Where I Am Without You [L.S]

Chapter Three

He spends the drive back to his home in silence., Ignoring his instinct to connect his music to the sound system, knows he needs the silence to process his next move once he's home. It's now nearing mid afternoon, and if he doesn't do something about the Louis situation the moment he walks in the door, he knows he never will.

The minute he walks through the main door to his home, ignoring the slightly harder slam of the door as he clicks off the security system he makes his way into the living room. He tries to sit down in his favourite arm chair, but as he reaches into his coat pocket for his phone, he stands again, beginning to pace in front of the fire place.

He'd long since accepted the fact that some part of him would always love Louis Tomlinson. Since the earth shattering moment he'd realised the fact that he was in love with his best friend when he had just turned seventeen years old, and consequently spent the following four months barely containing those three damming words until it had inevitably spilled from his lips, he had known a piece of his heart would always belong to the blue eyed boy from Doncaster.

He hadn't seen Louis in person in three years, but wherever Louis went, a piece of Harry's heart always went with him. He'd fought it for so long after they'd split in 2016, had raged over the fact that this feeling simply wouldn't abandon him, had cried over it, numerous times, had sat for hours in wallowing silence before he'd finally accepted it. Even if he ever found someone he even vaguely shared the same depth of feeling as he did for Louis, a part of him would always belong to Louis. They'd been through too much, had loved each other too deeply for there to be any other alternative.

Harry Styles had been in the thick of him fighting those feelings, he'd let slip just a few moments of vulnerability, but whilst writing Fine Line he'd let all his emotion and pent up feelings spill from him. No longer worrying for how blatant his affection had, was, for the love of his life, he'd let himself share in his heartbreak. The sheer ache that had felt like a constant companion for four years. The thought of Louis listening to the album sent him spiraling each time he'd thought about it. It was inevitable sure, they'd already been discussion of them playing some of their solo music on tour and Harry knew he'd been on stage, with Louis, performing right in front of him the very song he'd written about Louis, or at least his feelings of their relinquished relationship.

Its not as though they were enemies currently either. In fact, their break up hadn't even ended in fighting, just Harry with a heart scattered into a million pieces which he knew had never healed. It wasn't as though contacting Louis right now would be breaking some sort of barrier, only It was. They hadn't spoken, well barely. But every part of Harry Styles missed Louis Tomlinson. Missed his smile, his laugh, his sass and wit and sometimes barely appropriate remarks. Misses the messy lifestyle of living with the love of his life. The lazy days they woke up tangled in each other. The way they'd lay for hours without speaking, simply content to be with one another. The countless failed attempts of Harry trying to teach some culinary skills, to no avail. And the way that Harry had never once finished a cup of tea since Louis had left him. Nobody could make it the way he had, nobody.

Harry had been left so heart broken, and sometimes he felt that the past few years had been made up of him barely able to keep his head above a raging sea. And now, finally, with Louis' phone number displayed bright on his phone screen, he can barely manage to suck in enough oxygen.

How the fuck did he ever think he'd be able to stand in front of him tomorrow. Face Louis without crumbling to pieces. He'd never fallen out of love with him, he knew that. But that didn't mean Louis hadn't. The time spent apart, the changes to the man he'd once thought he knew better than his own self. How could he do this? What was he even going to say?