***Louis Tomlinson***
Friday, July 6th, 2012 – North London, England

“My family never tried to contact me while I was in the hospital,” I said to Harry out of nowhere as I washed the dishes after lunch. I figured he was nice enough to cook for me, and he genuinely wanted to know what was going on with me. I owed him the truth, if for no other reason than to make the kid stop worrying about me so much.

“Oh, Lou,” Harry said, and he walked up behind me and put his hand on my back. “Is that what’s been bugging you?” I nodded.

“I know it’s stupid because I shouldn’t care about them anymore and I have you guys, but it still hurts.” I kept my eyes on the plate I was scrubbing so they wouldn’t have to look into Harry’s understanding ones.

“It’s not stupid,” Harry told me. “And of course you have us, you always will, but I get that it’s different than your own family.” It was nice to hear that he got it – he didn’t need me to explain further, and his feelings weren’t hurt that he couldn’t make up for that loss in my life. Why couldn’t there be more people like Harry around? The world would be a much better place.

“You were right,” I said, changing the subject, still scrubbing the same plate that was clearly clean.

“I know,” Harry teased, kissing my shoulder. “But what are you referring to this time?” I smiled.

“I need to – I need to talk to the cab driver’s wife,” I said, a lump in my throat forming as I spoke the words. I knew Harry would hold me accountable to that, and it made me nervous. My hand shook as I dropped the plate in the sink, and it shattered to pieces, one of them slicing across my finger on my good hand that didn’t have a cast on it. “Damn it,” I cursed. Harry reached around me and took my wrist gently in his hands, running my cut under the water. Then he wrapped my finger in a paper towel, pulled it to his mouth, and kissed it. The generosity of that motion was all I needed. I threw my arms around Harry’s neck and began kissing him. We made it up the stairs and spent the rest of the afternoon making love in his bed.

The next day, I woke up and was surprised to find Harry wasn’t next to me. Just as I was about to get up to see where he’d gone, he came bounding in the room and hopped on the bed, straddling over me on his knees and holding a piece of paper.

“Morning!” he said, happily. I couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I did some detective work,” Harry replied. “I found the name, number, e-mail, and address of the cab driver’s wife.” I blinked. That was the last thing I’d been expecting.

“How – how’d you do that?” I asked, as I took the piece of paper from him.

“The Internet is a very beautiful thing,” he said. I just stared at the piece of paper. Her name was Wrynn, and the name of the man I had killed was Richard. “Lou? You did still want to contact her, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I nodded. “It’s just – how? I mean, do I write her, do I call first, do I just show up on her doorstep?”

“Well, what would be most comfortable for you?”

“Going back in time one month,” I replied. Harry bent down and kissed me on the lips.

“You can do this,” he encouraged me. “I’ll be right by your side the whole time.”

“Promise?” I asked.

“Promise,” he nodded. “I love you, Lou.”

“I love you, too,” I smiled, glad that things seemed to be back to normal with Harry, maybe even better than before our almost break up.

I ate some breakfast and mulled over the options. After weighing my decision with Harry, I decided to e-mail Wrynn. At first it seemed too impersonal, but this way, if she was uncomfortable in any way, she didn’t have to respond, and it would be a lot faster than sending a letter in the mail. A phone call might catch her off guard, and I certainly wasn’t just going to show up at her house unannounced. So after we ate, I pulled out my lap top and began typing an e-mail, with Harry’s guidance. I was shaking when I hit “send”, but it had basically told her who I was and that I would really like to sit down and talk with her; that I could be anywhere if she named a time and place. I knew if I stayed at home after that that I would spend the rest of the day sitting in front of the computer, waiting for her response, so Harry and I called the guys up and the five of us headed to the beach for the afternoon. We didn’t tell the others what was going on; I figured I had put them through enough already with this whole situation that they didn’t need me to continue to drag it on.

We played in the water and the sand and acted like a bunch of five year olds, and I hadn’t laughed that hard in awhile. On the drive home as night fell, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Here I was, having a grand old time, when there was a family out there grieving over the loss of their father and husband. I scolded myself for being so selfish.

Once Harry and I were back at our place alone, I pulled out the laptop. Sure enough, I had an e-mail from Wrynn waiting. My heart lurched when I saw it in my inbox, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Harry took the computer from me and read it first, silently. When he finished, he nodded.

“You should read it,” he said. I trusted his judgment, and then took a deep breath and looked at the e-mail, Harry’s hand on my neck comfortingly. She sounded friendly in her reply, thanking me for writing and saying she was willing to meet up. She said she couldn’t really travel right now because of her kids, but if I could get to Anaheim she would make time. I wrote her back right away to say I could do that, and she responded quickly as well. We set up a coffee date for the following Thursday, and then I went to book a plane ticket. I hadn’t spoken since I read her e-mail, knowing Harry was reading the correspondence from his spot next to me, his hand on my neck the whole time. Finally, I looked at him.

“Do you – do you want to come?” I asked tentatively, hoping with all of me that he would say yes.

“Do you want me to?” he asked.

“Only if you do,” I shrugged, hoping he could see in my eyes how badly I wanted him to want to.

“I told you I’d be right by your side, Lou,” he reminded me. “Whatever you need.” I thanked him with a kiss, and then we booked a flight out for Wednesday and back home Friday. I wanted to spend as little time in Anaheim as possible. Going to Disneyworld in Orlando had satisfied my Disney bug, and although I knew it was silly I associated the city of Anaheim with negativity, what with the almost break up and the car accident. It wasn’t the city’s fault, but I couldn’t help it. If I could avoid ever having to go there again, I would, but this was necessary…I hoped.

I shut the computer and took a deep breath, glad I still had a few days to prepare what I was going to say. What could I even say to Wrynn?

“Lou,” Harry said, and I realized he’d been trying to read my face. “You’re doing the right thing. If it was going to go poorly, she wouldn’t have responded or invited you out. Don’t stress over it.” I nodded – he had a point.