***Harry Styles***
Sunday, March 25th, 2012 – North London, England

Louis and I were fooling around in his bed one night when I felt a mark on his skin at his hip bone. Not thinking anything of it, but curious, I asked him.

“What’s that?” I said, between kisses. He froze, though, and I knew it was something, only I didn’t want it to be what I thought it was. I reached over and turned on the lamp. Both of our shirts had already come off, so I didn’t have to search very far. I glanced at the top of his pants – there was a new mark there, looking like a wound that was just beginning to scar. I looked at Louis, scared, shocked.

“I just – I wanted to feel your pain with you,” Louis explained, shyly. “If I couldn’t take it away, then going through it together seemed like the next best option.” I sat up and rubbed my temples.

“When did you do this?” I asked him.

“Last week, when you did,” he told me. “You promised me you’d come talk to me first, and I need you to hold true to that promise, just like I’m going to hold true to the promise that I’m going to do it every time you do, Harry, until you stop.” I loved him and hated him for that – did he not realize how much of an addiction it was?

The thing about Louis was, he never lied. He would either tell the truth or make a joke to avoid the subject, but he wouldn’t lie, so I trusted everything he told me. My heart broke – as if I hadn’t caused my boyfriend enough emotional pain, now I was forcing him into physical pain, as well. With that thought, all I wanted was my razor blade. And then I remembered – when he had confronted me about my cuts last week, he had said “your pain is my pain”. Duh, Harry! I thought to myself. How had I completely missed what he meant by that?

“Louis, I am so sorry,” I proclaimed as the guilt overtook me.

“You didn’t hand me the razor, Harry,” he told me.

“No? Where’d you get it from?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“It was one less for you,” he shrugged. “I’m not doing it to hurt myself, I’m doing it to try and help you and to try and be a good boyfriend.”

“You are a good boyfriend without it,” I told him. “You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.” A slow smile crept across Louis’s perfect face.

“I’m the only boyfriend you’ve ever had,” he said, and then we began kissing again.

A couple of days later, we had another meet and greet, just a few minutes from our house. A lot of the girls were tugging on Louis’s hands and touching his chest, making me jealous, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. Then one girl – a very, very cute girl – kissed me on the cheek and whispered something dirty in my ear. I smiled, flattered, and caught Louis’s eye. He had noticed, and just winked at me. That surprised me; I had thought – hoped? – that would have made him jealous. I couldn’t even handle girls looking at him, and he wasn’t bothered in the slightest by ones kissing me? Once again, the award for most carefree person in the world went to Louis Tomlinson. I was beginning to think he didn’t even care about us.

The ride back to the house, all I could think about was how Louis didn’t care. I overanalyzed every little thing he’d ever done – or not done – since we’d been together and was quickly sliding on the downward spiral in my head, as I so often did. By the time the car dropped us off at the house, I had decided Louis didn’t care about our relationship at all. If I had calmed down enough to listen to the rational side of me, I would’ve realized how crazy that was. But I was too upset, and Louis sensed something was up. The second we walked in the door, he looked at me, concerned – which should’ve been enough of a sign to my thick skull that he cared.

“Okay, what’s up?” he asked.

“Do you even care about us at all?!” I exclaimed, forgetting he couldn’t read my mind to know what had been going through it all afternoon. He blinked.

“Yes, I do,” he nodded, not understanding why I was so upset.

“Then why doesn’t it bother you when someone else kisses me and offers to give me a blow job?” Louis let out a snort.

“That’s what she said?” he asked. “I was meaning to ask you.” He still didn’t get that I was actually, truly angry – no, enraged.

“It’s not funny, Louis! I couldn’t even deal with those girls looking at you wrong, and you have no problem when they kiss me! In fact, it’s like you encourage it!”

“Of course I encourage it, it takes the suspicion about Larry away, which is what you wanted, isn’t it? I don’t get what’s bugging you; it’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, so cheating isn’t a big deal?” I demanded.

“You didn’t cheat on me,” Louis was amused, which only made me angrier.

“I might as well have, it’s not like you would’ve cared.”

“You don’t mean that,” now he was serious – finally.

“I don’t know, Louis, because you sure as hell never act like I belong to you.”

“That’s because you don’t, Harry – you’re not an object. I mean, would you want me to treat you like that?”

“Yes, I would, because at least I’d feel wanted!” I couldn’t control the tears from spilling out of my eyes.

“You are impossible sometimes, you know that?!” Louis cried out. “You don’t want to tell the world that we’re together, but you can’t handle it when that’s the response people give us!”

“I can’t tell people about us because everyone would hate us!”

“So? Let them hate us. Who cares?”

“I care, Louis!” I was yelling. “Believe it or not, there are still people in this world who actually care about things, especially their relationships!”

“I don’t get why you think I don’t care all of a sudden! All I’ve done is tell you how much I care, and hopefully shown it to you, too!”

“What are you talking about? You never open up to me, Louis, I never know how you’re feeling!”

“I’m feeling like my own boyfriend can’t admit that he’s with me!”

“I’m sorry! But you don’t know what it’s like!”

“What what’s like? To have a boyfriend? I know how that feels, Harry. You’re the one who doesn’t know how it feels to have your boyfriend constantly deny the relationship just because you’re too scared of what might happen!”

“That’s because you’re never the one in the position to have to deny it! It’s always me people come to about it!” I was hysterical.

“Oh? Is it? Fine,” he said. He pulled out his phone and angrily typed something into it, then showed it to me when he was done. I looked at it – it was open to his Twitter page, where he had posted “Larry is the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard”, right there for his millions of followers to read. “How does that feel?” he yelled. It didn’t feel good, not at all, but of course I couldn’t admit that to him after the huge deal I’d just made. Instead, I turned around and ran up to my room, where I fell down on my bed and cried into my pillow. That was by far the worst fight we had ever had, and this time I wasn’t sure we could fix it. We would never be on the same page with this topic – Louis cared too little and I cared too much, and for some reason we were having a hard time finding the happy middle. Happy anything, really, at least on my end. I laid there for twenty minutes, trying to calm myself down enough to make the urge to cut go away, but I couldn’t. Louis had said he’d always be there, no matter how bad of a fight, so I walked out of my room and down the hall to his. I wasn’t about to go back on my promise now and make the already horrendous fight even worse. He was sitting at his desk, his back to the door of his room, his head bent over as he rubbed his eyes. I tapped lightly on the door, but he didn’t move.

“Lou?” I said, quietly.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he told me, choked up. I almost fell apart right there, but instead, I went back to my room, grabbed one of my hidden razor blades that he hadn’t confiscated, and slammed out the front door to go for a walk. There was a lake not far from our house, so I walked to it, found an empty area – it wasn’t too busy anyway, it was still fairly cold outside – sat down, and began cutting my unscarred hip. I knew I was going deeper than I should, but I was so upset, and I couldn’t stop the tears. At least I knew Louis would never find these cuts – I was sure he’d never touch me again. Hell, I’d be lucky if he even looked at me again.