Just Hold On // L.T. ✓

7

~Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh oh, if it all goes wrong,

Darling, just hold on,

Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh oh, darling, just hold on,

Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh oh~

Louis walked into the building, preparing to spend the day with the group, getting to know them better, as he had been trying to do for the last several days. Also, he had left his Adidas jacket from his mom there last night, and he needed to make sure that it was safe.

But when he walked into the room and saw what was going on, he knew that it wasn't.

Perrie the Pyromaniac and Palmer the Amputee were holding his expensive jacket over an open flame on the stove, roasting it. Perrie looked over at his shocked face and laughed gleefully.

"Stop it!" Louis screamed, running over there. "My mom gave that to me."

Unable to control his emotions, he burst into tears while trying to tug it away from the two of them. But, unless Perrie stopped, Palmer wasn't going to, and Perrie definitely wasn't going to stop.

"Hey, hey, hey. Knock it off." Luke came into the room saying, and Perrie flipped the flame off, throwing the jacket at Louis. Then Luke took the jacket, inspecting the burns. "It'll be fine." He told Louis, who was trying to calm down. "I know you two hate him, but this is a bit much. It's clear this jacket means a lot to him."

Palmer went back to his desk, and Perrie went back to building her bomb in silence, as if they were being punished. But Perrie couldn't stay quiet, and she exploded. "Why don't you just drop the job? It's clear that we don't want you here."

Palmer chimed in from the other side of the room, "Yeah, you'll probably get us caught or something, loser."

Louis snatched his jacket from Luke, running out of the building, while Luke yelled at the two of them in an angry tone.

Holding the jacket close to his chest, he ran all the way to the nearest store, running up to the counter. He bought two scratch tickets, thanked the employee, and then went to sit on the curb. Louis lit a cigarette, and pulled a quarter out of his pocket to scratch the ticket with.

It was still fairly early in the day, and there were tons of people wandering around. It was summer in New York, after all. Or it was close to summer, at least. But it was the perfect temperature to sit on a curb, smoke, and try to win money.

Louis furrowed his brows and stuck out his tongue as he concentrated on trying to keep the card steady and scratch it with one hand. But eventually, he found his balance, and began to scratch. The dust gathered on his worn jeans, and he kept going at a steady pace, even though tears blocked his vision a couple of times. He thought that they could at least tolerate him until the job was done. He thought that he had earned their respect with the drive.

No, it was clear that he was on his own, no matter how much Luke protected him against the others. He was one of them. And Louis was on his own.

He didn't feel any joy as he won the scratch off card, bringing in fifty bucks.

---

Louis didn't save the money, and he didn't blow it on alcohol. Instead, he went to Coney Island, trying to spice up what could still be considered his vacation.

He went on most of the rides, laughed and had fun, but he still felt empty inside. Louis wondered if he should start seeing a therapist or something, but then he realized that his emotions were normal, considering that he was only twenty and his mother was dying.

This wasn't the life he had imagined for himself.

He imagined a writing desk in front of a window with a view of the forest. A wraparound porch with a couple of labradoodles in the yard. A couple kids marking up the driveway with chalk. Someone amazing to share all of that with. His loving family coming to plays that he'd written.

Instead, he had this. He was the getaway driver of a businessman, his mother was dying, and he still lived in the same small town that he was destined to die in.

He wasn't living. He was just existing. And Louis wanted so much more than that.

But he didn't know how to fix the hand that life had given him.