Young & Beautiful

Wow. Just wow.
“Harry, you fuck,” he snaps.
“Oh. Well. Zayn asked him to come. But you can still have fun, yeah?” he reasons, laughing his
guilt away.
Louis stares at Harry—who’s got a boy on each arm and is now refusing to look at Louis, his
smile bright—and mulls the word over in his head, the idea seeming more and more comical.
“It’s gonna be a great night,” he says sarcastically.
“Want a drink?” Zayn asks while simultaneously offering him a cigarette.
“Yes and yes,” Louis says, hastily placing the cigarette in his mouth as Liam flicks a lighter on
and Zayn passes him a cup of something that’s literally just appeared out of nowhere.
“Ready for a splendid night, children?” Louis asks, raising his cup in a toast, exhaling the dry
smoke that fills his lungs and tastebuds.
The boys smile as they raise their glasses—even Harry, who watches calmly, indifferently.
Distantly.
It hurts so fucking much. Louis hates that it hurts, that somewhere along the line all of this
managed to actually hurt.
“Excellent,” he hears himself say, and drinks the whole cup in one go, closing his eyes tightly
against reality and everything that hurts.
**
The entire night is a blur. It’s just a giant blur.
Louis remembers a few things…
He remembers drinking cup upon cup of that stuff that Zayn had given him.
He remembers smoking a lot of cigarettes that he bummed off of everybody in sight, batting his
eyelashes when he needed a light, and wrapping his lips around the stick seductively if he wanted
more.
He remembers seeing Harry, dancing in a swirl of bodies and jewelry, laughing and posing for
pictures, Zayn and Liam at his side.
He remembers watching them all laugh, Niall bouncing around them and blowing smoke into
people’s faces.
He remembers leaving.
Leaving because he was fucking tired and angry—so goddamn angry—and he needed to get
away from them. He needed to be lost in oblivion and strangeness. He needed to be lost.
Just one night, he promised himself. One night of disappearing, of vanishing into the air. He
wanted to leave them behind, leave and forget, wanted to break free from the life he had built
here, and so he stumbled out the door, high as a kite, drunk as a skunk, and reeking of other
people’s sweat and cologne. Reeking of loneliness. Really fucking pathetic.