Letters to Harry

Chapter One

It was a Sunday when he saw her in the super market. He felt awkward buying food to feed just one, and decided that instead of buying things that needed extensive preparation, he'd just go to the canned foods aisle and pick up some soup.

"Oh, I apologize. I must've zoned out." Lou backed his trolley away from the woman who he had nearly hit and headed off on his way down the shelves, looking for the familiar label of his favourite flavour.

"Louis," the Doncaster boy turned at the sound of his name being half whispered, half moaned. "I'm -I can't…"

"Anne, what're you doing here?" Lou exclaimed, nearly dropping the can of soup he had picked up off of the shelf in surprise.

"I'm, Lou I can't tell you. I promised I wouldn’t." Tears sprung from the corner of her eyes, and she stepped from behind her trolley and embraced the younger boy. "He loves you, you know." she whispered into his ear as they stood entwined in the middle of the aisle.

"You know where he is." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"Yes." The reply was simple, but heartbreaking.

"Tell me." Louis demanded, holding on to his best friend's mother tightly. He willed her to just let the information slip, tell him where Harry was, why he left, what had gone wrong, why he deserved the pain.

"I can't…. I- I've got to go." she stuttered through the sentence, unwrapping her arms from around him and backing away towards her groceries with unnatural speed.

"Anne.. Wait!" Lou cried, moving to run after her as she began to head in the opposite direction. She turned her head halfway towards the lonely boy standing alone in the aisle, broken, defeated, desperate. "If I write to him, will you give him my letters? He doesn't even have to write back.. I just… have things I need to tell him. Please, I need this." He pleaded with the older woman.

Anne froze, she had promised she wouldn’t tell anyone.. But what could a few harmless parcels do? If it helped Louis get over Harry, it couldn't hurt.

"Okay." She relented after a few moments of silence, and Louis let out a breath that he hadn't even realized he had been holding. "I'll get them to him."

"Thank you." Lou whispered, not trusting his voice to stay steady at full volume. He was happy. Happier than he'd been since his boy left. The process of returning to normalcy had begun.

"I won't be broken forever, Harry. You'll come back, and things will go back to normal. You can have your break from the stress of the media and everyone around you, but you'll come back. I know you will. You love me, I love you, and you promised you wouldn't leave me." Louis thought to himself as he placed the tomato soup in the trolley.  He should really go shopping more often, good things seemed to happen while he was shopping.