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because I‟m expecting anything from you, or because I want you to feel

like you owe me, or anything like that.” He uncrosses his arms and

grips Louis by the shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. “Everything

I‟ve done—everything we‟ve all done—is because you‟re important to

us and we want to help you, all right? So let me help you with this.

Please.”

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Louis stares some more, speechless, before he finally relents, rubbing

the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Ugh, I don‟t know what I did to

deserve you.”

“Terrible things, probably. Now let‟s see that script.” Harry pulls the

binder out of Louis‟ hands.

Louis lets go, but slightly unwillingly. There‟s no way this will work.

The universe is not that kind. “I‟m going to have to explain a lot of it to

you. I‟ve seen her notes, they don‟t make much sense unless you know

what she‟s talking about.”

“Okay, then. Crash course. Teach me, Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry grins.

Shuddering, Louis smacks him upside the head. “Ew, don‟t, that‟s

weird. Come on, freak.”

They sit outside on a bench, and Louis runs him through everything,

start to finish. He‟s right, Ellie‟s notes are cramped and half in

shorthand, but Harry is right, too. He knows the show almost as well as

Louis does by now, and he picks almost everything up right away. He‟s

checking his phone an awful lot, which annoys Louis a little, but he‟s

still focused on Louis‟ explanations. They spend an hour like that,

Louis eventually taking the binder away and quizzing Harry on the

different cues. He‟s not perfect, but he‟s better than anyone else Louis

is going to find on short notice.

Finally, Harry takes the binder back, and shoos Louis back into the

building. “I‟ll stay here and study more,” he says, “You go do what you

need to do. Don‟t worry about me.”

Louis doesn‟t believe in a higher power, but as he walks back through

the double doors he can‟t help but send out a dizzy thank you thank you

thank you to whoever might be listening in on his thoughts.

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A whirlwind two hours later and the audience is filtering in, including

Liam, who‟s sitting up front with Zayn. Louis does his final check on

everything backstage, giving every cast and crew member within arm‟s

reach a hug and yelling out “Break a leg!” willy-nilly. When he‟s

finished giving a final pep talk to his glorious, beautiful Sandy, he turns

to go find Harry. Literally, he turns, because Harry is right behind him,

and Louis kind of wants to cry.

“Everything‟s going to—” Harry starts, but Louis cuts him off.

“It‟s going to be fine,” he says, smiling a little at the way Harry‟s eyes

widen. “The kids are gonna do great. You‟re going to do great. You‟ve

got this.” He pauses a moment, but fuck it. “I trust you.”

Harry has a look of wonder on his face, and a little bit of terror, Louis

thinks, but who cares? Considering what he‟s going to tell him tonight,

this is barely scary at all. How liberating. He flashes Harry a grin and

then beats a retreat to the sound booth. Niall gives him a double

thumbs-up, the lights go down, and the curtain goes up. Showtime.

It‟s perfect.

The songs are perfect, the acting is perfect, the show is fucking perfect.

Louis can see the joy on his cast‟s faces during “We Go Together,” and

he doesn‟t cry, but it‟s a near thing. He‟s whooping and whistling along

with the parents when the curtain finally falls, hugging Niall fiercely

and practically running down the aisle to join his kids onstage. He sees

Liam and Zayn applauding in the audience, sees Zayn toss a rose

onstage with a goofy grin before everyone runs back behind the curtain.

Everything is a rush of lights and smiles and tears backstage, people

embracing and crying and smearing makeup everywhere in their

happiness. It‟s a mess and he loves it. This is why he does this. God, he

would go through a month of tech weeks for this moment. A year.

Suddenly Harry breaks through the chaos, waving and laughing and

Harry, and it‟s all Louis can do not to grab him right there and snog the

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living daylights out of him in front of God and everybody. They‟re just

smiling at each other in the middle of the crowd like a couple of idiots,

and then Harry opens his mouth and Louis is expecting him to shout

some kind of congratulations over the din or—

“I got an internship!”

Louis stares at him, smile frozen on his face. “What?”

“Remember that internship I told you about? The one in London?”

Harry yells back. “I applied for it and they emailed me during the show

and I checked my phone after the curtain call and I got it!”

For a moment, in the middle of all the noise and the crowd, everything

just. Stops.

“That‟s amazing,” Louis hears himself say, numbly accepting Harry‟s

hug. “That‟s so amazing.”

“I‟ve got to go phone mum,” Harry says when he pulls back. He looks

like his smile is going to split his face in half. “I‟ll meet you at the

party, okay? Lots to celebrate.”

He plants a rough kiss on the top of Louis‟ head, and then he‟s gone.

Louis stands there. The world keeps moving.

An internship. Harry got an internship.

He can remember it now, that first week in September, Harry perched

on the edge of a desk and talking about some internship in London that

starts in July. He never put too fine a point on it, and Louis just left that

detail where it fell, excluding it from his personal canon of their

relationship. Their relationship. He feels ill.

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And, well. That‟s it, isn‟t it? That‟s the end to their story written, then.

He knew this would happen. He knew all along that Harry was young,

that he was still at that point in his life where everything is in flux. It

was always right there, right in Harry‟s mattress on the floor and his

blind fucking idealism. Louis knew this. He knew this and he let

himself forget it.

He feels himself moving through the crowd now, feels people slapping

him on the back and squeezing his shoulders, can hear people shouting

and laughing and congratulating each other, but it‟s all muffled and far

away. Everything feels so far separated from the ringing in his ears and

the dizzy nausea in his stomach, and all he keeps thinking is that he was

going to tell him.

He was going to tell Harry—God knows what, it hardly matters now—

and, Jesus, how did he ever let things get that bad? What the fuck

happened to him? How did he ever let his guard down that far, that he

almost did something so stupid and irreversible and utterly fucking

pointless, while Harry sent off applications he didn‟t seem to think

Louis had any need to know about for jobs halfway across the country?

The image jumps uninvited in front of his eyes, Harry filling out

paperwork and mailing it off, dreaming of making it big somewhere

bright and exciting, making copies of his portfolio that Louis could

never appreciate because he was just a fucking washed-up drama

teacher, a thousand younger, more beautiful faces of a thousand

younger, more interesting people that Louis could never compete with,

all of them waiting for Harry. He remembers, suddenly, a snippet of the

phone conversation from the other night, fingers crossed, yeah?, and

Harry frowning at his phone this morning and again this afternoon,

silently checking on plans Louis wasn‟t privy to, and fuck, that

realization stings. Harry never even told him he was applying.

And why would he? What relevance could Louis possibly have to that

life?

Louis makes it through the rest of post-show pandemonium in a haze.

He‟s lucky he‟s done this so many times that he doesn‟t really have to

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focus to get all the costumes returned and packed up to ship back to the

rental company. He‟ll strike the set later. It can wait.

The kids are throwing a cast party in the orchestra room, and he knows

he should go. He knows Harry will be there waiting for him, flushed

with adrenaline and victory, pulling everyone into his orbit. And Louis

can‟t do it. He can‟t face it. He can‟t walk in there and see Harry

ecstatic and gorgeous in a shirt that Louis slept in last night and deal

with the fact that he‟s only temporary. He can‟t look him in the face

and pretend that he‟s happy for him. And, God, he hates himself.

He gets in his car instead. He sneaks out the back way and crosses the

car park alone for the first time in a week, and he gets in his car,

because that‟s all he knows how to do. He gets in his car and he drives

home with the radio off and he doesn‟t look at the place where Harry‟s

fingerprints are still on the window.

There‟s a bouquet of flowers waiting for him on his kitchen table when

he comes through the door and he doesn‟t even look at the card, just

dumps them straight in the bin and hates himself, hates himself for

feeling like this, hates himself for letting things get so far out of hand,

hates himself because he knows he‟s not enough reason for Harry to

stay.

He texts Harry, sry i think i‟ve got whatever ellie does, ill, don‟t come

over, and then he turns off his phone and climbs into bed and doesn‟t,

doesn‟t, does not fucking cry.

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Louis wakes up at one o‟clock in the afternoon the next day with an

empty bed, seven missed calls, and eleven text messages. He switches

his phone back off and takes a shower and tries not to notice how much

everything in his entire bloody flat smells like Harry fucking Styles.

As soon as he‟s dressed, he takes the spare key out from under the mat

and shoves it back in the kitchen drawer.

It‟s Sunday, the first day of Easter hols, and all Louis can think is that

he‟s got two weeks ahead of him with nothing to do and nowhere to

hide until third term starts.

He thinks back to last night, around the big Harry-shaped part of it to

everything else. He remembers Zayn and Liam in the front row of the

audience, Liam beaming at the show and Zayn beaming at Liam, and

he imagines that at least half of his texts are from Zayn going on and on

about how he can tell that things with Liam are almost there, and Louis

can‟t handle that today. He remembers Niall catching his eye

somewhere in the middle of costume roundup and he remembers the

look on his face, careful and sympathetic and uncertain, and he knows

Niall must know about the internship and so Zayn probably knows too

and they‟re probably both worrying about him on top of everything

else, and he really can‟t handle that.

It‟s simple, then. He‟s got to get hell out of Manchester.

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He stuffs a bag with clothes from the back of his closet and the bottom

of his wardrobe, whichever ones Harry hasn‟t touched, and his

toothbrush and an extra pair of shoes and calls his mum from the car,