“Come on, loser, shake it off,” I hear Max telling Harry.
“How the fuck do you shake off a broken nose?” He shoots back.
“I don’t fucking know! Just do something and stop bleeding all over the floor.”
Another wave of nausea hits me and I’m back leaning over the toilet. I feel absolutely terrible and disgusting for doing something so cruel to Harry, I don’t really know what came over me. I wish I could go out there and pull him into my arms and apologize and tell him everything is going to be okay but I know I can’t do that. Max is going to give me enough shit for running out on the fight before I knocked Harry unconscious.
“Tomlinson!” Max calls from the living room.
“Give me a second!” I call back, my voice sounding much more strained than I was expecting. I flush the toilet and brush my teeth to get the gross taste out of my mouth. I splash water on my face to try and get the redness to go away but it just won’t happen so I open the door and walk back to the living room.
Harry is still kneeling on the floor in the same position I left him and there are blood droplets all over the place. His hand is all bloody and gross like he’d just punched through a window. His shirt has stains on it and there’s a fire in his eyes that terrifies me. It’s not like the passionate fire he’d had nearly a half hour ago, it’s a hate fire that can only mean one thing: we’re right back to where we started.
“We need to get him to the hospital,” Max says when he sees me, motioning to Harry.
“I don’t have a car.”
“Call a cab, dumbfuck!”
“Since when do you care if anyone needs to go to the hospital?” I ask. “You literally just ki-“
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, cutting me off. “Just call a cab so he can stop bleeding everywhere.”
I do as I’m told and call a taxi, avoiding eye contact with Harry. I know if I look at him I’ll break down and say something I shouldn’t.
It feels like years before the driver shows up and he help Harry down the steps and into the back seat.
“Where to?” The driver asks when we’re all in.
“The hospital on Brandy,” I tell him, staring out the window.
“What happened? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“He fell up the steps going inside,” Max answers. “Cracked his nose on the top step.”
“Ouch. Hope you’re okay, buddy.”
“I will be as soon as I get it taken care of,” Harry tells him, an icy chill in his voice. There’s no emotion there, and that scares the hell out of me.
*Harry’s POV*
I sit in the middle of Max and Louis in the cab and stare out the front window. Louis is looking out his window and Max is twiddling his thumbs next to me. I’ve got a wad of paper towels held up under my nose to try and keep from bleeding all over the car. It’s kind of hard to see with all of the swelling but I guess it’s not that important at this point. The most important thing is that now I know just how much Louis really cares for me.
I know he’s going to still have to act like a tough guy around his gang but I was trying for a fake fight, not a real one. He should have known that. The asshole broke my nose for crying out loud, how am I supposed to forgive him for that?
It takes around 20 minutes to get to the hospital and when we get there I follow Max out of the car. Louis tells the lady behind the front desk what happened. She looks a little skeptical when he tells her I fell up the stairs but she doesn’t say anything. She gives Max a clipboard with papers on it and leads us back to a room. She tells us a doctor will be in shortly and I need to fill out the forms to the best of my ability.
Max asks me questions and I answer the best I can, most of them completely irrelevant to my condition like, do I have any heart conditions? Do I wear glasses? Stupid shit like that.
Louis has taken a seat in a chair in the far corner and keeps his gaze on the floor or the wall. I’m thankful he doesn’t try talking to me because I know I’ll say something I’ll regret. I have to admit, it’s a little odd being in a hospital room with the leader and next-in-command of my rival gang. It’s even weirder being in here completely calm.
The doctor finally comes in half an hour later and looks at my papers. He sets them down on the counter and sits down awkwardly on the bed.
“Let’s see what happened,” he tells me, pulling my hand away from my nose. The bleeding has mostly stopped and the paper towel mess is a terrifyingly dark shade of red.
“Definitely broken,” he says, mostly to himself.
“I already knew that,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“No need to have a temper, Mr. Styles,” he says, standing up and walking out of the room.
“How the fuck are you supposed to fix my nose if you’re not even in the goddamn room?” I mutter.
“Just leave it alone,” Louis whispers from the other side of the room.
“You need to shut the fuck up!” I scream. “It’s your fault I’m here!”
I can tell my words hit Louis hard because he almost immediately stands up and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Right now I wish I could take back everything I said to him the last 2 days. I wish I hadn’t offered to help him take his groceries home and I wish I hadn’t agreed to stay the night at his house last night. I wish I had never walked up to him in the park and hit him. None of this would have ever happened.
Come to think of it, I should have just walked away from Jason when he asked me to join the gang. I should have said no and been on my way. I’d be so much better off by now if I had just told them no and minded my own business.
The doctor finally comes back and starts fixing my nose. He damn near breaks it again when he puts it back where it’s supposed to be and he puts this white bandage thing on my face. I still can’t see very well but I don’t really give a shit. I couldn’t really care less if I could see anything.
He gives me some pain pills and tells me how often I’m supposed to take them. I nod along with what he’s saying, silently wishing he would just finish talking so I can go home.
There’s no way I’m going back to Louis’ house. I’ll just leave my stuff there, he can have it. I can buy a new cell phone, it’s not that big of a deal. Clothes aren’t that important, I have more than enough at home anyway.
The doctor finally tells me I can go and I jump off the bed. I follow Max out to the waiting room where he gets Louis and we get in another cab. I tell the driver to take Louis and Max back to Louis’ first and then take me back to the apartment.
He does as he is told and, thankfully, this one doesn’t want to make conversation. He drops Louis and Max off and they both step out of the car without so much as a look in my direction. I’m glad for that, though, because I probably would have had to snap their necks if they had looked at me.
The driver takes me to my apartment building and I realize as I’m paying that I didn’t think of a story for how I broke my nose. Fuck, it doesn’t even matter, I’ll just tell them the truth. Well, most of the truth.
I go up to the apartment and walk in to see everyone sitting around the living room scarfing down some pizza.
“Where you been, Styles? You were supposed to be back hours ago,” Jason asks from the floor. Obviously he hasn’t looked at me yet.
“I was out,” I say. I just now realize my voice sounds funny.
Jason looks at me and he drops his pizza and gets up to his feet. “What the hell happened, man? Did you get in a fight?!”
I nod and close the door. “Yeah, I got in a fight.”
“With your mom?” Marcus snickers.
“Shut the fuck up, Marcus,” Jason commands. “With who?”
“Tomlinson,” I mutter.
“Tomlinson? When?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Why?”
“I was walking home and cut through the park. He was there with his bitch and wanted to show off for her and he caught me off guard. He broke my nose.”
“Hell yeah he broke your nose! Look at you!”
“I know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m gonna go take a nap.”
“Just go to sleep, man, it’s like 6 already, there’s no point in getting up again.”
“Okay.”
I walk to my room and lock my door behind me. The quiet is quite peaceful for a while. I pull my clothes off and toss them to the floor. My window is open so I pull it shut, drowning out the noise from outside. I pull the covers back and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
It finally hits me that I have no idea what Louis and I are anymore. I know I’m fucking pissed at him and I can’t forgive him for this but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try and move past it. I’m sure he thinks I hate him. In a sense, I do hate him, but not enough to want to never see him again, honestly.
I know I had different thoughts in the hospital but it was all the adrenaline and the pain getting to my head. Of course I want to see him again, we just have to have better communication.
Tears sting the back of my eyes the more I think about what is going to happen between Louis and me.
*Louis’ POV*
I get home and go straight to my room. I leave Max in the living room, letting him know where everything is even though he already knows. He flops down on the couch and starts watching TV and I’m glad he doesn’t grill me about what happened to make me run out on the fight.
The bloody mess on the floor will have to wait to get cleaned up until tomorrow because Max sure as hell isn’t going to take care of it.
I slam my door behind me and slide down to the floor, my arms wrapped tightly around myself. I look up at the ceiling and try to keep the tears in but it’s no use. The warm liquid streams down my face and drops onto my shirt.
I cover my mouth to keep Max from hearing me cry. It’s ridiculous, I’ve never cried like this before. Harry has some sort of power over me that I never even knew existed.
I notice Harry’s things on the floor and the tears flow even faster. He’s not going to come back to get them, I know it. I have a feeling he isn’t ever going to want to talk to me again.
He put himself out there, he told me he loves me, and I broke his fucking nose. I’m such an idiot.
I throw myself onto my bed, not even bothering to get undressed. It doesn’t take long for me to cry myself to sleep.