Letters to Harry

Chapter Nine

A month had passed since the day Liam had come to visit. In that time, Harry had received half the amount of letters from Louis he had gotten the month before. This made the curly haired boy extremely sad, but spurred him to work extra hard during his sessions to get home quicker.

With only thirty days left, Harry had asked Janice, the woman at the front desk, to print him out a copy of the July calendar. He circled the 31st with a thick red marker, writing Louis's name in the middle of the box. On the 31st, he'd leave. He'd be ready, they said.

He felt like he could leave now, being away from Lou was hurting him more than it was helping his problem, but he knew that he was going to see this through to the end.

In thirty days, Harry Styles would go home.

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"Zaaaaayyyyynnn!" Louis cackled loudly, trying to escape the brutal attack. He  pulled at the younger boy's fingers, trying desperately to get them away from his protruding ribs. "Stop tickling me! It hurts!" Gasping for air, the Doncaster lad felt like he couldn't breathe. Once Zayn realised that things weren't funny anymore, he immediately retracted his fingers and moved to help his friend.

"Sit up Lou! Breathe, it's okay." he said, lifting Louis' fragile body into his arms. Zayn hated the way that he could count each individual rib beneath the boy's skin. "Are you okay now?" the Bradford boy whispered sweet nothings into Lou's ear until he had caught his breath.

"Is everything alright?" Niall entered the flat, carrying an arm full of grocery bags towards the kitchen. "Lou, dear. You look terrible! How about I make some soup? You need to eat something, you're skin and bones." With that, the Irishman went to go start their late lunch.

It was true that Louis had lost an obscene amount of weight since Harry's abrupt departure. He'd run out of energy to eat, and spent more time crying in Harry's room and sleeping than he did anything else. His clothes hung off of his body, his pants could no longer sit correctly on his hips, and all of his hoodies made him look like he was five years old again.

It wasn't just the change in Louis' appearance that had the other three members of One Direction worried for their friend, it was his overall change in attitude as well. No longer was he the brunette the happy, bubbly, boy they recognized, but he had morphed into a sulking, quiet mess. A shell of his former self.

Louis no longer wrote to Harry with the same enthusiasm as he once had. He was tired of being hurt when he waited for the post for hours, only to find that Harry never replied.  He sent the curly haired boy updates on what'd been happening in his life without the One Direction press, and just mundane occurrences, like the fact that he was out of sugar or biscuits.

In his last letter, Lou had recanted the tale of how he and Liam had settled their differences, and had agreed to be on speaking terms again. Although the eldest boy hadn't totally forgiven Liam for lying to him and giving up so easily, he figured it would be better to focus what little energy he had on preserving what small amount of hope he had left for the love of his life returning.

"I think I'm going to go shower…" Lou said quietly, casting a look towards Zayn before clumsily standing up and walking away. The darker haired boy watched as his friend wobbled unsurely down the hall and disappeared into the bathroom. He waited for the sound of the water running before he stood up and went to locate Niall. They needed to do something about Louis.

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"It's 3am and I can't sleep at all, I wonder where you are tonight and do I ever cross your mind?" Lou sang in the shower as he washed his hair. I need to get it cut, he mused. It was back to the length that he had it at during the X Factor.

"What about the promise that you made, to stay with me til' your dying day? Said you'd never go away. Are they just things that people say?" The words echoed off of the tile walls, Louis' melodic voice breaking at how true the lyrics were. Harry had promised.

But I guess they really are just things that people say. He mused, rinsing himself off so that he could sit in the tub and wait for the hot water to run out.