Reunion

Louis was the last one to wake up, his hands reaching for the mostly empty bottle of vodka that sat on the table beside him. His body was thirsty for the liquid inside and he tilted the clear bottle back as he lay in bed and let the last bit of it make it’s way down his very scratchy throat. The room felt warm and stuffy as a sheen of sweat covered his body but it could have just been his own body trying to expel the alcohol in any way it possibly could.

“What the fuck am I doing here,” he asked himself out loud as he remained still in the bed. What had made him think that he needed to rehash all of the shit they had been through so that he could walk out squeaky clean on the other side of it. He had already tried that with Liam and it had only pushed him farther into the hole. This could hardly be different.

He took a quick look at his phone and saw that his agent had called him several times already that morning. He groaned at the thought of speaking to Philip. He had been his agent since Louis had started the modelling thing full time and had done his share of keeping him out of scrapes. He seemed to have a soft spot for the former pop star. But he had been starting to push at Louis about the fact that he was showing up late to photo shoots and not necessarily sober. Louis had used the excuse of Liam’s illness but Philip had been with him too long to believe him. He had remained silent during it, smoothed the ruffled feathers that followed Louis wherever he went, but he had put up with his fill. And now that the shield of caring for his dying friend was gone, he was on to a full frontal assault. Louis hadn’t told him where he had gone off to so the phone was the only way he had of attempting to reach him.

Louis was going to skip the lecture that Philip had very nicely saved on his phone but decided to get it over with. He punched in his code and put the phone to his ear as he braced himself for it. He skipped to the last one since he knew it would be a recap of the previous four he had missed.

“Hey Louis, Mr Superstar that decided that he doesn’t need a to call his manager back for three fucking weeks!” Philip sounded furious and there was a tinge of Simon Cowell near the end of the band coming through. “Look, I know you are going through a shit time and I can appreciate that. If you were actually taking care of business before that than I could probably even feel sorry for you. But since that wasn’t the case, I am officially done. I am firing myself as your manager. And getting one hell of a weight off of my shoulder.”

And with that he had hung up. Louis probably should have called him and told him he was sorry and that he would fix everything once he was done with this reunion shit. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t because he knew that all of the promises he would find himself making would be broken one by one until they were in the same situation again. That’s what Louis did now. He used people who wanted to help him until they had enough and then moved on when they quit on him.

After a few more moments of stillness, he felt his body begin to crave the sweet liquid again. He forced himself to up and swung himself out of the bed. He slid on the same jeans and wrinkled t-shirt he had worn the night before. He ignored the smell of alcohol and sweat that had sunk itself into them before heading slowly down the stairs and down towards his history.

The scene that met him was one that was still imprinted on his mind. Harry, Zayn and Niall were all flopped on the large couches and screaming at the large television as they played some version of the game of soccer. They were smiling and laughing and he itched desperately to be a part of if. But he wouldn’t sink to it. He was here to put his time in for Liam and then get back to his life.

“Hey lads,” he said as he walked down the stairs and towards the kitchen. He eagerly opened the door and pulled out a bottle of beer, cracking it open and tossing the cap before tipping it back and letting the liquid into his mouth. It burned a little as it went down but that didn’t stop him. “Who’s winning?”

Niall scowled at him as he took his second sip and pushed himself off of the couch to come towards him in the kitchen. When he reached Louis, he grabbed the bottle from him and set it down on the counter.

“Do you think you could be aware of someone else for a moment.” He cocked his eyebrows towards the living room where Zayn was currently getting horribly beaten by Harry. “At least wait until after noon before bloody well cracking one open in front of the alcoholic.”

Louis shrugged and took the bottle back. “He’s the one who can’t control himself when the good stuff comes out, not me. And as for the time thing I believe the saying is it’s five o’clock somewhere.” He then tipped the bottle towards Niall before leaving the kitchen and joining the other two in the family room. “So what’s the plan for today? If it involves me continuing my pummelling of Harry in the current game than I am all for it.”

“Niall suggested that we head out for a walk on the beach. We were just waiting for you to drag your lazy ass out of bed.” Harry smirked at him as he scored another goal on Zayn. “And as for the pummelling, I have been practising and I think you will find I am more than ready for that challenge.”

“A walk on the beach? Sounds a little bit like one of our old videos doesn’t it?”

Zayn slid his first glance towards him since he had come down. His eyes seemed to register the beer but he didn’t say anything about it. “It might but I for one would like to get some fresh air and a walk sounds like a perfect way. And since I don’t have a prayer of making a comeback here, I say we get going.”

“I will gladly take your surrender and chalk it up to my superiority in this game.” Harry threw his controller on to the couch beside him and stood up, stretching the contracted muscles in his body. “How about we head out in fifteen minutes.”

Everyone nodded assent and started to get themselves ready. In reality, it only involved throwing on some trainers, grabbing a pack of cigarettes for some of them and heading out the door but for each of them it involved so much more. It involved going back to a time when they were all fighting and being upset with each other. As much as they wanted to get even further back to when they were the best of friends taking on the world, dynamics could be hard to change.

But eventually they were all ready and leaving the house. Niall guided them down the path that led from the house to the beach in a single filed line. Louis and Harry both puffed on cigarettes they had lit the minute that they had stepped outside but Niall had never started and Zayn had quit, another promise he had made to Liam. They walked silently as they reached the rocky beach. They were each buried in their own thoughts and fears and so no one was able to break the first sound through the silence. Instead, they continued meandering down the beach in quiet. Random rocks were picked up and skipped across the flat water while they made their way further from the house. They did break into the already forming natural pairs of Harry and Louis in one and Zayn and Niall in the other.

Niall and Zayn were walking farther ahead when Louis grabbed a spot on a rock and sat himself down, taking the last drag of his cigarette before tossing aside and cracking the beer he had brought with him in his pocket.

“Two before noon? Maybe Niall should have been a bit concerned.”

Louis shrugged as he took the first sip. The first bottle had calmed his nerves, the second one would make his happy side return. “Niall needs to mind his own business and Zayn needs to do the same with his own issues. I’m surprised you didn’t grab one for the road.”

Harry waved his hand at him. “Nah, that stuff don’t sit as nice with me as it used to. That and I don’t think that I can stand the glare of the angry Irishman. I will however take a light.” Louis handed him his lighter after lighting his own. Harry took it and settled on his own rock and looked down the beach at where Niall and Zayn were having their own private conversation.

“So how are things between you and Carrie, really and for true?”

Harry whipped his head back to Louis. The state of his marriage was an uncomfortable topic for him. His absolute failure in the serious commitment department was something that he was very aware of. And he was also aware that he had hurt many people because of it. He had never cheated on any of the girls that he had been in relationships with but the emotional distance he put between himself and them was even more painful many times.

“We’re okay. She’s just pissed because I’ve been on tour so long and then I had to change our vacation plans to go and hang out with you schleps. But I’ll just throw her some Harry magic when I meet up with her.”

“Why do I get the feeling that there is more to it than that? I heard through the grapevine that she showed up in Santiago unexpectedly.”

“Shit,” Harry said as he pulled back a drag. “How did that story get around? I didn’t tell anybody about it.” And if it was getting around he knew that Carrie would be even more pissed and definitely embarrassed.

“Robby’s friends with one of the guys I hang out with. He let it slip when they were drinking one night when you guys came back to London.” He saw the look on Harry’s face and put up his hands. “Don’t worry man. I told the guy to shut up about it and Robby didn’t let him know anything more than she showed up early and didn’t stay long. So again I ask, how are things with you and Carrie?”

Harry let his shoulders slump as he exhaled. Maybe it would feel good to let someone in on the train wreck that was his marriage. “Things are right twisted mate. I mean, I should have been happy as fuck to have my bird fly thousands of miles to see me. Instead, I made her feel like shit because I didn’t make the time for her. And when I promise her that we will actually get to spend some time together, I bail on her for a couple weeks by the sea with some guys that I haven’t spoken to in years. Barring you of course.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Louis asked like he was generally concerned as he leaned forward and actually put the bottle of beer down. “I mean, shouldn’t you be telling Niall to sod off and go and see your wife. I’m hardly one to talk about marital bliss but something tells me it’s the right thing to do after you promise to love someone for the rest of your life.”

“I’ve made that promise before mate and you’ve seen how good I am at keeping it. Maybe I should just give in and end both of our miseries.” Harry had thought about it a lot since that night in Santiago. Carrie deserved so much more than he could give her. She deserved a bloke who actually told her that he loved her when she showed up to see him, that let her know that he missed her laugh and smile when she wasn’t beside him, that her concern had actually scared him because he refused to let himself need someone that way again. “I’ll probably just tell her to file for divorce when I see her at the end of this. She can go off and find a proper guy and I can go and fuck all the girls I want until my dick falls off. She gets what she wants and I get what I deserve.”

Louis seemed to sober for a moment, the words coming from Harry shocking him in some way. He and Harry had always shared the good times and little of the bad. He had known before he had heard the story of Santiago that the marriage was going the same way as the others but he had hoped he was wrong. The one time he had seen Carrie with Harry, the two had seemed to just fit. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he had placed his hope for a partner to be standing beside him in the two of them.

“Harry, have you actually given it a proper try with her?” Harry was about to respond when Louis stopped him. “No, I mean a good and actual proper go. You two went from fuck buddies to husband and wife in the blink of an eye and now you need to respect her enough to do just that. To treat her like the wife you said you wanted and not the groupies that you think you should have.”

Louis’ words shocked Harry back. The emotion his friend showed seemed more than should be capable of in his current state. And yet he knew it was genuine and from his core.

But then he heard Niall and Zayn coming back down the beach and he saw the cloud return to Louis’ blue eyes. The earnest advisor had retreated and the screw the world and anything that moved guy had returned.

“Hey guys, I have to give you something.” Niall and Zayn had reached them and grabbed their own seats. Zayn looked troubled by whatever they had talked about but the two of them weren’t going to share the topic with Louis and Harry. Instead, Niall’s easy smile had returned and so had Zayn’s quiet. Niall began pulling out envelopes from his pocket, reading the writing on them before looking back up again. “So, I know I told you that Liam wanted us to do this and that he had written something for each of us and as a group. The first part is here. These are the letters he wanted us to read. One for each of us.”

Niall handed each envelope to the person written on the front of it in Liam’s neat script. Each man held them a little tenderly as if they were as fragile as tissue paper. They didn’t speak and no one started ripping at the paper to read the words encased inside.

“This is stupid,” Louis said as he crunched the corner of the envelope in his tightened grip. “Why couldn’t he have told us what is inside of these when he was alive? Why did he wait until after he was gone?”

Niall saw a tear start to form in Louis’ eye and it surprised him. Of the lives they had lived in the last few years, his was the one that seemed to be lived with the least regret about the choices made in the past and the friends he had left there. It was one of pure enjoyment and abandonment and revelry. But he knew the reason why. He had read it that day in the park. And he had to make the others understand.

“He did it because he knew he had only so much time. He did it because he couldn’t face any one of us saying no and rejecting him. He did it because he still hoped we could figure the shit out between us.” Niall looked down at his own letter and felt his heart race. The minute the letter was opened there was no going back. The true emotions of the four of them would finally start to be on display and they wouldn’t be able to push them back in again. But maybe that was okay. Maybe Niall didn’t want to hide from them anymore. Maybe they needed to be released and aired so all of them could move on, with or without each other in their lives. As he looked around the circle of people he had once called friends he saw how truly broken they were in their own different way. They needed to heal and this could be the start right here. Niall began to pull at the corner of the envelope and heard the first tear, the first contact with fresh air. He couldn’t go back now, none of them could. “And I want to start doing that right now.”