***Louis Tomlinson***
Saturday, April 21st, 2012 – Auckland, New Zealand

We were at our second to last show for the Oceania leg of our tour. We had one more show in New Zealand the following night, and then we’d be going back home for a month before starting the North American leg. We had only been gone two weeks, but it had been hard for Harry and I to have alone time so I was looking forward to being home with him. We hadn’t even had a chance to sleep in the same room, since we’d spent most of our sleeping time on our plane.

We had told management at the beginning of the tour that Harry and I were in a relationship. They had seen the stuff about Larry Stylinson – it had gotten huge and was all over the internet – so they weren’t surprised. They did, however, tell us to keep it on the down low in public; to even tone down how we’d acted towards each other before we were dating, which was hard, but we were both trying. The worst part was during the shows though – all I wanted to do was grab my boyfriend and tackle him on stage. Watching Harry Styles sing was a major turn on, and I had a feeling the majority of our fans felt the same way.

The first few days of this leg had been really, really trying on me, to say the least. I was so broken over what my own mother had done that I could hardly pay attention to anything else. Luckily for me, I had the four best friends anyone could ask for, and they were great and helped pull me through. I was still hurting, but I knew I could get through anything as long as I had the guys supporting me – especially Harry. I was even starting to open up a little bit more; this being too big of an issue for me to keep bottled inside, knowing it would affect my performances and in turn let the fans down. Instead, I did something I had sworn I never would do, at least not for the reasons I did it this time: I took the razor blade to my hip, only I wasn’t doing it because of Harry, I was doing it because it had started to make sense to me – somehow, it eased the pain.

We were on stage in Auckland, performing our hearts out like we always did, three more songs to go in the set before we’d go off stage, then come back for the encore. As we danced and paraded around, I saw Harry step funny on his ankle, then catch himself before he fell. He made it look like he had done it on purpose, and he made his way over to the couch that we had as a prop on stage. The other guys and I had all seen what had happened, so we went and joined him on the couch so that it wouldn’t look weird, where we kept singing. I could tell just from his voice that he was in pain, but I knew he would never leave in the middle of a show, no matter what. We made the last few songs work, only one or two of us up and walking around at a time, and then the lights went down and we got up to walk off stage. Harry couldn’t even stand, so Zayn and I put our arms around him and helped him hop off. One of the managers was waiting for us, probably having seen what had happened.

“Are you okay, Harry?” he asked.

“I think I broke my ankle,” Harry replied, through gritted teeth. My heart sank.

“Okay, let’s get you to the hospital,” the manager replied.

“What about the encore?” Harry asked.

“We got it, Mate,” I told Harry. “You need to go.” He looked at me, then finally nodded, giving in. Someone from the venue brought a wheelchair over and wheeled Harry out the back entrance. I watched after him, my heart breaking for my boyfriend.

“He’ll be okay,” Zayn said, slapping me on the back.

“Yeah, we’ll go see him after we’re done, okay?” Liam promised me. I nodded, then we got back on stage for the encore. I didn’t even go to the dressing room when we were done, I just found one of the drivers and asked him to take me to the hospital. Liam, Zayn, and Niall all caught up with me, not having changed clothes either, and we headed to the hospital.

I hopped out of the car before it even came to a complete stop and ran inside to the front desk, the guys right behind me. The nurse directed us to a private waiting room so we wouldn’t be bothered, and we went and sat down, waiting for a doctor. I sat ringing my hands and bouncing my leg for awhile, then stood up and began pacing.

“Lou,” Zayn said, walking over to me and putting his hand on my chest to hold me still. “It’s just his ankle,” he reminded me. I sighed – he was right. It wasn’t like Harry was dying. I nodded, then sat back down. A few of the managers showed up, and finally a doctor came and told us Harry had just sprained his ankle – there was no break. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, then darted back to Harry’s room, once again the guys following behind me. He was sitting up on the hospital bed, a pair of crutches resting next to him, an ace bandage wrapped around his ankle. His face was sullen.

“Harry,” I walked over to him and hugged him. “You okay?”

“How you feeling?” Liam asked.

“I let the fans down,” Harry muttered, staring at the floor. “And I let you guys down. I blew it, I’m sorry.”

“Harry, it wasn’t your fault,” I told him, having expected this reaction.

“Yeah, you didn’t do it on purpose,” Niall chimed in.

“I’m pretty sure no one even noticed,” Liam said.

“Yeah, man, it’s fine, no one’s mad at you,” I told Harry, putting my arm around him and leaning against the bed next to him.

“I am,” he muttered. “I’ve ruined the rest of the tour!”

“It’s just your ankle,” Zayn said again. “You can still sing, right?” Harry shrugged and nodded.

“And chances are it will be almost completely healed in time for the North American tour,” Liam offered.

“What about tomorrow night?” was Harry’s response.

“We’ll rework some of the moves,” Zayn said.

“We’ll all step up and cover for your dancing,” I added. “We’ll make an announcement that you hurt your ankle before the show starts so they all understand.”

“They’re going to hate me,” he said.

“They’re not,” I stressed. “I don’t think there’s anything you could do to make our fans hate you.”

“Except suck,” Harry muttered.

“Alright, I hate to break this up,” Liam said, “but we need to head back so we can fly to Wellington tonight.” He was right – it was too far to drive to, and we had planned on flying overnight so we had all of tomorrow to rehearse.

“Did the hospital clear you to leave?” Zayn asked Harry, who nodded.

“Alright, come on,” I said, and helped him off the bed. I handed him his crutches, and we all stood around him while he adjusted to them to make sure he didn’t fall. We walked alongside him as he hobbled out to the van waiting for us to take us to the airport.

Once we were settled in the air on our charter plane for the short flight, Harry laid down in my lap on the long couch as I sat up, watching television on the wall across from us. Niall brought him a couple pillows to prop his ankle up on, and I stroked his hair as the other guys went to the back of the plane. I was exhausted, but I had a broken boyfriend to take care of. We sat like that in silence for awhile, just watching TV, Harry not having smiled once since he got off stage. At one point, I felt him take a shaky breath, and I looked down at him.

“Louis,” he said, desperation in his voice. He swallowed hard.

“What is it, Love?” I asked.

“I really want my razor right now,” he admitted.

“Oh, Harry,” I sighed, then leaned over him and wrapped my arms around him. “It won’t help,” I told him when I gathered my thoughts and sat back up, looking down into his eyes. “Okay? It’s not going to change the fact that your ankle is sprained, and it’s not going to help it to heal faster, either.”

“It’ll make me feel better,” he said, quietly.

“I know, I know it does, Harry, but it’s not the answer.” He looked at me, questioning.

“I thought you said it hadn’t become a problem for you?” he said, reading into the fact that I could understand how it helped. A month ago, I would’ve asked him to explain why it would make him feel better.

“It hadn’t,” I sighed, and I knew he had caught me. I wanted so badly to lie my out of this, but I couldn’t, not to Harry. “I mean, it hadn’t when I told you that.” Harry readjusted his position so he was sitting up on his knees, facing me.

“Is it a problem now?” he asked, concerned.

“Harry, I – ” I didn’t want to have this conversation. Harry needed me right now, not the other way around. “We’re talking about you right now.”

“I think we’ve moved past that. When did it start getting bad for you?” His eyes were looking so deeply into mine with such intensity I wanted to melt.

“After my mom came over,” I muttered. Harry closed his eyes lightly for a minute. When he opened them again, they were shining with tears.

Notes

This chapter jumps ahead a bit from last chapter.

Thanks for reading everyone it means a lot!