A/N: This chapter is dedicated to @TattoosAndCoffee Thank you for all your thoughtful comments!

So, this is how they break up...

It's all in the past. The POV starts with Harry, switches to Louis and then back to Harry.

PAST

HARRY

Our home was a fragile fortress made of glass and steel, high among the treetops in the Hollywood Hills, gleaming like a jewel. We had a sweeping view of Downtown Los Angeles, Catalina, and the California coastline. The secluded estate was our sanctuary--we could look out but no one could look in.

The house felt empty without Louis in it. He was with Edwin and Eleanor celebrating her 21st birthday at Bar Marmont. I wanted to go too but management thought it would be too tricky to get me in and out unseen. I moped around the house instead, slept for a bit and checked Twitter for news of any Louis sightings. I used my fan account: @slut4louis

A couple fans had taken selfies with him outside the bar. He was smiling brightly and giving the thumbs up. Like. Someone else tweeted a vine of Louis' best solos. Like. Another user tweeted a pic of him and Eleanor as they entered the bar arm-in-arm "Elounor is goals." I rolled my eyes. Unfollow. Then someone began tweeting pics from Louis' charity football match: running, kicking, stretching, sweating, taking off his jersey... Like. Like. Like. Like. Like. Retweet. Retweet. Retweet. Retweet. Retweet.

At midnight I heard a click at the door. I scampered down the travertine steps and down the hall. It was Zayn. My heart sank. "Is Lou with you?" I asked searching behind him.

"Sorry love, he's still at the party." Zayn hung up his leather jacket.

"I thought he'd be back by now."

"So did he. But he has to stay until they cut the cake."

"Oh," I said gloomily, now sad and hungry for cake.

"Speaking of birthdays. Louis' birthday is coming up. Any plans?"

I padded into the living room and motioned for Zayn to follow. We sunk into the couch and put our feet up on the gilded coffee table.

"Yeah, a couple things actually," I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling.

"What are you up to?" he said suspiciously. He tossed the velvet throw pillows aside and handed me an Xbox controller.

"It's a surprise."

Zayn pulled out a cigarette then quickly put it behind his ear when he remembered he was hanging out with me and not Louis. We curled up on the couch and started playing Halo.

"You know that ski resort he took me to when we first started dating?"

"Yeah."

"I booked a chalet for a week."

"Cool."

I was being massacred in the game. I couldn't focus. "That's not all I'm getting him..."

Zayn flashed me a quick smile, laughing with his gentle brown eyes. "I don't need the details, mate."

"Not that! Well, yes, that. Lots of that. But also... I'm going to propose."

Zayn dropped the controller and stared at me. "What? Are you serious? You guys are so young!"

I was grinning madly. "We've been together for four years. We live together. It's time. He's the one, Zayn. I know it."

"Whoa, I mean, I guess I just assumed that he would be the one doing the proposing. You're his baby."

I had been secretly hoping he would too. I caught him looking at rings online once. I spent so many sleepless nights staring at the ceiling wondering is today the day? and it never was.

"His mum said he's been thinking about it, but he's scared I'll say no."

"That sounds like him."

"I got tired of waiting, so I figured I'd do it. I'll be brave for the both of us."

Zayn was still stunned. I could tell he had a zillion questions but didn't know where to begin. "So how are you going to do it? When? Where?"

"I'm going to sneak out of the chalet early and write, "will you marry me" in the snow and then ask him to look down as we're riding above it on the ski lift. Is that cheesy?"

I think Zayn might have blinked back a tear. "That's beautiful, Harry. Even I would say yes!" He stroked my cheek and roughly pulled me in for a hug. "Can I be your best man?"

"I'll have to fight Louis for you."

"You two can share me."

"Deal."

There was a knock at the door. I jumped. Maybe Louis forgot his keys. Nope, it was just Judith, in glasses and a crumpled blazer with a messenger bag full of contracts. I kissed her on the cheek and led her into the kitchen.

"I was going to courier these to you in the morning, but since you're all alone tonight I thought you could use the company." She pulled out two small trays of sushi.

Zayn heard her voice and the mention of paperwork and snuck out the back.

I preferred Zayn's company over Judith's to be honest but it was nice of her to stop by. We sat down to eat as she went over an addendum with me.

Then I got a call on my phone. It was Kitty. I held up the screen: "did you do this?"

Judith was genuinely surprised. "No! I've been trying schedule something with her for ages but her team keeps stonewalling me. Answer it!"

"Hello?"

I couldn't make out any actual words on the other end, just sobbing.

"Harry? Is that you?"

"It's me. What's wrong?"

She kept crying. "My cat's dead."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." I'd only met the animal once and she scratched me to pieces. "She was a lovely cat."

"No, I mean she just died. Right now. In my living room. What do I do?"

When my cat Dusty died back in Cheshire we buried her in the garden. I wasn't too sure what they did with dead pets in America.

"Do you have a shovel?" I asked delicately.

"Harry, are you listening to me? My cat is dead! I'm a mess! My assistant quit this morning. Can you come over?"

I bit my lip and looked at the clock. It was 1 a.m. Louis would be home any minute.

"Look, Harry, I know you're not my real boyfriend, but you've always been nice to me and I had no one else to call. I have no real friends... I'm pathetic," she said quietly.

"I'll be there in thirty minutes."

Judith's eyes lit up. I grabbed my car keys off the counter.

"Don't you think you should change?" she said excitedly.

"This isn't a social visit. It's an emergency." I walked briskly to the door and threw my suede jacket on over my t-shirt and track pants.

I pulled out my phone and called Louis. He didn't pick up and I heard ringing coming from the living room. He'd forgotten his phone at home. Fuck.

I grabbed Judith by the shoulders. "I need you to do something very important for me."

She nodded. "Anything."

"I need you to stay here until Louis comes home and explain to him that I had to go to Kitty's place because her cat died. I know it sounds weird but I've mentioned Kitty's cat before, so he'll understand. But you have to mention the cat."

"Dead cat. Got it."

I hopped into my Range Rover. It took me nearly an hour to get to Kitty's. Even at night the traffic in L.A. was horrendous.

Photographers were already camped outside the gates when I got there. What the hell? They knew my car and license plate. Maybe one of them had spotted me on the road and followed me. I had the worst luck.

I tried to hide my face with the collar of my jacket but there was no point. They got me. I ran up the stone steps and rang the doorbell. Kitty answered quickly, looking like hell in a bathrobe with her teal-colored hair in a tangled top-knot.

She threw her arms around me. "Oh Harry, thank God you're here!"

I stroked her back. "It's okay. Everything's going to be okay.

Kitty's house like her life was an echo chamber. The place was covered in photos and paintings of her, even the doorbell chimed one her greatest hits. It was no wonder she was lonely. She couldn't escape herself. Even her team did nothing but agree with her and give in to her most outrageous demands. I suspect that's why she went through assistants like Kleenex. Her cat was probably her only true friend by virtue of the fact that it didn't know how famous she was.

The cat was definitely dead. It was sort of curled on its side like it was sleeping.

"Do you have a garbage bag?"

She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve, getting mascara everywhere. "I can't put her in a garbage bag! She's not garbage! She's my best friend!"

I could see that this was going to be difficult. Kitty had a tenuous grasp on reality during the best of times.

"Okay, how do you want to bury her?"

"I don't! I want her to be alive!"

Oh Lord. "Kitty, Cat's dead. I'm sorry. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's true."

She sniffed. "Okay."

"If you don't want to bury her, you can have her cremated in the morning at the vet's office or you could have her... Stuffed." The thought of stuffing a dead pet was grotesque to me but Kitty's face brightened.

"That way she can be with me forever?"

I nodded. "In a way."

"I'd like that."

"We should probably--um--preserve the body somehow. Do you have a freezer?"

She led me into the kitchen. We cleared out some tubs of ice cream and stuffed Cat into an eleven thousand dollar Birken bag because "it's what Cat would have wanted," and stuck her in the freezer.

I was about to leave when Kitty grabbed my hand. "No, you can't go! I'm afraid to be alone."

It was almost three in the morning. "I really need to go."

"But I'm scared! What if she haunts me?"

"She was your best friend."

Kitty put her hands on her hips. "The afterlife changes a cat, Harry."

I agreed to stay with her until we finished all the ice cream. It was four tubs of Chunky Monkey. No easy feat.

We watched her old concert DVDs as we ate. She gossiped about which backup dancers were sleeping together and confessed which songs she hated and which outfits she thought made her look fat. I reassured her that she didn't look fat in any of them and sang along to her songs. She was impressed that I knew all the words.

Slowly, Kitty grew more and more tired. I had to get out of there, but I didn't think I could make my escape until she fell asleep.

I watched the clock nervously.

LOUIS

I burst through the front doors of our house, "Honey, I'm home! Harr-eh! Harr-eh! Hazza!"

Eleanor and Edwin stumbled in behind me. Eleanor was barefoot, giggling, her strappy sandals dangling from her fingertips. Edwin was trying to hold his sister upright. Despite being completely pissed she didn't want her birthday night to end. We didn't eat at Bar Marmont, and they both wanted to go to some burger joint in North Hollywood. I'd been apart from Harry all night and only agreed to go if Harry could come with us.

He usually waited up for me when I went out even if he was knackered.

I heard someone in the kitchen. "Harry!" I was surprised to see Judith sitting there alone with her iPad.

"Hiya," I said neutrally. We didn't have the best relationship but there was no reason not to be civil. "Where's Harry?"

"Sit down," she said.

I could hear Eleanor and Edwin rummaging through our trophy case in the corridor. I hoped those twats didn't break anything.

Judith looked out the window, eyes resting on the infinity pool outside. She bit her lip. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, Louis, Harry swore me to secrecy, but I feel you have the right to know."

What was this woman on about?

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He's with Kitty Drift."

It was 3 a.m. I'd been with Harry all day and he didn't mention anything about an appearance with Kitty.

"Did you arrange it?"

"No."

I rolled my eyes.

"Ask her team if you don't believe me," she countered smugly. "I came here with some paperwork to keep Harry company while you were out and she called him. He dropped everything and practically flew out the door. He told me not to tell you."

"Kitty's house? In the middle of the night? Bollocks."

Judith turned her iPad around and my blood ran cold. It was a picture of Harry with his arms around Kitty on her doorstep. She was in nothing but a tiny bathrobe and he was trying to hide his face but I knew it was him.

"I didn't want to hurt you, Louis, but I thought it was about time you saw the real Harry."

It all came crashing over me in a wave: the meetings with Kitty that weren't on the schedule, the photos of his car parked at her house every time he was in L.A.... I'd been suspicious from the start and Harry convinced me that I was overreacting. Had he been lying to me for over a year?

"Don't take it personally, Louis," said Judith resting her cold hand on mine. "When you get to be as big as Kitty and Harry you play by a different set of rules. Fidelity isn't one of them."

I was only half listening to what she was saying. Blood had rushed to my head and was thrumming loudly in my ears.

"Why do you think I've been against you and Harry being together? I've been worried about you, Louis! You have so much more to offer this industry than just performing. Harry's star will fade, but you're smart. Play your cards right and you could be in a position of real power one day. You'll probably be my boss!"

I didn't want power. I wanted Harry.

A part of me still thought it couldn't be true. Harry--my Harry--who kissed my eyelashes every morning and wore my t-shirts when we were apart would never cheat on me. But another much deeper part of me had always been filled with doubt. Harry was adored by every person who laid eyes on him. Why would someone like that want to be with the likes of me? What did I have to offer besides a sharp tongue and earnest love songs? Had I just been fooling myself this entire time?

Judith stood up to leave, her heels striking the travertine tiles like matchsticks. She hugged me and I patted her back stiffly, not sure if I should be angry with her or thanking her.

The second she left, I went looking for my phone. I'd forgotten it at home and found it on the couch. I noticed I had a missed call from Harry, but I didn't call him back. The first person I called was Kitty Drift's manager. I was still hoping that Judith got it wrong, that these pap shots were all staged. But that's not what he said. He confirmed everything that Judith told me. There was nothing planned for tonight, Kitty had invited Harry over, and Harry went. He fucking went to her house in the middle of the night.

Edwin found a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge. "If we're not going to Jimmy's Burgers, I'm cracking this open."

Eleanor was holding the glasses out to her brother. Edwin filled up all three, spilling the sparkling wine on the Persian rug and laughing.

I snatched a glass from her hand and downed it in one go.

They thought it would be fun to put on our band's latest album and although hearing Harry's husky baritone over the speakers made my stomach turn I let them keep it on, feeling my anger bubble with each song.

After all the drinking Eleanor had done at Bar Marmont, one glass of Prosecco was enough to knock her out. She curled up on the couch and fell asleep.

Night Changes came on and Edwin squished himself next to me in the armchair. "Hi," he said, not-so-casually resting his hand on my leg. He'd been flirting we me shamelessly since the day we met and I always found it to be a minor annoyance but now I really needed it. I needed to feel wanted.

"Do you want to dance?" I blurted out, drunk enough to be bold but sober enough to know better.

"Right here, in your living room?"

"Why not?"

I took off his jacket and threw it next to mine on the chair. My hands found his waist and I stared into his wide brown eyes. He was as pretty as his sister but without any of her wit. I liked him less but I still liked him.

He tried to keep this encounter light and friendly, swaying from side to side, singing along to Harry's part off-key. I'd turned Edwin down so many times before he wasn't expecting anything. When I stopped dancing and pressed my chest against his he swallowed.

Harry's voice seemed to be getting louder and louder but I didn't want to turn it off. I wanted to drown it out, smother it.

I kissed Edwin as hard as I could, my tongue lashing into his mouth. He messily kissed me back. I yanked his shirt up out of his trousers and he grabbed my ass. We glanced at his sleeping sister. "Not here," I said.

We stumbled upstairs between sloppy kisses and aimless groping, ignoring the mosaic of photos on the wall, photos of me and Harry. Edwin pulled me into the guestroom but I said, "No, the master bedroom."

"But that's yours and Harry's room." A wicked smile crossed his lips. "You're a bad boy, Louis. A very bad boy."

Once in the bedroom, I started taking my pants off. Edwin moved over to the dresser examining Harry's perfume. In just my boxers I came up behind him. I took the bottle out of his hands and spritzed his neck. It reminded me of Harry like a punch to the gut. The bed was unmade. The sheets smelled like him too. Us. Why was I doing this to myself? I lay down and pulled Edwin on top of me. His body was insane. He was cut--a rugby player--but nothing compared to the softness of Harry's hips, his delicate wrists, the crook of his swanlike neck...

"How do you want to do this," Edwin asked gruffly.

I wasn't sure. I didn't think I could look him in the eye. How could I face him when I could barely face myself?

I ran a hand through his curls. His hair was coarse and dry, unlike Harry's hair, which unfurled in my hands like the finest silk. I kissed him again, wishing for this to be over before it even began.

"I've waited so long for this, Louis..." Edwin sighed. "I didn't even think you liked me... You do like me, don't you?"

"I like you," I confirmed half-heartedly. That seemed to be all he needed to hear. He wriggled out of his underwear, already hard.

I was about to do the same but I was having second thoughts. Edwin was kissing my collarbone and grinding against my thigh, grunting loudly. Harry didn't put on a show in bed. I missed his soft little whines pressed against my ear like the sweetest secret. Was he making those sounds for Kitty now?

Edwin rolled on his side breathless. "What if Harry comes back and catches us?"

The name echoed in my head.

Harry.

Harry was with Kitty.

Harry was a liar.

Harry didn't love me.

He never did.

My heart hardened. "I want him to catch us."

I slid out of my boxers and guided Edwin's eager mouth between my legs.

HARRY

It was nearly dawn. Three DVDs and four pints of ice cream later I was finally able to sneak away from Kitty's place and go home.

When I got to our front door I noticed that it was unlocked. I stepped inside to the sound of our band's music blaring on the stereo. I dashed into the living room to shut it off. Eleanor was asleep on the couch. That was odd. She usually stayed at her hotel. I figured maybe they'd come back to ours for an after party. Louis' jacket was draped over the armchair. I picked it up and folded it. There was a second jacket lying there but I didn't recognize it.

They'd spilled drinks all over the rug. Louis could be so careless. I picked up the glasses and an empty bottle of Prosecco and carried them to the kitchen.

The house felt different than how I'd left it, more than just messy, like we'd been robbed, though nothing was taken. Everything was just off.

I heard some noise upstairs. Louis must have waited up for me I thought.

I washed the dishes and dried my hands quickly before heading up.

The sounds increased as I climbed the stairs.

I thought it might be the TV at first but there was no light coming from our bedroom. I felt a flash of panic, my body reacting to a possibility my mind wasn't yet ready to acknowledge.

The bedroom door was wide open. I could see the silhouette of two bodies moving inside. Still, I wouldn't accept it. This wasn't happening. I didn't turn on the light because I knew turning on the light would make it real. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Louis was on top of Edwin who lay face down on the mattress. I didn't know what shocked me more, what Louis was doing or the fact that he saw me standing there and didn't stop.

It was the closest I had ever felt to dying.

I should have been angry: yelling, cursing, throwing things. That was the correct emotional response. But I didn't want to do any of those things. I wanted to be nothing, to be less than nothing. I didn't know how to tear this pain out of my body without tearing myself down in the process.

I stumbled out of the bedroom and ran downstairs. This was our home. I was supposed to feel safe here and now I needed to get as far away as I possibly could before the pain killed me.

Louis came thundering after me, pulling his clothes back on. "You did this, Harry. This is all you."

I wanted to get away. I didn't want to be anywhere near him but he kept coming at me.

"You've been lying to me this whole time."

"I've never lied to you!"

"Tell me you weren't at Kitty's house tonight."

"Didn't Judith explain-"

"Stop it! Stop getting other people to do your dirty work!"

I was hysterical. "Nothing happened between me and Kitty!" I sobbed. "Oh Louis, how could you. How could you do this to us..."

Eleanor had woken up with our yelling and Edwin was sitting on the steps, pale as a ghost.

"I don't believe you," Louis said through clenched teeth. "Why else would you go there in the middle of the night? How fucking stupid do you think I am?"

"I was at Kitty's tonight because I'm her friend and she needed me!"

"Friend," he sneered. I didn't even recognize Louis anymore. He was so cruel.

"You know what, don't believe me! I don't care! I know the truth! You're the monster, not me." I eyed him coldly, barely able to contain my disgust. "I would never do what you did to me tonight, Louis. There's nothing you could do that would make me want to hurt you like that. Nothing."

Louis' eyes went wild. I didn't know if he was angry with me because he thought I was lying or with himself because he realized I might be telling the truth.

I reached for the door. He grabbed my wrists and wouldn't let go. "You're a liar, Harry. Admit it. You never loved me. You were just biding your time until someone better came along."

"Let me go!"

Louis wasn't content to break my heart. He had to torture me too. "Admit it," he spat. "Tell me the truth."

My face was wet with tears. My knees buckled. "Please," I begged.

He gripped my wrists harder.

"The truth is," I wept. "I've never loved anyone else but you."

Louis released me. His expression softened. "Harry," he began. He might have believed me but by then it didn't matter. It was too late.

I ran out the door, disoriented, everything was a blur of hurt and tears and hate. The world looked bleak and grey now, my sadness like a heavy fog. It wasn't only Louis I'd lost that night, it was our future.

I got into my car and pulled out my keys. My hands were trembling. Bruises bloomed around my wrists.

The light in our glass house went dark.

A/N: I hope this wasn't too depressing.

I think there are only one or two "past" chapters left before the "present" chapters take over completely.

Next week I'm posting the continuation of Harry's bachelor party. Things get happier! I swear!

Thank you for reading.