Young & Beautiful

But Harry doesn’t flinch, instead smiling wider, leaning his head back against the wall as well,
facing closer to Louis. “I’m not as nice as you. You’re better than me, Louis.”
The sentence singes Louis as he pushes his head off the wall, his smile falling into a deep frown.
“That’s not true,” he says, shaking his head, his tongue thick and soaked in vodka. “Nobody’s
better than you. That’s not true. You’re wonderful Harry. That’s why we love you, us lads. That’s
why I love to be around you, yeah?” His words are drunken, sad, but they’re real and Louis hopes
Harry can hear that in his voice as he tries to clear his vision, school his face into seriousness. One
of these days he’s really going to need to be sober for one of his and Harry’s talks. “You’re
incredible, so incredible, and I’m lucky to know you! I am! Like…’m not better than you, Harry.
Not at all.”
Silence follows, as Harry looks down at his hands, all traces of his smile gone.
“We can’t be best mates, though,” he says, so, so quiet that Louis has to lean in to hear. “You
deserve better friends, Louis. Liam, Zayn, Niall…they’re good. Usually, at least. I’m not. I’m not
good, Louis.” And as he looks up, eyes wide and sad and lost, Louis feels it again, feels all the
emotion pressing against his skin, threatening to rip him to shreds. It’s too much.
He thought they were past this?
Then again…it is Harry. Harry, who’s never been exposed to these sort of sentiments and
emotions, who's never really understood the sort of kindness that asks nothing in return. This is all
new to him. And Louis needs to remember that. Needs to remember Zayn telling him to be patient
with him all that time ago.
“That’s not true,” Louis says simply.
Harry blinks, brings his vacant stare to the window, composed, quiet, forlorn. “Nobody deserves
what I’m capable of,” he replies.
Louis stares at him, at a loss for words. Because what can he say? What can he do to convince
Harry that he’s something? That he’s everything? That flaws are normal, good, even?
He’s just too fucking drunk for this. Fuck.
“Harry Edward Styles,” he says, scooting closer and laying his hand atop Harry’s arm. Its stiffens,
but Harry doesn’t move it away. “You have all these thoughts in your brain that aren’t true,
they’re simply not true. But the thing is, I’m not allowed in there, right? I’m not allowed inside
your brain because it’s quite a small place and there’s no proper entrance.” Harry laughs, his skin
warming. He’s still not looking at Louis, but his smile lingers. “But if I could, if I could find a
door and shrink myself to proper size, I would go in there, Harry. I’d go in and pick out all those
terrible thoughts. I’d dig them out and peel them off the walls and clean them out from the corners
because they’re simply not true. And I don’t want you, someone like you, to waste a second of the
day thinking that they are because you have the world in front of you. You’re not like anybody
else. Nobody. You’re the only one, Harry, the only one, and that’s so important. That’s so
important, and even if you have a flaw here, a flaw there, a bit of luggage in your pockets…that’s
all right. That’s all right because….”
Louis searches for the words, searches as Harry now stares at him, eyes wide and shimmering,
shock and trepidation caught under the lids.
Louis swallows. "Because, ‘Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something
tragic,’” he quotes, his mind on the piece of paper tucked in Harry’s journal, the quote that he