Young & Beautiful

He wonders what Harry is doing.
He slips out his phone, untangling himself from the crowds of people, feeling drunken and tired
and somehow forlorn despite the good cheer and the good company and his freshly kissed lips. He
finds a deserted corner of the house, filled only by abandoned cups and a few fallen beer bottles,
and alights his phone, thoughts on Harry, and then—
Harry Styles flashes across his screen.
Fuck.
He fucking texted Louis. Again.
On New Years. At midnight.
Fuck.
Louis swipes the message, reading instantly, his heart sprouting holes and gushing over his organs
like a fountain at Buckingham Palace. His mind is a steady thrum of blankness, unable to properly
navigate through all the alcohol in his system and the vast amount of emotions that have just piled
down upon him.
Harry texted him.
New Years.
Again.
He reads.
‘I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly in the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.’
Louis stares.
….. The fuck?