***Harry Styles***
Friday, July 20th, 2012 – North London, England

I woke up on Friday morning with a massive headache from having cried my eyes out the night before. I hadn’t meant for Louis to hear, but sometimes I got too wrapped up in my emotions that I didn’t even realize how loud I was crying. The second he came in my room and touched me, though, I couldn’t fight the temptation any longer. I was done pushing him away just to punish him. I needed him, I needed his touch, so I squeezed his hand on my hip and then he enveloped me in his arms. I almost couldn’t handle it when he began stroking my hair like old times; I truly thought I was going to throw up or die so instead I just clutched onto him tighter than I ever had in my life. When Louis asked me if him holding me was making it worse, I almost wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t remember how. I wanted to scream at him, “Of course you’re making it worse!” but I couldn’t find my voice. So instead I just shook my head, because I knew if I nodded, he would leave, and then each bone in my body would fall off one by one until I was a complete mess of more nothingness than I already was. However, when I woke up in the morning and looked over, I was pleasantly surprised to see Louis still there, in the same exact position he had been in when I had fallen asleep, his eyes open and tired. I blinked.

“Did you get any sleep?” I asked him.

“A little,” he shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Lou,” I frowned.

“It’s fine,” he replied, brushing it off before his voice turned concerned. “You feeling okay?”

“My head hurts,” I replied, fully aware that this was our most normal conversation in almost a week. Louis just nodded, but made no effort to move, and I wasn’t about to be the first to leave this position, either.

“Harry,” Louis said.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to move out,” his voice was strained, like it caused him pain to say that. I looked at him, and once again I spoke before I thought.

“Good, because I really don’t want to,” I said, letting my guard down. It was Louis, after all. I had forgotten that. He was still my best friend, boyfriend or not.

“I just, I really still want us to be best friends,” Louis continued in his strained voice, and I knew how hard it was for him to open up like that, especially since he was already hurting. I also hated how he could still read my mind.

“I never thought we weren’t,” I told him, and my voice broke on the last word. Now tell me you want to get back together, I thought. Naturally he picked that moment to stop reading my mind.

“Good, because, I haven’t eaten breakfast in almost a week,” Louis said as though it were the most serious topic ever. I wanted to slap him for joking right then. I wanted to take his shoulders and shake him and scream at him and ask him how he could just stop loving me so quickly, but I was relieved to hear him joking again, so I smiled and shook my head in fake disgust. I still didn’t want to move, though, because that meant leaving his arms, and I didn’t know if there would ever be another chance for me to be in them again.