Crazy (a Louis Tomlinson love story)

Chapter 37

***Carson’s P.O.V.***

Louis’ eyes were slightly wide as he looked back at me. My words were enough to send anyone reeling, and I had sent him over the edge with them. I could practically feel his panic; he was probably thinking of all of the worst things in the world wrapped into one. Honestly, I was starting to think that other things could’ve been worse. I could have cheated on him, but I hadn’t. I don’t know; I could’ve murdered someone, but that wasn’t the case either. No, it wasn’t that kind of screw up. He was about to know about everything, though, and his eyes were focused on me expectantly. So, I began to explain myself.

"The summer before I was supposed to go to college something went very wrong. Up until then, I had kind of dismissed this pain that I had had every single month when it came to my time of the month. One day, it got so bad that I couldn’t even stand up, and my mother thought that it wouldn’t hurt to take me to the doctor and figure out what was wrong. Well, what was wrong was that my body was producing too much of a hormone that was supposed to stay in my uterus but then decided to take a trip to my ovaries." He was still listening with a furrowed brow, and I felt a little embarrassed about the conversation. I had shared many things with Louis when we were still together, but this felt different. He didn’t look grossed out by it, and I assumed that it was because he had grown up in a house full of girls. "The condition is called Endometriosis, and boy was it painful. I was told that it wasn’t very common amongst girls my age, but it wasn’t unheard of either. Of course, there were ways to treat it."

His hand rubbed along the stubble on his chin and jaw line as he spoke, "Is this why you left; because you didn’t want me to have to put up with a condition that you have?" I was going to cut in in order to explain myself further, but he continued before I could. "You could be dying of some rare disease and I still wouldn’t love you any less, Carson."

"No, Louis," I shook my head with the words, and looked down at my hands that were fiddling in my lap, "that's not where it ends." I waited to see if he was going to say anything in response, but he only kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on me. "We tried the treatments, damn; we tried everything that you could possibly think of in order to help. I went through physical therapy, I took the medicine, I even put up with a whole bunch of shots that were supposed to stop the hormones." Just thinking about this, and saying it out loud to Louis, was starting to make me tear up. I did my best to blink back the tears. "Nothing worked, and the pain always ended up coming back. So, they went to the last resort." The first tear fell with the last word, and I wiped it away quickly. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore; I wanted to run away from Louis and forget this night of embarrassment. I shouldn’t even be in his room right now; I should be cuddled up in my own hotel bed with a good book. Why wasn’t I doing that?

Then, I started to laugh; it was a pitiful laugh and a sad laugh, but it was a laugh nevertheless, and it made Louis' brow furrow even more. My hands rose to my face, and I tried to hide myself from his wondering gaze. "You looked so absolutely happy with Lux today; you were wonderful with her. You love children; I just couldn’t do it to you."

"Do what to me, Carson?" he demanded with confusion laced into his words, and then there was a look of shock and perhaps horror written on his features, "were you pregnant, Carson? Was it something like that?”

I laughed again, and it was perhaps the bitterest sound that I had ever heard. "I wish that it was that," I bit back the urge to start sobbing before I forced the next words out, "but that's physically impossible in my case."

There was a long and agonizing silence that hung in the air like the stench of garbage in a home. Then, he broke it with one simple and almost painful word, "what?"