Closer

"Laurel?" Louis called out into the dark house. He hadn't told her he was coming home early, so he thought he could surprise her. They hadn’t seen each other for almost two months. It never occurred to him that she might not be home. It was nearing 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. She was always home on Sunday nights.

"Lo?" He called again, this time more urgently. Louis grew really alarmed when he noticed that her shoes were no longer stacked by the front door. He could never get her to move them, and he always tripped over them on the way in. But not today. The area by the threshold was completely clear.

He moved through the house slowly, looking in every room. The little voice in his head kept telling him he wasn’t going to find her, but he looked anyway. Not finding anything on the bottom floor, he started up the stairs. The steps creaked as he crept up slowly. He wasn’t ready to face this reality. The hallway was dark like the rest of the house.

Ignoring all the other doors on the way he headed to the master bedroom. Perhaps she was asleep and didn't hear him. The door was closed. She never slept with the door closed. With a frantic breath he pushed into the bedroom. There was no light in the room save for the sliver of moonlight that slipped through the drapes covering the windows.

The bed was perfectly made up. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in days. The room was cleaner than usual too. Her clothes were not thrown over ever surface like they usually are. He couldn’t make out the smell of her perfume either. All that was in the room was silence. And a cold, cruel draft that made his whole body tremble.

Slowly he made his way over to their walk in closet. It was her favorite part of the house. The door fell open when he turned the knob. With shaking fingers, he flipped the light on. The weight of what he found in the small space took away his ability to stand. The rapid pace of his beating heart made him dizzy. Before he could form coherent thoughts, he fell to his knees.

Her side was empty. Every shelf was bare. Every drawer was cleared out and was left open. Abandoned hangers clanked together softly, filling the room with a faint metallic chime. She was gone.

After a couple moments in which he knelt dumfounded, he jumped to his feet. He had to call her. If he called her she might answer. Louis flew down the stairs, back to the entryway where he had left his phone. That's when he saw it. It caught his attention thanks to his peripheral vision. It was sitting on the coffee table in the living room off the hallway on the way to the front door.

A manila envelope. Before he knew what was happening he was holding it in his hands. He stared down at a post it note that was stuck on top.

Lou-
I'm so sorry.

It was in her handwriting. Her elegant script filled his vision, making his heart break even more. His unsteady fingers opened the top. He grabbed the stack of papers that was inside and pulled them out slowly. He didn’t know why this what happening to him, to them. In his hands he found something he thought he'd never have to see.

It was a petition for divorce. His wife, his beautiful, perfect wife of two years was leaving him. His world felt like it was spinning out of control. Everything was going wrong and he couldn’t stop it. He just had to stand by as he watched everything he ever wanted slip away.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!" He said over and over, his pained voice filling the now empty house, causing violent echoes to bounce of every surface. He grabbed his cell phone from his things. His thumb hovered over her contact for a few very long moments. Deciding against it for the time being, he tapped at different contact.

"Lou?" Harry's deep voice answered, sounding confused. They had just seen each other a half an hour ago. Harry couldn’t think of a good reason that Lou would have to call him after they had just spent 2 months with each other.

"Harry!" Louis shouted frantically into the phone. "Laurel, she's gone and there's papers and the bedroom door was closed and her shoes aren’t here anymore and I cant breath. Oh god, Harry, I'm going absolutely mental and I don’t even know what to do."

Harry couldn’t understand most of what Louis was saying, he was sobbing so violently the words go trapped in his throat. All he heard was "Laurel" and "gone." that was enough to get the message.

“Hang on, Louis. I’ll be there soon.” Harry said quickly, rushing out of his flat to go to Lou’s. On the way, he called the other guys as well. They were his best friends in the whole world, they would help. Since she wasn’t going to comfort him, he thought the rest of the band might.

The boys were just as shocked as Harry. They all dropped everything they were doing to rush to his house. Louis really needed some emotional support. He was a very strong person, but when something set him off he was inconsolable. He always did brash things when he got upset.

What worried them the most is that he would start drinking again. Things never ended well when Louis turned to drinking. It always spiraled out of control.

Harry reached the house in record time, flying out of the car to the front door. He assumed it would be unlocked so he just went right in. “Louis?” He called out. The house was dark, and paired with the nighttime outside; Harry couldn’t see anything in the house.

Harry flipped the light switches on that were situated near the door. He heard a sniffle from the kitchen. Deciding that was a good bet, Harry went towards the kitchen area. Like the rest of the house, the room was dark. When Harry was able to locate the light switch, he was pained at what he found.

Louis was on the ground, leaning against the stove. His knees were pulled up to his chest and he had a vacant expression on his face. In one hand he held a bottle of vodka, and in the other was a small collection of white paper, which was now crumpled.

Harry pulled the papers out of Louis grasp and read them over. “Jesus, mate.” Laurel was divorcing him. She had the papers all drawn up and everything.

Harry was saddened to see how quickly Louis fell apart. Only Laurel could do something like that to him. She had a kind of power over him that no one could explain. Harry always assumed that it would keep them together forever, not be the end of Louis.

“I just don’t get it. She said she loved me. She said-“ He interrupted himself by taking another swig of his alcohol. “Have you ever felt like you want to die? Because that’s how I feel right now.”

Louis was pretty wasted already. This is what had worried Harry. Louis wouldn’t be able to deal and he’d try to bury it with something else. This happened when he broke up with his first serious girlfriend, Eleanor. It happened when his grandfather died, and now he was doing it when his wife left him.

“Hand that to me.” Harry pointed to the bottle and held hand out. Louis looked confused but gave into Harry easily. “We aren’t doing this again, Lou.” Harry told his best friend sternly. He then dumped the alcohol onto the sink, letting it fall into the drain.

“Fuck you, Harry!” Louis whined, then ran his fingers through his messy hair. Harry ignored him as he started to walk through the entire bottom floor, in search of all the alcohol he had. He was busy emptying the liquor cabinet in the living room when the other boys arrived.

“Where is he?” Liam asked as he walked thought the house, not really stopping to receive and answer.

“Kitchen.” Harry called to his back. Liam disappeared into the kitchen. He was always a good person to talk to in crisis. Liam was the most level headed of them all.

“Has he started drinking already?” Niall asked disbelievingly as Harry pulled the bottles out of the bar area. He was stacking them carefully in a box that he intended to throw away when he left the house.

“Yeah. This is going to destroy him. I don’t know if we can keep him under control this time. Remember how bad it got with Eleanor? It was nearly the end of him. This is so much bigger than her.” Harry said, his voice heavy with concern.

Zayn sighed and started helping Harry stack the bottles. “I didn’t see this coming at all. She was so in love with him.”

“Me neither. I thought everything was fine.” Niall sighed, tugging on the hem of his shirt.

“I think there’s something Louis isn’t telling us. There’s no way a things just ended. Not with them. Something happened.” Harry said through clenched teeth. He knew Laurel. There was no way she could just leave him.

Everyone thought that Louis and Laurel were invincible. It seems they were all wrong, and no one knew why.