Louis sucks in his cheeks, silent for a beat too long. “I have a secret, too.”
“Are you gonna share it?” Harry repeats.
He ignores him, just looks down and keeps going. “After we split, I had no rush to move back here. It felt kind of stupid to. I missed my family and friends and… Too much of an open wound to come back, you know?”
Harry nods. He knows.
“So,” Louis continues, “you can imagine how surprised I was when the head of the branch asked who’d be interested in transferring to the Seattle office and I heard myself volunteer.”
Harry furrows his brows. “Why did you?”
“I really don’t know. I wanted to take it back but I couldn’t get the words to come out.” He shrugs. “Mom’s happy, at least.”
“Are you, though?”
He chews on his bottom lip. “I am, actually, yeah. I miss some things about London but I missed some things about Seattle more. Didn’t realize it until I was back here. Or maybe my subconscious knew, I dunno.”
Harry hums in response, thinks about that, picks at the scraps on his plate. “Can I say something?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
“Ass.” He shrugs. “Breakups are… weird.”
Louis stares blankly. “I guess it depends on your definition of the word ‘weird.’”
“You were, like.” Harry waves his hand around, surging on a moment of courage. “The biggest part of my life and then you were totally gone and I just fucking hated that. Christ, I was such a baby but I didn’t know how to handle it, Louis. I didn’t.”
He looks embarrassed, his cheeks pink. “I kinda fell off the face of the Earth for a bit, didn’t I.” He doesn’t acknowledge Harry’s subtle apology, but the way he’s twisting his hands together makes it clear he, too, feels like shit about the end of their relationship, both of them holding equal parts of the blame.
“More like…” Harry pauses. “Avoided any type of human contact by any means possible.”
The look changes from embarrassment to shame. “I had to cut you out entirely. Otherwise I’d never be over the boy halfway across the world from me.”
It’s more candid that Louis tends to be, Harry wants to say something, anything, but nothing seems adequate enough. He clears his throat, then clears it again. His chest feels tight. He and Louis lock eyes, silent, and neither of them look away until someone behind the counter drops a plate, everything shattering.
#i woke up to 16 texts from J this morning asking for this to be finished#that’s the pot calling the kettle black dont you think
u ain’t asking me to finish a fic tho so no i dont think it’s the pot calling the kettle black