Untouchable

Chapter 14

A/N
Guys, I'm okay!
I've just been really busy and really tired so I haven't gotten a lot of opportunities to write.
I'm perfectly fine though- nothing's wrong.
This chapter is kind of short though because I really wanted to update tonight and I'm basically half asleep so I decided to stop while I was ahead.
Love you!

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Louis's POV

I would never be able to say what happened the first four days. I vaguely remembered the airport and then it seemed as if I fell asleep one day and woke up the next morning, but there was a four day gap that I didn't remember.
My mind was foggy and my head spun as I rolled over. I picked my phone up to look at the time. It was early evening. The one thing I knew to do was to text my mum and let her know that I was still alive.
"We're taking a big risk, letting you be on your own. You need to let yourself recover and we're very, very hesitant to do this. You have to text your mum or me or the boys at least three times a day and you have to eat, drink, take your medicine, avoid alcohol, and keep yourself safe. Got it, Louis?"
The memory of Paul's voice was hazy. I couldn't remember when he had told me that. Before we had gotten on the private plane he had hired? Before he had left the hotel? Was it a phone conversation? I couldn't remember.
I sat up, lazily fumbling for the small white bottle that held my pills and a bottle of water. I didn't remember when or what had happened, but I knew that at some point Paul had come back. I'd been prescribed a more aggressive anti-depression but I was still taking the old one as well to control my violent mood swings.
I eyed my room. It was a mess. I didn't remember any of it, but nearly everything was broken. We would have a hell of a bill to pay. I didn't care. Nothing mattered to me.
I slid out of bed and stood still for a moment before shuffling to the toilet. I pissed and washed my hands while trying to avoid my reflection in the broken mirror. I caught my own eyes as I turned around though, and it made me freeze, my breath stopping in my throat.
For a moment I thought there was an intruder and I whirled around. There was nobody behind me. I carefully turned back to the mirror, touching my fingers to the broken glass. The cracks distorted my face but I wouldn't have recognized it hadn't been broken.
There was no way to describe how I felt in that moment, how I felt since if gotten into the fight. It was like a sinking feeling in my stomach but it never stopped sinking. I just felt more and more hollow.
My eyes fell on the fading bruise on my throat, shaped perfectly like fingers. Harry's-
No. A shiver ran down my spine and-
Fucking whore-
I hissed, shoving my hands over my ears. It did nothing for the voices in my head.
I stumbled and slammed my head into the wall.
"Shut up, shut up," I screeched, "Shut up."
I hit my head against the wall over and over without feeling the pain. I stopped when stars burst in front of my eyes and I swayed, close to losing consciousness.
I collapsed against the sink, jerking and ramming my elbow back into it. There was a sharp crack but the cupboard door didn't break. I snarled and turned so my back was against the wall. I lifted my leg and drove my heel against it. One, two, three kicks later and my heel broke into it.
I stood, limping on my now-bruised foot and went back out to the main room, not before ripping the shower curtain off of the rod.
My forehead had split open. Blood ran down and blurred my vision.
I tripped, my foot aching, and fell, hitting my head against the desk.
That was enough to knock me out.
Six more days disappeared without me remembering a thing.
Whatever part of me that was conscious during the times where I blanked out remembered to text my mum and feed my body.
I came back into myself while I walked down the street. I jolted, confused about my surroundings and incredibly disoriented. I didn't care where I was, past the original confusion.
It was night and nobody was out other than the stray car and the occasional pub-goer. Nobody recognized me. I didn't recognize myself.
I kept walking aimlessly, allowing my body to take over for me. I found myself on a bridge. It was big, a suspension bridge overlooking a large river. The river was wide and flowing fast. I leaned against the rails.
I allowed myself to toy with the idea of just jumping, getting it over with. I closed my eyes, imaging what it would feel like to hit the water. Maybe painful for a second. The bridge was high enough that I could break a bone or two just from hitting the water. But it would be okay, because if the fall didn't kill me, I'd drown. I was used to not being able to breath that it wouldn't bother me. My lungs hurt every day; they struggled against the heavy weight of my aching heart. Maybe I had gills. Maybe I belonged in the water and that was why it hurt to breathe.
I wanted the river sweep me away.
"Louis Tomlinson Killed By Suicidal Jump,' I imagined the headlines would read.
My grip tightened on the rails. I wanted it so badly, was the thing. I didn't want to live. I'd lived this pain, this anticipation of nothing, for so long. I took a slow breath and smiled. I opened my eyes, listening to the water rushing below me.
So. I was going to do it. A rush went through me.
"Hey."
I jumped about a feet and spun around.
There was a girl standing in front of me. She looked about my age. She gave me a half-smile and came to stand next to me.
"You gonna jump?" she asked.
I stared at her.
"Pointless question. I know you were going to," she said.
I sucked in a gasp as she swung her leg up on the rail. I reached for her, to pull her back as she hopped up. She curled her fingers around the cords of the bridge.
"Relax. I'm not jumping," she chuckled, "Wanna come sit?"
I stared at her. She knew I'd been about to jump and she was telling me to sit on the edge, where even a non-suicidal person could easily fall accidentally.
Still, I swung up to sit next to her. Everything was in a different perspective. There was no barrier protecting me. It would be so easy to just let go.
I shut my eyes as the river swirled underneath me. It was dizzying.
"So. What's your reason?" she asked.
I looked at her.
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.
My voice was raw and raspy. I hadn't spoken in about a week and a half, so it wasn't surprising.
"No. But judging from that question alone, you're some kind of celebrity," she said.
She absently kicked her feet against the railings.
"Yeah. You ever heard of One Direction?" I asked.
"Vaguely. Boyband, yeah? Yeah. So, you're one of them?" she said.
I nodded.
"Fame getting to be too much? Drug addiction? Now that I know you're famous, I can tell everyone how I met some guy from One Direcfion about to jump off a bridge," she said, then, "I'm joking. I won't. I don't care who you are."
I sighed.
"No. Not fame and not drugs. Alcohol, though. H-arr-, this other guy from the band tried to kill himself cause he's in love with me and then he didn't talk to me for six months while he was in rehab. And then came the alcohol to make me feel less guilty and I got depressed and did a stupid thing...that- I just can't really talk about. Not yet. But he came back and lived wth me a while and he was so mean. It just went downhill from there. It got so out of control. I got so violent and I'd blank out and come back and the hotel room'd be ruined. I started drinking again. Then my band mate and I got in a fight and it just all exploded and I don't really remember much but now I'm here and I don't know how I got here but I want everything to stop hurting," I babbled.
She blinked at me, then turned away and nodded.
"They know you're here?" she asked.
"Dunno. I guess they got told that I got shipped away to be by myself for a while, get back into my head again," I sighed, leaning against a cord.
"How's that going?" she asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" I snorted, "I want to kill myself."
There was a moment of silence where we just looked out over the river. A cool breeze blew past and I shivered. I had apparently forgotten to put anything past a t-shirt on before going out. I looked up at the sky. The stars were beautiful, more prominent than what I was used to seeing in London.
"You know, I'm an insomniac so I come out here a lot at night. You're not the first person I've seen about to jump and you won't be the last," she said finally.
"Any ever actually jump?" I asked.
It was tasteless, but I didn't care.
"Yeah. A few, actually," she said, shaking her head, "But I've talked people out of it and that's what I try to focus on instead of my failures."
"Do you tell all of them to sit on the rails?" I asked, a note of sarcasm in my voice.
"Not all of them. Just the ones that I don't think will actually jump," she said.
"What makes you think I won't?" I challenged.
She shrugged.
"I don't know for sure," she said simply, "But you haven't yet."
On an impulse, I toed off my shoe and wiggled until it fell the forty feet it was to the water. We watched it hit and it was immediately swept away. I kicked my other one off.
I shut my eyes and pictured what my body would look like hitting the water.
"Do you die when you hit or is it drowning?" I asked, opening them again.
"Depends on how hard you hit. But it's drowning, usually," she said thoughtfully.
She smiled down at the water and kicked her own shoes off.
Then she slid off the railing. I made a noise that sounded like a dying animal. She laughed as she clung to the wires.
"Exhilarating, innit?" she yelled.
She swung back and forth, wiggling her bare feet.
I stared at her.
"What the fuck are you doing? Do you want to kill yourself?" I snapped.
She pulled herself back onto the railing and stared at me somberly.
"Do you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
She jumped lightly down onto the pavement.
"Nice talking to you," she said, "But I've become tired and I need to get home."
I watched her jog away, bare feet slapping the pavement. I turned and jumped down.
The road was cold under my feet but I didn't mind it. They went numb eventually. I didn't know what hotel I was staying at or where it was located, so I wandered around the city until I came to one that I thought looked familiar.
I texted Paul asking what room I was in and he replied almost immediately.
I went into the lift and sat down, curling against the back corner. It went up to my floor and the doors opened but I didn't get up. My limbs felt heavy and useless and I was too tired to move. The doors eventually closed.
I had no idea how long I sat in the lift for, but it was nice. It was just a little, quiet room where nothing could hurt me.
My own padded cell.
Louis, Louis, crazy Louis, rocking to himself in his padded cell. The pillows are soft and he is safe but
I was so lucky that nobody decided to use that specific lift that night. Eventually, the lights shut off from the lift not being used. I shut my eyes and wrapped my arms around my stomach.
But then, I decided that I didn't like the dark. I felt like someone was watching me, getting ready to hurt me. I could see shadows flitting around, waiting for the chance to swoop down on me. Something like panic rose in my throat and I jumped up and desperately pressed buttons, not caring what floor they led to. I hit the doors as the lift started moving; the walls narrow and close around me.
The doors opened, the lights flicking on and I all but fell out.
I trembled on my hands and knees for a while, shaking and trying to push images away that were threatening to get into my head. I all but crawled up the stairs- I wasn't going back on the lift- and stumbled down the hallway to my room.
I collapsed against the door when I got inside. I scratched at my arms, trying to tear my skin off. I wanted to remove the dirty, used skin from my body and start again. It felt like I had layers of filth piled on me and no matter what I did, they wouldn't scrub off.
Layer One: Harry's love
Layer Two: Every little thing I had done to hurt him
Layer Three: His attempted suicide
Layer Four: Alcohol
Layer Five: Ben
The rest of the layers were just buildups of stress and hate and Harry, Harry, Harry.
I was disgusting.

Harry's POV

I think the boys knew that I needed space. They let me mope around Louis's house for two days, occasionally checking up on me. Felix texted and called but he never came. He knew me well and he knew I just needed time by myself.
Now that I knew, everything made sense to me. The way that the boys always gave Louis a little bit of space, the way he shied away from people touching him.
I'd met rape victims while in rehab. Louis wasn't quite like them but at the same time, he was exactly like them. They were to be spoken to with nothing but gentle voices and approached with caution. Touch them only if they say it's okay.
I'd witnessed a young girl bump into someone and have a seizure from the fear.
Louis wasn't that extreme. He knew it wasn't rape, not really. But coupled with the stress and guilt, it was enough to change the way he thought.
And sleeping with a guy in itself wasn't that traumatic, even under Louis' circumstances. The lads had told me that it was everything accumulated that had turned the situation into something worse.
I begged and pleaded for them to tell me where he was, where I could find him. I texted and called him but there was never a response.
And God, did I have an entirely new appreciation for Louis and everything I had put him through.
Except, I probably had more answers than he had had.
It was on day three of lazing around his house when I picked up his mail. I'd been forgetting to and it had piled up. I rifled absently through them, sorting the stuff that seemed important from the junk.
And then there was one with my name on it. I picked it up and opened it. I knew that it was technically for Louis and it was rude to go through his mail, but I was curious.
It was a bill for my flat. Louis was still paying for it.
He had never said anything about it. I'd assumed that he had sold it or left our managers to deal with it. I bit my lip, immediately regretting the action. It was raw and scabbed over, splitting and bleeding every time I so much as moved my mouth.
I ran my thumb over the edge of the bill and then over my scars.
Louis wasn't comfortable in my flat; he'd said so himself. I had to go off of the assumption that he'd meant to ask me what I wanted to do with it, but had just never gotten around to it. He'd had bigger things on his mind.
Before I knew it, I was walking into my old flat, setting my keys down as I walked inside. I wrinkled my nose at the dust that had built up. How long had it been since Louis had been inside? It had to have been before I came back and he wasn't the cleanlinest of people.
I was going to sell the flat eventually; I knew that much. But it would be a pain to get everything out. I walked through and analyzed all of my old stuff. I picked out a few shirts and such that I wanted to take back with me. I held a mug that I had always saved for Louis to use when he came over. When we'd moved out of our old flat, I'd tried to give it to him, it was his mug, but he'd batted my hands away and said that he'd need his own at my flat.
I'd liked the idea of it. It made it seem like living separately wasn't permanent, that we'd live together again eventually.
And we had, truthfully. It just hadn't been the best of situations.
I turned the mug over in my hands and sighed. I decided to take it. I'd put it back in Louis' kitchen, if anything.
I realized just how many things in my flat were Louis'.
His blanket, his stash of tea, his movies.
He'd been funny when he demanded I keep his things around. For when he came over, he said. He didn't like my tea, so I had to have his. He thought my movies were too cliche and sappy, so he left some of his. And he had just liked the idea of having a blanket reserved especially for him.
I'd clung to him as tightly as I could while I had still had him, so I hadn't protested at all. He never knew, but I had found myself curled up in his blanket, drinking his tea, watching one of his movies on more than one occasion.
I wandered out and sat down on my sofa, clutching the mug. I set it down next to me and ran my hands through my hair.
I missed him.
I didn't even care about myself. I was so worried that it completely masked the need to cut. I didn't want to do it.
I just needed him to be safe. With or without me, I needed him to be happy. I'd seen him cry too much, seen him smile too little.
And, okay.
I was the one who hurt him the most. I regretted everything. I wanted to go back and change things between he and I.
I didn't care if we were just friends. Maybe I did, just a little bit. But in the end, I needed Louis like I needed to breathe and losing him completelyui was too much.