didn't know what else to do. He would have known exactly what to do back when Harry was his boy- would have tickled him and kissed him and distracted him in a million different ways... but Harry wasn't his anymore and Louis wasn't sure how to help. 

"Can you... can you come over here?" Harry asked shyly. 

"I... um, yeah, yeah of course," Louis said. He butterflies swarm his stomach and he tried to tell himself it was just nausea from his head injury, but the truth was he was still hopelessly in love with Harry.

The younger boy tried to clear the bed of any tubes and wires. "Sorry, I'm complicated," he laughed nervously. 

"It's okay," Louis said. "They help you breathe, you don't have to feel bad about that." He laid down carefully next to the other boy, leaving some room between them. 

"What was I like?" Harry asked after a moment. "In your dream... do you still remember any of it?" 

Louis nodded. "Not all of it, but yeah. You were sweet." 

"That's it?" Harry asked, disappointment ringing through his voice. 

"No, that's not..." Louis sighed. "That's not it." He couldn't imagine why the other boy wanted to hear the rest. It was mortifying for Louis to try and recount it to him, to try and explain that beautiful, intimate relationship he'd imagined with someone who he'd never met before. 

"Tell me the rest then," Harry insisted. 

His eyes were a luminous shade of green, and Louis didn't know how to say no when they were trained on him. "Fine," Louis said. "You were patient... you were happy- most of the time... you loved bubble baths and stealing my sweaters and basically anything soft made you happy... you had this stuffed bear," Louis smiled, "and you were so nervous that I would think you were weird for it, but you just liked being comforted, feeling like I was there to take care of you. You were best friends with my friend Niall- the blonde mouthy one that visits every waking hour," Louis added helpfully. "We got matching tattoos," Louis smiled. "It was your idea, I had a rope that was like an infinity sign, and you had an anchor right... here," Louis said, rubbing his thumb across Harry's wrist.