I just want to warn sensitive readers that this chapter is quite sad.

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Chapter 24

I wasn't sure how long I stood there until I finally managed to exit the house and drive away, back home to my own place. I was stuck in a trance throughout the entire ride, barely knowing where I was going or what was happening around me. The only thing playing on my retina was Harry's pained expression when he told me those words.

"I never cheated on you, Louis."

Squeezing my eyes shut, I shook my head to try getting the image out of my head. Out of everything he could have told me, I never expected it to be those words. It was as if he had punched them into my head, and now they couldn't get out.

It took a while, but eventually, the idea and possibility that what he said was true slowly started processing in my head.

If he never cheated on me, I was the only one at fault for our breakup because that meant I was the only one who had done something to sabotage our relationship. If he never cheated on me, he had must have been hurting more than I could imagine these last few years, and that fact made my heart hurt to the point where I wanted to close in on myself and cry. If he never cheated on me, it would also explain why he was so mad at me when we first met and why he looked at me as if I had just punched him in the face when I accused him of it in Ibiza.

The question was, why would he tell me that he cheated on me in the first place? Why would he make me think that he had been with someone else when he hadn't? Did he do it to hurt me? Make me believe that me giving up on us was okay for him because he didn't love me anymore anyway?

Now I understood what Liam meant when he said that Harry and I should talk about what happened between us. There were so many questions that I needed an answer to, the correct answer to. I had been sure I knew everything I needed to know when I had told Liam I didn't want to talk about my and Harry's breakup, but now I knew I was wrong. Was there even something I did know except for my part?

It had started raining now, which didn't make it easier to see the streets. Luckily, though, I managed to make it home without getting into a car crash or anything of the sort. I walked into the house, only then realizing that I had forgotten my sweatshirt at Harry's place since my arms were bare and I was wet from the rain. I was probably cold too, but I was too numb to feel anything.

Therefore, the thought of taking a shower didn't cross my mind. Instead, I walked up to my bedroom with Clifford following me and got under the covers of my bed without undressing. It didn't take more than a few minutes until everything went black, darkness taking over my mind completely.

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After eating breakfast the following morning, the first thing I did was to call Lottie. I hadn't talked to her in a while, but I felt as though I would get the best advice from her. Liam wasn't bad at giving advice either, but this was something so personal that I wanted to talk to her about it.

Besides, I wanted my family to know what happened between me and Harry before anyone else did. I never thought I would have to explain it to them, but now that things had turned out the way they did, I couldn't push it under the bed and not speak about it any longer. If there was any time to explain what happened, it was now.

After taking care of Clifford, I sat down at the kitchen table, running a hand through my brown fringe as I scrolled through my contacts to find Lottie's name. I had forced myself not to think about what Harry told me yesterday since I woke up, but it was impossible not to now that I wasn't occupied doing anything specific.

Before the thoughts could overwhelm me, I clicked on Lottie's name and brought the phone to my ear, praying that she would pick up. I rubbed my chin subconsciously as it rang once, twice, and a third time before anything happened.

"Louis?"

Letting out a sigh of relief, I closed my eyes. "Hi, Lottie."

I could hear her fumbling around on the other end, but it stopped after a few seconds. "Is something wrong?" She asked warily. I really admired the way she could always read me so well.

I ran a hand over my face in exasperation. "You could say that I guess."

She seemed to finally settle down wherever she was and focused on me entirely. "Tell me what happened."

Biting my lip, I looked down at the surface of the table. "I went to Harry's place with Perrie and Nick yesterday, and it turns out he still lives in the house we used to share. Every trace of me is basically gone. All I found was a bottle of the perfume I've always used."

She hummed on the other end. "You do realize that it would have been weird if he still kept your things, right? Considering you two ended it on a bad note, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to be reminded of you wherever he looked," she tried to reason.

"But why didn't he just sell the house? Then he wouldn't have been reminded of me at all," I pointed out.

She was quiet for a while before continuing, "Maybe there was a fine line of wanting to be reminded of you and not wanting to be reminded of you? You don't know what his thoughts were."

She was right. I didn't know what was going on inside his head, especially not after what he confessed last night. "I certainly don't," I mumbled.

"What do you mean?" She asked in confusion, probably sensing that I was referring to something specific.

I inhaled a large breath, telling myself that this was for the best. I had already been reminded of what happened that evening almost three years ago, so telling Lottie about it wouldn't make things worse than they already were.

"A few months before we broke up, I started distancing myself from him after a meeting I attended. I know, stupid. It went on until I eventually decided to leave him since I couldn't see any other way out," I started, inhaling a deep breath.

"As we were drifting apart, I was aware that Harry was out a lot, so when he told me that he had cheated on me that evening, I didn't see a reason not to believe him. I was so hurt, even though I was the one sabotaging our relationship because I still loved him so fucking much. And then yesterday..." I trailed off, shaking my head in disbelief because I still couldn't believe it had happened.

"Yesterday, he told me that he never cheated on me, which means I've been the only one at fault this whole time. I'm the reason we're not together anymore, and it's only because of what I did he won't talk to me these days," I explained, my voice almost cracking as tears brimmed my eyes.

"Oh, Louis," Lottie said sadly. "I'm so sorry. I really wish none of this would've happened to you two. But no matter what, you shouldn't put all the blame on yourself. Even if Harry never cheated, he told you he did, and he shouldn't have done that. It doesn't matter that he wanted you to hurt or whatever his intention was. Things would have been different today if he had never lied to you, and you would have known that he never stopped loving you."

Her words made a sad smile form on my lips, and I let out a breathy laugh. "You're being too nice to me, Lots. I mean, sure, what you're saying is partly true, but now I understand what an idiot I was at the time. If I had never given up on our relationship, we would have most likely still been together today."

She went quiet then, probably knowing that I was right. If Harry had never cheated and only lied about it, we could have fixed this a long time ago, that much was true, but if I never gave up on us, we wouldn't even be in the situation in the first place.

"I don't want to make you feel worse, Lou, but judging by his songs, I think it's pretty obvious that he never cheated on you. I never knew what happened between you, so I couldn't make things out by the lyrics, but I can tell you that the way he sings about you is not how you sing about someone you have fallen out of love with."

A few tears fell from my eyes, running down my cheeks. I was such a jerk, a stupid fucking fool. I never even thought of listening to his songs to make things out by them. I was always too afraid to hear something I didn't want to hear. For example, listen to him sing about a new lover or about how he didn't love me anymore. I wasn't aware this was the reason I had avoided it at the time, but I knew that now.

"Fuck," I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut. "He was so hurt, and I just... I just turned the tables around and showed him how hurt I was instead when he didn't... when he didn't even do anything to me."

"Louis," she sighed. "Don't put yourself down like this. You didn't know, alright? You couldn't know that he was hurting when he basically told you he wasn't."

I wiped the tears off my cheeks, keeping my gaze at the table. "But I should have seen through him. We had been together for five years. I should have known whether he was lying or not," I disagreed.

"Well, you didn't, and that's not your fault. Look, even if Harry never cheated on you, you are both still part of the reason you broke up. It doesn't matter if he lied to you about sleeping with someone else. He still told you he did, and you believed him. So that makes him part of the reason you broke up," she reasoned with a determined voice, and even if I wanted to disagree with her, I knew she had a point.

Whether Harry wanted me to believe him or not, it added fuel to the fire. If he hadn't uttered the words, our breakup might have turned out like any other disagreement we'd had over the years. Sure, they had been disagreements that barely lasted for three days, but that didn't mean we wouldn't have found our way back together. It didn't take more than a few months until I realized what a stupid mistake I had made for thinking what I had been told was true after all.

A few months. Who was I kidding? It was long enough to fall in love with someone else, for fuck's sake. But then again, I might have realized it sooner if he never added the cheating part to it, but that was something I would never know.

"I see where you're coming from," I said eventually, biting the inside of my cheek.

"Good," she said. "Don't think about this too much, Louis, alright? I'd suggest you talk to him about it, though, to sort things out."

I nodded even though she couldn't see me. "Yeah, I know," I sighed.

She was quiet for a while until she spoke again. "I'm glad you told me, Lou. I started getting the feeling that you never would, but you did. I just... I just want you to know how happy I am that you felt like you could trust me with it."

I felt terrible for making her think I never told her because I didn't trust her. It had nothing to do with that. "Lottie, I've always trusted you. That's not it. I just didn't want to talk about it and be reminded of what happened that evening. You know just as well as I that I pushed my feelings aside over the years and forced myself to believe I had moved on from him when in reality, I was just too scared of being reminded of everything. That's why I didn't tell you, so don't think it has anything to do with you," I told her sincerely.

"Yeah... I know. It just feels like you've finally let me in, and I am happy about that. I feel honored, Lou."

A wide smile formed on my lips as I felt warmth spread in my chest. "You're welcome, Lots."

We hung up on each other only a few minutes after that. She told me she would come over sometime soon so that we could catch up on each other's lives, considering it had been a while since we last spoke. I then went to the living room with Clifford in toe, and laid down on the soft cushion of the white couch, draping a blanket over my body.

I wasn't even tired. I had slept like a baby last night, and for about nine hours at that, but sleep felt like the only place where I could avoid all the thoughts that were threatening to take over my mind. Therefore, I closed my eyes and tried making myself relax, but unfortunately, it didn't take long until I realized it wasn't going to happen. My mind kept slipping to Harry, and it was impossible to fall asleep when his face was playing on my retina and I, on top of that, wasn't tired at all.

In order to distract myself in another way, I grabbed the TV remote and turned on the flatscreen. I went onto Spotify to find some music that wouldn't make me think of him. The first thing my eyes caught sight of was my rock playlist, but I quickly changed my mind and clicked on a random one that I hadn't made myself because there was a risk that some of the songs would remind me of him.

Scrolling through the playlist to find something interesting, I could feel my body go rigid when my eyes landed on one particular song. I didn't even have to see the artist's name to know it was one of Harry's because I had heard Niall mention it a few weeks ago in Ibiza.

The reason I went onto Spotify was to find music that would take my mind off Harry, but when I saw the song staring at me right in the face, I suddenly felt an urge to turn it on. I could clearly remember how he had tensed up when Niall had mentioned it along with the other one and then relaxed when I confessed I hadn't listened to any of his songs, so there was a high possibility that they were about me.

Swallowing, I hesitated to click the 'Ok' button. It was probably a stupid idea, the stupidest idea that had ever crossed my mind, but whenever I felt an urge to do something, I had a hard time not going through with it. It was as if my fingers were itching to click the button while a voice in my head chanted at me to do it as well.

My thumb pressed down on the button without realizing it, and the song started playing. The acoustic guitar hit my eardrums immediately, making a smile form on my face as warmth spread in my chest. It was beautiful.

It didn't take long until his lovely voice came in, and I could feel every muscle suddenly relax in my body.

"Sweet creature. Had another talk about where it's going wrong, but we're still young. We don't know where we're going, but we know where we belong. And oh, we started two hearts in one home. It's hard when we argue. We're both stubborn, I know."

My mouth fell open at the lyrics, my heart fluttering in my chest. I never expected him to write something as beautiful as this, especially not if it was about us.

"But oh, sweet creature, sweet creature. Wherever I go, you bring me home. Sweet creature, sweet creature. When I run out of road, you bring me home."

Home.

It wasn't an unknown fact that the word had meant a lot to me and Harry. Since we were always on the run, touring the world, it never felt like we had a real home, so home for us had always been each other. No matter where we were, Harry was always there, so I didn't need a place to call home because he was my home, the person that made me feel safe and know where I belonged.

The fact that he had decided to add it to this song made me feel so many things at the same time that I couldn't put my finger on any of them, but it also made me extremely sad because he had most likely written it after our breakup and thought about our time together. It made me understand why he was so scared that I had listened to his songs, seeing as I would have known it was about me the second I heard it. There was no one else it could possibly be about.

"Sweet creature. We're running through the garden, oh, where nothing bothered us, but we're still young. I always think about you and how we don't speak enough."

We don't speak enough.

It was true. We barely spoke a word to each other the last few months of our relationship. It was as if we were two separate individuals living in the same house. We barely looked at each other, and we always made sure to spend the day separately. That period might have been the worst time of my life, if not the following months after we broke up. Knowing I still lived with someone I loved but couldn't show it to was the most challenging thing I'd ever had to do. We definitely didn't speak enough, and I knew I was the only one to blame for that.

"But oh, sweet creature, sweet creature. Wherever I go, you bring me home. Sweet creature, sweet creature. When I run out of road, you'll bring me home."

When the last chord had been taken, I sat there, staring at the flatscreen with my mouth still half-open. I hadn't realized tears had started rolling down my eyes, but when I reached up to touch my cheek, it was wet. I tried to wipe them away, but new ones just kept falling, and there was nothing I could do about it.

My heart ached in my chest. It hurt so bad that I wanted to rip it out and replace it with another one. How could I have done this? How could I have broken his heart when I knew he loved me? Because I knew he loved me, he had made it clear so many times. I shouldn't have doubted that. I shouldn't have let myself be persuaded into believing he would stop loving me just because things were changing and we weren't going to be in the same band anymore.

Another song had started playing somewhere between my thoughts, but I was too far away to notice it. I couldn't stop thinking about how Harry must have felt when I left our house that evening. He had seemed so unaffected, so stone-cold that it was impossible for me to believe he felt anything at all.

"We never learn we've been here before. Why are we always stuck and running from the bullets?"

But he must have been hurting. It was just so difficult for me to picture it when I had been so sure he had cheated on me all this time. Thinking back to that evening and trying to rearrange the scene, picture Harry as broken instead of unaffected, required a lot of thinking and energy, and it was hard, so fucking hard.

"Just stop your crying, have the time of your life."

My eyes snapped up to the flatscreen, my heart coming to an abrupt halt at the lyrics. 'Sign Of The Times' by Harry Styles, the screen said. It was the song that had been playing in the car the day we were driving to Cardiff, when Harry had told Nick to change radio stations. I recognized the melody immediately by the beautiful piano loop. What really caught my attention, though, were those words. They were the exact words that had gone on repeat in my head over and over again for months after I left him.

"Have the time of your life, Louis Tomlinson."

I had been crying that day, even if I didn't have the right to. I didn't have the right to when I was the one leaving him, but how could I not be when I still loved him, and he had just told me he had been with someone else?

"We don't talk enough. We should open up before it's all too much. Will we ever learn? We've been here before. It's just what we know."

And there it was again, the phrase about not communicating enough. It made me realize just how much he had been hurting when we started falling apart. And he was right. It wasn't the first time. I had doubted our relationship before, when we were told we weren't going to last, that our relationship was only a waste of time. But I never left him. I never gave up on us. Not until then.

And then I finally, after almost three years, allowed myself to let everything out - every emotion, every thought that had built up inside me from what happened that evening. I finally let myself feel everything; the pain, the heartbreak, the emptiness, the loss... everything. And I didn't do anything to stop it.

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I think a lot of you had no idea how I was going to fit Sign of the times into the story, but there's no way that song is about a mother who's been told she's not going to make it after giving birth to her baby. I've seen a theory that it's about Jay and Louis when she passed away, with a side of Harry. It makes more sense if you listen to the lyrics.

I hope you guys liked the chapter, and thank you so much for 50K reads and 4k votes! You are amazing, love you <3

The next chapter is going to be more eventful, so prepare yourself for that x

Edited by: butterflies151

Pauline .xx