Awkward (Narry)

xix.

"You know, nearly four years of dating, and I was never allowed to touch his closet."

"Really?" I ask, swinging the doors open, desperate to get a least a small piece of Louis back.

"Yeah." Nick sniffles, reaching out to touch one of the many dresses hanging within.

"It's color coordinated."

"We should..." Nick stops, staring at the small pictures of him and Lou taped to the inside of the closet door. "We should keep everything that way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, we... We should."

I look at Nick, watching him try not to break down. "We can do that."

Nick nods, running his hand over the clothes. "We have enough boxes."

"Yeah, so let's do that." I walk over to grab one box and set it on Louis' empty desk. His parents took the boxes of things we'd already packed up this morning. They asked us to clean out everything here, because this is where Louis is ours.

"He knew, didn't he?" Nick speaks up quietly, looking down at me.

"Knew what?"

"About the date. About what we were going to do."

I smile. "Yeah, he knew."

Nick stamps his foot, and huffs. "Goddamn it, Louis! I wanted it to be a fucking surprise."

"He never liked surprises."

"Nobody likes surprises."

"Yeah." I nod.

"The initial shock is the worst feeling in the world." Nick takes out a gray shift dress and lays it in the box.

"The moments after the realization are bad too." I pick the shirt that had been hanging beside the dress and set it in the box on top of it.

"You can't stop thinking about it, for days." Nick picks out another dress, but this one he holds for a while. "You dream about it."

I glance at him, whispering. "You can fall asleep?"

"Nodding offs because of exhaustion only." He plays with the sleeves of the shiny cocktail dress. "That's it."

"I haven't slept in three days." I say, earnestly.

"What's the point of sleeping, anymore?" I watch Nick give in and start to cry. "There's nobody to wake up to."

His tears kickstart my own, and soon we're both standing there, wet cheeks and eyelashes, staring at each other. "What are we doing?"

"I have no clue." Nick says, wiping his eyes with his arm. I pull him in for a hug, and I feel him shaking, his tears coming back full force. Following suit, I hold him tighter.

We stay like this for a few minutes, not moving except for the occasional rocking back and forth. I stop crying before Nick does, not usually one for crying in any situation. "We can't keep doing this." I say.

"I don't know what to do." He says, honestly.

"What would..." I can't stop the laugh bubbling up inside me. "What would Louis do?"

Nick let's go of me, half laughing and wiping his eyes again. He looks down at the rumpled dress that was caught between our hug. "He would tell us that we're fucking ugly criers, and that this dress is Gabbana." Nick laughs. "You don't get your tears on Gabbana."

"That's right." I nod, taking the dress. "He wouldn't stand for this."

"God, you're right. He would hate us crying about it." Nick pulls out a skirt. "Let's stop crying."