Orphans | Larry

18

(A/N trigger warning at the beginning x)

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LOUIS POV

I pressed the familiar razor blade to my forearm, revelling in the way that the scarlet liquid bubbled to the surface in turn. The sting quickly replaced with numbness. The itch to repeat the action, over and over again, becoming harder to resist.

I watched my slightly tan skin change from a bronzed white, to a red so bright that even the brightest of flames could not live up to.

The pain was ever so familiar, and not in the typical smart-arse response that would have you question my sanity.

No.

The familiar feeling of pain that quickly dissolved into a deep numbness, was a feeling that I was well aquatinted with . The familiar feeling dragging away from my arms, and instead, directing itself past my ribcage, and directly toward the beating organ that centred my chest.

It was the pain that Harry had repeatedly, yet unintentionally caused me, for years now.

I was beginning to grow tired of it. You could only rely on and love a person for so long without any affection in return, before it became toxic. Before it extinguished any glimmer of hope that you once may have had. Before it destroyed you, along with everything you had built.

Stan had paid me a visit today, which was unusual to say the least. I had yet to figure from where his sudden interest in me had sprouted. And still, I found myself longing for attention, which if he could bring, I wouldn't complain. I wouldn't push him away.

He had now left, however. The weight on my heart returning with the absence of a person beside me. And once again I felt alone. As if I was invisible in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, Zayn and Liam would miss me, and I could only hope that Niall and Perrie would too, yet I knew for certain, that I was for them simply a smudge in a perfectly illustrated painting. A smudge that they would eventually be able to ignore, to look past, and to forget it was ever there to begin with.

And whilst their paintings showed a wide range of colour, mine was monotone, edging on complete black.

I was unsure of how many more dark thoughts I could endure, before I snapped.

I pressed the sharp edge flush against my skin once more, deeper and harder than I had ever done before, watching as the oxygen filled fluid slipped from my veins, and onto the tiled floor. The scene before me was horrific. I placed my hand over my mouth as the edges of my vision blurred. The steady, yet somehow calming flow of adrenaline pumping through me. I felt eerily at peace in that moment. An unwelcome tear slipped through the threshold that was my eyes and mixed onto the scarlet ground beneath me.

And only then did I realise, that I had finally snapped.

But did I really want this? I knew that I was currently in a terrible, terrible place, filled with nothing but destruction and distress. But as I looked out of the foggy bathroom window, and observed the lights blurring into one, the silhouettes of blue and red sirens dancing along the tall buildings that surrounded London, I knew that this was not what I wanted.

Not now at least.

I still had so much life to live. So many new people to meet, that I would never get the honour of knowing if I even so much as carved one last cut into my flesh. The busy city reminded me, etched its way into my memory, that out there, was someone for me.

Someone who would love, cherish and hold me throughout whatever life threw at us.

Us.

Plural.