Morning Star || Self-Para

_{You got me wishing on a star, thought we’d never be apart
From down here you’re way too far
Want you with me on my journey like you’ve been here from the start
Wouldn’t wanna be anywhere without you…}

Harry couldn’t move. He wanted to, everything in his body willed him to, there was nothing physically wrong with him, and yet… He couldn’t move. He lay in his temporary bed in another hotel whose name would blur into nothingness in his memory by the time they packed to leave, staring at the ceiling as tears brimmed at his eyelids. He had been trying his hardest not to think about it. But as with everything that you try not to think about, Harry couldn’t avoid it. It wasn’t like the subject was one that he could shove behind a door and pretend it didn’t exist. The subject was someone he dealt with on a regular basis. The subject was someone that he saw every day. Someone that he considered his best friend regardless of the pain that he felt. Someone that… That was Louis. There were no words to describe him other than that. No matter how many times Harry tried to piece something that made more sense together in his mind, it all boiled down to that single word.

Well, that word and one other: Love. 

That one word hit his mind like a tone of bricks and the tears spilled down his face as Harry realized that he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been in love with Louis. He could remember a time when he hadn’t known Louis, but he couldn’t remember the emotions he’d felt then. Had he been happy? Harry couldn’t be sure. Every thought he had in that moment was swirling into one and on the ceiling he had been contently staring at everything flashed before his eyes at once. He was seeing Louis for the first time again, feeling his heart skip the first time that smile lit up a room. He was reliving their first conversation, feeling his arms wrap around the older boy in their first hug… He was staying up all night at the bungalow just to get to know Louis better. He was staying close by his side all through every performance, tackling Louis in the tightest hug he could manage when they learned they were getting signed… He was spending hours texting him when they were separated, spending time with Louis’ family, inviting Louis to spend time with his, becoming one family… An entire  year and then some flashed before his eyes in an instant and before he knew it all the tears that Harry had been holding back were flooding to his eyes. 

He hadn’t been ready to call it quits. He hadn’t been ready to just be friends. He hadn’t been ready for…

Harry let out a sigh, he was being selfish and needed to stop. Louis was happy now, wasn’t he? He could move on and be happy too.

There was that impact again, the thought of moving on and being happy without Louis was enough to rip his heart in two, which is what he felt like was happening, he was sure it was. This had to be what a heart attack felt like. In all his seventeen years of life, Harry had never felt a pain that strong, he had read about heartbreak and seen it in movies, but he was sure that they had never meant it the way that he felt just then. For the first time all day, Harry moved. He was lurched forward by the pain in his chest, only to collapse onto his side, stifling a sob that threatened to emit from behind his lips. His face contorted with both the pain and the need to remain silent. It’s over Harry. You have to move on. A voice in his head nagged at him and Harry let out an audible whine quick to cover his mouth on the off chance that anyone happened to hear. He shook his head fervently, a feeble attempt to argue with the voice. You’re not getting back with him, you might as well go pick up your life where you left off before you met him. You can have anything now. Look where you are. You could have a wife and kids one day. Pining over him isn’t going to get you there. The voice was becoming more audible in Harry’s head with every point it tried to make and with every increase in volume, Harry felt his own temper rise, “You’re wrong.” he spoke into the silence, barely a whisper, but loud enough that he could hear. He didn’t know what he was trying to tell the voice, but he knew that it was wrong. About which part, he didn’t know, but he knew that he was deadset on it being wrong. “I’m almost eighteen, and I know that’s still young, but it’s old enough to..” Harry cut himself short, falling silent as the words that fell out of his mouth registered in his mind. Almost eighteen?

“That’s not right.” He breathed out, shaking his head, “I’m nineteen… And I have got him back…” He struggled to pull himself up as a weight seemed to push him back down. He let out a yell, trying to fight against it, struggling under the invisible weight as the voice in his head started nagging at him, telling him that he was wrong, that Louis had moved on, everything that Harry could remember his mind feeding him over a year ago had come back to haunt him. 

“Let go!” Harry called out as his eyes snapped open and his body rocketed upward to a sitting position, cutting himself short as he realized he had actually woken up that time. The darkness enveloped him and he looked around trying to figure out where he was. The sound of the air rustling around and the calming of the outside let him know that he was in the tent. The warmth at his side alerted him to the knowledge that he had just woken up from a bad dream of the worst kind and Louis was still by his side. His breath hitched in his throat when the other boy moved and he was scared for a moment that he would have woken him up, but let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t speak. 

Burying his face in his hands, Harry tried to calm himself while trying to figure out what had prompted that dream. That was when it hit him. They were in the tent… They had decided to get the tent after the fight. The fight. That must have been it. Letting out a little whine, Harry fell back onto the pillow before he was rolling over to wrap his arms around Louis and close any gaps between them that he could without waking him up. The memory that he had relived was one Harry had never wanted to deal with again, he could still remember that day in the hotel room alone like it was yesterday, but he had shoved it aside so well. The fear of messing anything up with Louis must have revived it. Burying his face in Louis’ hair, Harry sniffled just a little, squeezing his eyes shut as the words came to his mind and escaped his mouth in an admission that escaped in a sound that was barely even a whisper, “Some nights I’m afraid you’ll forget me again…"