How We Met: A Tinder Story (Larry Stylinson)✅

Blaming

Louis' POV

It's Mid March now and Harry has been gone for nearly two months. I miss him like crazy, and I wish I could visit him, but I just got slammed with a new lab schedule where I have to work the night shift six days a week. I don't take classes anymore since I'm working on my research project. All of my coursework consists of the work I do in the lab, and it's starting to become overwhelming. 

My professor and I share a lab with another team, and there's not enough room for the both of us. So they get the lab until eleven. Then, I come in at midnight and work until 8am doing the work. I'm a night owl by nature, so I didn't really think it would be too challenging. But after three weeks of it, I feel like absolute death.

Since I finished physical therapy for my shoulder a few months ago, I've been cleared to go back to the gym to start working out again. I was starting to, before I got the night shift at least. But going back to the gym was a big mistake. While I used to be able to bench 200 pounds easily, I could now barely bench the bar. Even my leg and back strength had weakened significantly, and as I went through the exercises, I felt like my confidence had been hit by a truck. 

I started lifting weights when I was in high school, and it quickly became a huge part of my identity. I made friends at the gym, I took friends to the gym, I used it as a way to hype myself up before a date or calm myself down after a bad exam. Lifting was my life, and as soon as I got injured, that was all taken away from me. 

Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I would have gotten through it without Harry. He's been so supportive of me, even when I wasn't being the best boyfriend. Even when I was being distant and not giving him the support he needed. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive myself for the way I treated Harry. But that doesn't mean I won't stop trying to make it up to him. 

"Haz, I honestly feel like the worst boyfriend," I said over Skype the other day after I told him I couldn't take him to Germany after all. 

"You're not," Harry replied quietly. 

"So you're not mad I can't go to Germany with you?" I asked, biting my lip. I examined his face for the apparent signs of disappointment. Sad eyes, a frown, pouty lips. But Harry didn't have any of those things - he was just staring at me blankly.

"I mean, I would have loved for us to be able to go, but it's okay. I found a group tour that I'm interested in. It goes to Paris and Rome," he said with a big grin.

"That sounds so fun, Haz. You're gonna have a blast if you go on that trip! But you're not mad? You're not disappointed? I feel like all I do is let you down lately," I replied. The guilt was washing over me like a river, drenching me in shame and making me wonder if I even deserved to be with Harry in the first place. 

"You're not, Lou. I feel a lot better about our relationship. You've been really committed to our Skype calls and I think I'm starting to trust you again. Slowly," Harry replied. "Not fully there yet, though."

I frown. Of course he isn't.... of course he's isn't there yet. He used to be there. We both used to be there, trusting each other effortlessly, without a question. Without a doubt. But I ruined all of that with my stupidity, with my selfishness.

"Okay, that's good," I replied. "I love you, Hazzie."

"Love you too, LouBear," Harry giggled, making kissy lips at the screen. 

We hung up a little while later, but the Skype session didn't feel like enough. I couldn't show him how much I cared through a computer screen. I couldn't hug or tickle him... I should have appreciated the time we had together more. 

Today, as I come home from the lab, exhausted and ready to go to sleep. Liam is just leaving the apartment as I enter it, and we stop to chat for a second as he puts on his coat.