Chapter Text

I don’t know how to say this without it sounding like I’m begging, and you know me, Louis, I won’t ever beg for anything. You’re already half gone, even if your clothes are still in my bedroom and your ridiculous water bottle with all the stickers is still in my fridge. Mentally, you walked out the door months ago, maybe even years, and yet you’ve kept up the farce that you actually give a shit about me. I could feel it, for fuck’s sake. Every time you looked at me, you would go quiet and I could see you sizing up all the possible exits in your head, looking for the one that made you look the best, where you would still get to be the victim and not have to face what you were doing. 

This isn’t the first time you’ve told me you need a bit of space, not by a long stretch. And every time you say it, it's just another lie on the tally. You seem to forget that I know you better than anyone has ever, or will ever, know you. I know the way you go quiet when you’re scared and get louder when you feel passionate about something. I know that you find it easier to shut yourself away and make self-deprecating jokes than to ask me to hold you. I don’t want you to go quiet on me, baby. You think leaving will fix this? It won’t. It will only make everything worse. We need each other, you still know that, right? 

I can’t accept you making me the problem in this situation. I know that I fucked up with Brett, but I am the only person who has ever seen you clearly and stuck around. Even your so-called best friends never call anymore, and they’ve known you since you were a kid. You’ve become a different person over the years, and all I’ve ever done is support that and you. And if you walk away now, that doesn’t mean you get to rewrite everything to suit what you want people to believe. You don’t get to pretend that what we had wasn’t real, or that I was some one night stand that got a little clingy and somehow stuck around for half your life. 

Please, baby, I’m asking you nicely. Come home to me. Come back to our bed. We don’t have to talk about it yet, I just need to know you’re still with me. 

-H x

Beneath the dormer window, Louis sighed and pulled one knee up close to his chest. He kept his other leg curled awkwardly under his bum, even though he could already feel it growing numb. The anticipation of the brutal pins and needles that always followed wasn’t enough of a threat to make him move. Frigid air pushed its way into the room from the open window, carrying the biting cleanliness of winter night. He let it wash over his exposed limbs, watching as goosebumps sprang up and peppered his flesh. As he brought his cigarette to his lips. the broken skin around his nails stung with the cold, the blood dry and hard now in the cracks and grooves of his fingers. He’d bitten them raw again, chewing past the bitter taste of the anti-biting polish his mum had left his room. Old habits die hard, apparently. 

The letter lay beside him on the step, taunting him with its very presence. He didn’t look directly at it, he couldn’t, because acknowledging it would give it too much power that he didn’t have to spare. He knew the weight of it by heart, the way it occupied a space inside of him without even trying. Louis hadn’t seen the tatty sheet of paper for years, and yet somehow it already felt like less of an object and more like a menacing presence in his adolescent bedroom. A spectre that had waited for him in the gaps of the floorboards, haunting him with the memory of his own poor choices. The literal monster under his bed. 

Louis turned his head and looked out of the window into the night, fighting the magnetic pull towards the letter. Autumn had been brutal, the winter already threatening before the leaves had had time to fall from the trees. The garden glittered with frost that split the darkness down the middle, the sky a scattered patchwork of stars, and the moon low and full. It all looked too perfect, orchestrated nature perfectly placed on an artist’s canvas. He leaned his shoulder into the window frame and exhaled the smoke slowly from his nostrils. It danced out into the dark, and a laugh escaped him at the sight of it; the sound was strained and gruff, as though he hadn’t used his voice for decades. Louis briefly wondered if this was how lunacy worked, if nothing made you unwell so much as it illuminated what was already there and dragged it out into the open where you couldn’t pretend you didn’t see it anymore. 

 He’d been caught once, still in his school uniform, smoking out of this very window. Louis remembered the electric taste of panic on the back of his tongue, hearing his mum stomping up the steep attic staircase, hollering his name as he scrambled to hide the evidence. He took one final drag on his cigarette and winced as the filter burned his bottom lip. He had started smoking them all the way recently, something his teenage self would never have admitted to. Back then it was cool to smoke it just below halfway, a quarter if you’d been asked to save someone on. It was a show of opulence amongst school kids, a completely pointless and frivolous act that somehow signalled your position on the hierarchy of coolness. He supposed this was the very thing that kept catching him off guard, how easily he slipped into the old shapes of himself. How natural it felt to be here again, in this room, unchanged and waiting for him like the time had fractured and stopped the day he left home. Like he was still wearing that shirt and tie with the too big school crest on the bottom. Like he hadn’t lived an entire lifetime since then. 

Dragging himself out of the past, Louis stubbed the cigarette out with careful precision and watched the soot mark below his window grow. The blackened circle on the brick had been there since the very first time, each illicit smoke darkening the hue in exactly the same spot like a ritual. With the butt safely discarded over next door’s fence, he pulled the window closed almost all the way, making sure the latch caught, and then stretched his legs out to get the blood flowing again. He’d learned his lesson many years ago, jumping to his feet before he could fully feel them and ending up on crutches for twelve weeks with a torn ligament and a broken foot.

Louis looked around his bedroom to pass the time; his old posters curled away from the walls at the edges, the paint slightly lighter beneath them. His notes and photos that had felt too precious to forget had been carefully blu-tacked around them, and the bookshelf was carelessly filled with old textbooks and childhood favourites slotted into the gaps. The shelf itself still leaned precariously to one side, a testament to old Ikea quality; he’d expected it to collapse at any minute more than ten years ago and yet it still stood strong, frozen in time. The desk was tucked under the lowest part of the sloping ceiling, still boasting a bright red ink stain; the memory of an exploding pen as he put the finishing touches to his GCSE technology coursework was still sore when he prodded at it. His entire childhood was here, preserved in amber, waiting still and solid in a forgotten life when Louis had believed that escape was permanent. 

He’d unexpectedly found the letter inside one of his old books. He had been laid on his bed earlier that day, seeking the sort of comfort that seemed entirely out of reach, when he had grabbed the dog-eared copy of Call Me By Your Name that he’d left in the top drawer of his bedside table. He’d read it to pieces when he was younger, pouring  more of himself into the pages with every return trip. He remembered wanting that kind of love to find him, something to sweep him off his feet and away from homophobic schoolboys and self-doubt. He’d drawn strength from it when he finally decided to embrace who he really was and come out to his peers.

He’d opened it without thinking, ready to find that same escapism he’d become addicted to at 15 years old. The familiar weight of the book in his hands, the annotations in the margins, the soft collapse of a spine that had been cracked again and again under the covers. He was ready for all that, excited for it even. But instead, something else had slipped free and landed on his chest. 

Louis didn’t have time to wonder what might be waiting for him. He wasn’t prepared for the blinding technicolour of memories and feelings and hurt that flooded through him harsh and fast. He had clambered to his feet, and stood there for too long before he bent to pick it up. And then the paper was burning his fingertips, and his pulse was thrumming in his ears hard enough to deafen him. His mum was calling up the stairs, coaxing him down for a dinner he wouldn’t eat, but her voice faded through invisible walls as it tried to reach him, the words shapeless and nonsensical. He fought through the panic and stole a breath, quickly folding the letter in half again and shoving it back between the pages of his book like a dirty secret.

He made it downstairs on shaky legs, a smile plastered across his pale face; he nodded along with the conversations and helped his siblings twirl the spaghetti round their forks, he answered his mum’s questions like everything hadn’t just ground to a halt. Louis pushed his own pasta around his plate, the mouthfuls that he actually managed tasteless and cloying. And every time the house creaked around them, Louis nervously glanced upwards, half expecting the ceiling to come crashing down with the weight of the truth. 

He hadn’t reread the letter until later that night, when he could be sure that everyone was asleep and that no one would bear witness to the inevitable breakdown. It was pointless, really; rereading it wasn’t necessary to remember how it had felt. The confusion came first, and the words seemed to shift as he moved through tenderness in one moment and sharpness in the next. His chest tightened, and his heart pushed back against his ribs as they closed in like prison walls. The fear crashed over his head in waves, that he might go back, that he could never go back. Louis had just wanted to get out before it was too late, even if he didn’t know what he was getting out of, and the conflict inside of him still smothered any rationality he’d managed to hold on to. But all of that was nothing compared to the true terror that ate away at him; he was, and always had been, powerless to the pull. 

The pins and needles tore at his skin, and Louis dragged his thumb across the edge of the letter, tracing the softened creases where other versions of himself had folded and unfolded it too many times. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, relishing the sting and metallic taste of blood that kept him inside of his body; he wouldn’t cry, not anymore. At least not properly anyway, the odd tear slipping loose didn’t count, not without the fanfare they had once warranted. With a soft, frustrated growl, Louis dashed them away anyhow, once they had cooled against his cheeks.

If he concentrated hard enough, it was easy to trick himself into believing that his tears weren’t about all of this anyway. They weren’t about him. He had only been thinking practically when he’d chosen a facility this far north, despite his entire life being in London now. It was just sensible, being close to his mum where she could take care of him to heart’s content, and not have to worry about him so much. It was a good choice, and that much was obvious from the way Jay had fussed over him since he arrived; filling the fridge with all his favourite foods, putting all of his appointments on the family calendar, insisting on rewashing and ironing all of his clothes so they were fresh for his ‘little break’.  She’d even kept his brother and sisters in line, forbidding them from bothering him despite the fact they hadn’t seen him in person since last Christmas. 

“You won’t be on your own, my darling,” she’d said, holding him close and smelling like home. Not this time.”

It had been a relief to let himself believe it, and to silently nod along with the reassurances. The optimism had come much easier than he’d anticipated; how could he not look forward to a few months away from it all, a reset for his body and soul. His city friends had been supportive and enthusiastic, talking nonstop about road trips to see him and making a weekend out of it. They’d reassured him that a trip to the grippy sock ward was the perfect relatable content for social media, that it was chic even. They’d waxed lyrical about how it would be amazing for him to get out of London for a bit, and take a couple of months off work. Louis had laughed along, making himself the butt of the dark jokes to agree with, and reassure them right back. He’d taken the weight of it, shifted the responsibility of their shock back onto himself, absorbed their sadness and fear. In fact, he’d done so well that he managed to convince everyone that it wasn’t a big deal, that actually it was proactive and responsible and above all, temporary. It hadn’t occurred to him that ‘temporary’ was the perfect dog whistle for people who had no intentions of putting any effort into you. 

With a cough, Louis pushed those thoughts away. He was finally able to trust his legs to hold him up, so he made his way back to bed, the letter pinched between forefinger and thumb like a dirty rag. He’d only been home for two days, there was no way of knowing yet whether his friends had truly faded away the second the train left King’s Cross, or whether they were just busy letting life in. Instead, Louis focused back on his bedroom, and searched for himself in the solid familiarity of who he used to be. His teenage self, who had believed in things fiercely and without irony, who had dreamed of an adulthood with this kind of intensity, back when he didn’t understand a single thing about being truly happy.

The letter tugged relentlessly at his attention again, and Louis gave into it, his eyes moving around the shapes of the jagged writing he knew so well. It hadn’t been written as an ending, or not an intentional one at least. That much had been clear then, and it was still just as clear now. The letter had been a barbed tether, thrown out in desperation to snag on his skin, just enough weight in it to drag him back in even while he bled and tore. It had made self-preservation feel like betrayal, as though walking away was proof that his feelings had never been genuine. If he wanted to save himself, then he had to accept being cast as a liar for the rest of his life, and to always wonder what the people he no longer saw would think of him. That had been extremely hard for Louis to let go off, and the worst of it was that he didn’t think Harry had done all of this consciously. Every word he’d spilled onto the page came from the same place as everything between them ever had; their fear dressed up as certainty, their hunger for each other masquerading as true love. 

Closing his eyes, Louis leaned his head against the wall and breathed in through his nose, and out through his mouth. Sniff the flowers, blow out the candles. Sniff the flowers, blow out the candles. His old life flashed before him, burned onto the inside of his lids like a perpetual nightmare; he fought to ground himself with the techniques he’d learned long before he made the decision to become an inpatient. Back then, he’d still believed that coping was something you did alone, and that healing was an urban myth peddled to troubled teens and new mothers. Tomorrow, he would go somewhere designed to slow him down and strip away his hiding places. He thought, not for the first time, about locked doors and rigid routines, of willingly handing over a piece of his autonomy in the name of getting better. Louis felt his stomach flip, and the quiet warmth of humiliation that came with needing professional help. He tried not to think about the way his life felt like it was narrowing, reducing itself to the bare minimum of survival at a time when his friends were getting married and having children. 

Eventually, he was as calm as he was ever going to be, and Louis opened his eyes. Without really looking at it, he folded the letter carefully, creasing it along the lines he already knew by heart. And just like before, he slid it back into the book, closed the cover, and placed it on his bedside table with deliberate care. He already knew he would take it with him tomorrow, slipped into the suitcase he’d already packed that was waiting by his bedroom door. He wouldn’t be strong enough to leave it behind a second time. Louis turned his head and took one last look out at the sky, the moon hanging there like an accusation. He felt observed, so he grabbed the remote for the blinds and watched as they slowly came down and clunked into place. He stayed where he was a moment longer, and let the deeper silence that came with darkness settle into his bones. Then he let out a deep breath, pulled the covers up to his shoulders, and turned out the lamp. 

❧

He had never seen a car park so clean. That was Louis’ first thought as his mum carefully pulled into Edenlock Retreat. It felt like ages since they’d entered through the locked gates, the little Yaris carefully winding up the crushed stone path surrounded by greenery as far as they could see. He’d tried to take it all in and map out his new surroundings; he’d seen a lake with a rickety bridge over it and what looked like an adventure playground neatly contained by a chain link fence. The thought of children here was eerie, and Louis vowed there and then that his younger siblings would never get to play on it. The second lot of gates had been manned by a cheery looking man whose belly strained against the black wool of his uniform. He’d waved them through, only briefly checking his list for the day, and then they were pulling into a bay, and the hospital was looming over them. And Louis had never seen a car park so clean.

There was no litter caught up in the wind, no oil stains left behind in the bays. The bins weren’t overflowing, or melted on the top from last-minute cigarettes. The crushed stone had given way to perfectly smooth tarmac, boldly black with pristine white lines that were perfectly placed. The entire car park was surrounded by nearly trimmed hedges that stretched beyond the high metal fences surrounding the gardens. The hospital itself was a Frankenstein of a building, the old stone facade meshed with modern glass extensions and gleaming metal; it looked more like a business hotel than a loony bin. 

Jay killed the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. She unclipped her seatbelt as the dashboard ticked quietly, the heat leaving the car with every passing second. Louis followed suit and let the belt drag itself slowly back into the retractor, reverting to his childhood in the way that he followed his mum’s every move. He pretended not to notice when she turned to look at him, and instead focused his attention on a tired-looking member of staff leaving their shift. 

“Well,” Jay said breathlessly, her sadness masked with faux joviality that didn’t reach her eyes, “it’s not as bad as I thought it might be. It looks quite nice, actually, doesn’t it?”

Louis stared straight ahead, willing himself to believe what his mum was saying. The windows were wide and reflective, stopping any outsiders from seeing what was going on beyond them. They caught hold of the wintery, grey sky and somehow softened it, making it feel more peaceful than bleak. If he squinted, he could almost pretend he was waiting outside of a fancy spa hotel, ready for the robe and slippers. That he could walk through those doors and ask for a hot herbal tea and a massage appointment. He could imagine people coming here for a relaxing weekend instead of…this. 

“Yeah,” he whispered back, not trusting his voice to hold out. “It looks alright.” 

One of Jay’s hands still rested on the steering wheel, and her fingers drummed out a brisk pattern that gave away the torment she felt inside. She nodded too quickly when Louis spoke, anxious for his reply, like perhaps if he had disagreed she might have shifted back into gear and driven him home. 

“You’ve got your charger, haven’t you? And that book you got me to order for you? You said that you wanted to bring that book.”

“Oh shit, I think I left the book on my desk.” He couldn’t hide the genuine disappointment, but it was more about forgetting something his mum had gotten to make herself feel better than actually missing the book itself. “But I’ve got my new ridiculously short charger cable, so at least I can’t hang myself over it.” He attempted to laugh, but it came out as more of a strangled sob. 

“And your nice jumper? Y’know, that blue one that Granny bought for you last Christmas because she said it matched your eyes? It’ll be cold in there, I imagine. Hospitals always are.” Jay chose to ignore his poor attempt at humour, or maybe she hadn’t even noticed it. Either way, Louis was grateful. 

“It’s not that kind of hospital, mum.” 

He knew that was being overly sensitive and snappy, and he didn’t like himself for it, but now that he was actually here it was getting harder and harder to keep his composure. He wanted to regress, to crawl into his mum’s lap and beg her to take him home. But the part of him that still wanted to protect her knew that he needed to be strong now more than ever. For both of them. Jay swallowed a sob, the tail end of it pushing through her tightly closed lips in a stuttering gasp. Louis flicked his head around to look at her, regretting it the second he saw the soft apology in her eyes. 

“You know what I mean, baby,” she said quietly, reaching across the gear stick and covering his hand with hers. 

He did, he knew it very well. She was a mother above everything else, and now she was bringing her first born to a psychiatric facility and handing him over to strangers to take care of when he was the most ill he’d ever been in his life. It went against nature, regardless of whether it was the best thing to do or not. She wanted to be the one to take care of him, to fix whatever was broken in his heart; to admit that she wasn’t cut out for that must have felt like a failure in her eyes. Louis knew that Jay had spent hours researching Edenlock, Googling it at two in the morning, reading every review, every news article, every forum post. She’d devoured every scrap of information she could get her hands on before she let go of the compulsion to keep him close. He’d caught her at it still the very first night he was home; he walked past her bedroom door on his way to the bathroom, and when he’d peeked through the gap the first thing he saw was his mother’s tears illuminated by the glow of her screen in the otherwise dark room. It had driven the reality of all this home in the most jarring way. This wasn’t just his pain, and he wasn’t doing this just for himself. She deserved a life without worry too. 

“I’ll be fine, mum, I promise,” he said, forcing his tone up an octave and squeezing Jay’s hand with a certainty he couldn’t quite feel yet. That was the part he was supposed to play now; quietly accepting and reassuring, a balm to her deepest fears. It was obvious she didn’t entirely buy it, but the furrows in her brow softened just slightly. “It’s only three months. A little reset, that’s all.” 

A little reset, like Louis was a glitching laptop that just needed switching off and on again to run smoothly. Self-soothing at its finest.  It was ridiculous and he didn’t want to think too hard about it, so before he could change his mind, Louis reached for the car door and pushed it all the way out. After an hour of driving with the windows up, the cold air flooded into the car, or he supposed, the warm air rushed out. The wind was sharper than he’d expected, and as Louis stepped onto the tarmac his eyes started to water. His mum was out of the car a split second later, quickly coming round and opening the boot, fussing with the handle on his suitcase and needlessly checking that the zip hadn’t burst. He stood uselessly by the car, rifling through his pockets for his cigarettes and praying that he could stomach it. 

“Shit!” Jay called out from behind the boot lid, his suitcase thumping onto the ground by her feet. “It’s heavier than it looks. What have you got in here, bricks?!” She chuckled nervously and pulled out the extending handle to drag the case around to where Louis stood. 

“Just my clothes, mum,” he muttered through chattering teeth. Louis raised the cigarette to his lips and lit it, barely taking a draw. His other hand stayed by his side, clenched into a fist that felt like safety but did nothing for the tight anxiety in his throat. 

“And books, I bet? You always did pack too many books, even when you were a kid. I remember when we all went to Salou, and you packed a different book for every day of the holiday. I had to pay for excess baggage because you were threatening to throw your toiletries away.” 

Louis shrugged even though he wanted to laugh, and reached out to take his case from her. “Never know what I’ll  be in the mood for. At least this place has a library for when I finish these.” 

He wanted to appreciate Jay’s attempt at normality, but in all honesty it just grated on his already raw nerves. He didn’t want to be reminded of his childhood, of a time when he wasn’t a victim of his own psyche. It might be easier if she would just tell him he was pathetic. But she just smiled back at him, properly this time, and for a second it felt like they were waiting on the platform at the train station, or in the departure lounge of an airport, and Louis was off on another adventure somewhere hot and exciting. Temporary. She reached out across the gap, and he slipped his hand into hers without thinking. The gesture felt uncannily timeless, not childish or grown up, but something that existed out of age altogether. There was something profoundly comforting about it, because for those few seconds it took for them to walk across the carpark he wasn’t a patient, or a problem to be solved. He was just her son, and he carried the quiet certainty that as long as Jay Tomlinson was breathing, there would always be somewhere he belonged. 

The automatic doors slid open as they approached them, letting out a soft whoosh of air that smelled faintly of disinfectant and something starchy. Overcooked vegetables, maybe, like a school dinner. The heating unit above the door blasted them, ruffling their hair and sending a warm shiver down Louis’ spine. The second door buzzed and then swung open towards them, and the woman behind the reception desk was already on her feet and smiling over at them before it settled back into the frame. It felt like they were in a dentist’s waiting room, all soft lighting and neutral colours, with a low sofa in one corner and an impeccably clean tropical fish tank in the other. Louis’ eyes landed on a bowl of sweets on the desk in expensive looking wrappers; the urge to grab a handful tingled in his belly, but he fought back against the need to ruin the illusion being forced down his throat. 

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked, looking between Louis and Jay with a careful smile. 

Jay let go of him, and for a second Louis felt completely untethered. But then he felt her hand brush lightly against his back, guiding him forward in that quiet, encouraging way that mothers have. He stayed exactly where he was, his legs heavier than rocks and every last scrap of his bravery left outside the locked door. She didn’t push it, and after parting him reassuringly, she stepped around him and up to the desk.

The receptionist’s expression softened into something less professional, more guarded, after Jay introduced herself and then Louis. Here for voluntary admission. She gestured them over to sit by the fish tank, and they sat side by side on the small sofa. Louis pressed his thigh into his mum’s, and she pressed right back, a solid enough presence to keep him grounded without overwhelming him. She was a fantastic mother, and he didn’t tell her that enough. He couldn’t tell her that now. 

“You’ll text me when you can, won’t you?” she asked quietly, the insecurity creeping in as their time together shortened. 

“Yeah, mum, course,” he replied just as quietly. 

The clock on the wall ticked on regardless, stealing precious seconds for them one by one, and it felt like a betrayal every time his eyes tracked the hand. Goodbyes always became inevitable, the feeling approaching before anyone stood up to leave, and Louis hated it. Everything was the same for now, his mum was still sitting beside him, his case was still closed, no one had led him away. But he could still feel it hovering behind their words where it waited for a gap big enough to step into. 

“And if you need anything, anything at all…”

“I know, mum.” He grabbed her hand again in an attempt to reassure her, but he knew it only came across as panicked. 

Jay’s palm was warm, slightly rough from years of washing dishes, and folding laundry, and doing a hundred other small things that no one ever noticed. The realisation rattled something loose in his chest, and Louis swallowed his regret like a dry pill.

“I know you’re probably sick of hearing it, but you won’t be on your own with this. You’ve got me and your brother and sisters, and you’ve got all those fancy friends of yours that can visit from London. And I think Auntie…”

A man in his early thirties pushed his way through the locked door beside the reception desk, catching Jay’s attention and saving Louis from certain meltdown. 

“Lewis?” he asked, although his tone suggested he had no doubt. 

“It’s Louis,” he and Jay replied in unison, smiling shakily at each other.

“Sorry,” Jay chuckled, an apologetic look flashing over her face. “It happens all the time.” 

“My apologies, Louis,” the man replied with enough grace to look a little embarrassed. “I’m Liam, I’ll be taking you through your admission and getting you settled on the ward.” He stepped back, opening up a clear path to the door, but leaving just enough space between them to make Louis feel like it was his choice. 

Louis nodded and offered a weak smile; anything to avoid having to speak around the lump in his throat and, ultimately, embarrassing himself on his first day. He stood automatically, patting himself down to make sure he hadn’t accidentally concealed a weapon in his pockets. He extended the handle on his case, smoothed his clothes down, and tried to ignore the rising panic that threatened to consume him. Jay got to her feet beside him, all nervous energy and movement again. It was impossible not to notice the way her hands trembled as she reached for Louis, smoothing his clothes again even though they didn’t need it. 

Without warning, his fingers grabbed at her wrist, and held her hand in place over his heart. Louis’ bottom lip trembled, and his eyes flooded with tears. “Mum? I’m scared.”

Jay closed her eyes for a moment, bowing her head against the force of his pain. Every motherly instinct she possessed was screaming at her to fix this, to gather up her baby and carry him somewhere safe, somewhere beyond the locked doors and assessment and the potent smell of his fear. But there was nowhere to carry him now.  A tear broke loose and tracked down her cheek, washing a pale line in the make up she’d carefully applied that morning. With a steadying breath, Jay opened her eyes again. Louis saw his own eyes looking back at him, and he searched them for an answer that no one could give him. 

“You’re going to be okay, my love,” she said weakly, her thumb brushing over his fingers that held her in place. “You’ve always been so strong, but you don’t have to do that here. You can hand it all over. You can be safe.” 

Louis nodded, closing his own eyes and letting the tears fall. Jay turned to Liam, but Louis refused to let go of her hand. He wasn’t ready yet. 

“You’ll take care of him for me, won’t you?” 

“We will,” Liam replied gently. “You’re welcome to call the ward later if you’d like an update.” 

She nodded, biting down on her lip to stop a sob from escaping. Then she pulled Louis into a tight hug, the kind she’d always given him when he was hurt that pressed the air out of his lungs. “Be good,” she whispered. “Do what they ask, and text me as soon as you’re allowed.” 

“I will, mum, I promise.” He clutched her just as hard, his fingers sinking into the soft wool of her coat, his nose buried in the sweet shampoo smell of her hair. 

When Jay let go her eyes were still glassy, but she was smiling at him. Louis forced himself to smile back, slowly unpeeling himself from her warmth. It felt final, and he hated it. They’d said goodbye to each other hundreds of times; rushed mornings when he was already late for school, carparks before lads trips when she begged him to be careful, out on their drive the day he moved to London when everything inside of him was already beginning to splinter. Even that day, there had still been excitement tangled up with their sadness, the promise of a future that waited on the other side of his journey. This felt different in the most devastating way. This time Louis didn’t feel like he was leaving for something better, he felt like he was being left behind by it. 

“Are you ready, Louis?” Liam asked, gesturing towards the same door he had stepped through. 

“As I’ll ever be.” Louis grabbed the handle of his case and took a couple of steps towards Liam. “Bye, mum,” he called over his shoulder, staring at a space to the left of her head for the sake of his fleeting sanity. 

“Bye, baby,” she called back, her voice catching on the pet name. 

He turned away and followed dutifully behind Liam, resisting the urge to look back. He was just barely in control of himself, and he couldn’t risk losing it all now. The doors clicked open with a mechanical hum, and Liam stepped to one side to allow Louis through first. There was a quiet second where nothing happened, and then it locked behind them with a clunk that he felt in the pit of his stomach. He chanced a look through the frosted glass at either side of the door, and watched the shape of his mum leaving the building. Everything on the other side of that door suddenly felt very far away, and it was in that moment that Louis realised there really was no going back. 

❧

The corridor was narrower than the reception, the walls painted a grubby matt magnolia that reminded Louis of a smoker’s house. It absorbed the light, creating sharp corners and edges where there weren’t any. The floor felt different under his feet too; it wasn’t carpet and it wasn’t quite vinyl, but it was something firm and hardwearing that squeaked softly with every step. Louis adjusted his grip on the suitcase handle, aware of how much louder everything felt here. His breathing. His footsteps. His thighs brushing together when he walked. The faint buzz of electricity from the strip lights overhead. 

“Before we go any further,” Liam said, slowing his pace, “I just want to talk you through exactly what’s going to happen, alright?” 

Louis nodded. Talking was good, talking meant more time. 

“We’ll get your admission finalised first,” Liam continued. “I’ll introduce you to the nurse in charge today, Ellie. There’ll be a quick bag check, some basic observations, and then we’ll talk through any meds that you’re already taking. We can use this time to have a chat about what you need from us while you’re here.”

Louis swallowed, and made a non-committal noise that could have been agreement. 

“Nothing too invasive or scary, Louis, I promise. You can ask questions at any point, nobody is expecting you to know exactly how this works. And nothing happens without somebody explaining it first,” Liam added. “That’s a promise.” 

“Okay,” Louis replied softly. His mouth was dry already, his lips sticking to his teeth. He didn’t retort that a bag check certainly felt invasive, or that being admitted to a psych ward was scary. He didn’t want to give Liam any reason to feel suspicious about him, he wanted to be good like he’d promised his mum he would be. If he was good, he would get better, and then he wouldn’t send her to an early grave with some stress-induced disease. 

“I’ll take you down to Ashmere after that and introduce you to everyone. We’ll make sure there’s some lunch put aside for you, and then you can have a look at your room and get settled in. Visiting hours are restricted on this ward generally, and we don’t allow new patients to have visitors until we’re sure that it will help your healing and not hinder it. Same with your phone, we’ll keep it until you’re signed off on and then you can have it back. Your mum will be able to ring the main desk later if she wants to know how you’re getting on.”

“Right.”

As they approached the end of the corridor, the smell of something meaty and overboiled hit Louis like a solid wall. It drifted out of the door, propped half open to let some of the heat escape, the kind of aroma that clung to your clothes long after you left the room.

“Is that… lunch?” he asked with as much politeness as he could muster, a clenched fist pressed against his lips to hold the nausea at bay. 

Liam smiled sympathetically and ushered him away quickly. “It is. You’ve timed it really well, actually. Routine is important to us here.” There was a beat of silence, and then he continued, “We have the main kitchen out here for big meals that get brought to the ward. But, every ward also has its own kitchenette where you can add things to the shopping list that you want, or store your own snacks.”

As he passed, Louis caught a glimpse through the gap; stainless steel work surfaces, steam rising and wetting the ceiling, staff bustling around one another like clockwork dolls on a cuckoo clock. Someone laughed, rough-edged and genuine. A pan clattered to the floor, and another voice cursed it. The normality of it felt wrong in a place like this, jarring, like Louis had accidentally taken a wrong turn into someone else’s days. 

They came to a stop outside another door; this one didn’t open automatically, so Liam scanned his ID badge and pushed it open manually. He held it open for Louis to step through, and it felt unnatural for him to just go first and not say ‘after you’. His mum had drummed manners into Louis and his siblings so rigidly, and now they were going to waste. 

“This is the admission room, or nursing station,” Liam announced, offering a genuine smile that wrinkled his nose to the blonde woman inside. “I’ll hand you over to Ellie, she’s coordinating admissions today.”

The desk Ellie sat behind was cluttered with files and loose sheets of paper. A half-empty cup of coffee sat at her elbow, and her computer screen was framed with brightly coloured sticky notes. She looked up at Louis, one hand on the mouse, the other resting on her chin with one finger stroking over her lip. Her face was open and earnest, barely made up but still fresh and pretty. She looked about the same age as Louis, possibly even a little younger. He immediately wished he hadn’t noticed, the comparison of their circumstances felt unfair to both of them. 

“Louis?” she asked with a warm smile, already reaching for his slim file from her in-tray. “Come and have a seat behind here with me.”

He moved awkwardly around the desk, dragging his case behind him when the wheels snagged on the loose carpet. “Where can I…”

“Oh- just leave that there by the photocopier ‘til we’re ready for it.”

Louis did as he was told, spending an extra second lining it up neatly so it wasn’t in the way. He dropped into the plastic chair beside Ellie, and tucked his hands under his thighs to try and stop the fidgeting. 

“Before we start,” Ellie said softly, turning towards him and crossing her legs, “I just need to ask, are you safe right now?”

The question felt loaded and weird because, really, how unsafe could he be behind the locked doors of a psychiatric hospital? Almost as soon as the thought grew legs, Louis decided that wasn’t a rabbit hole he wanted to follow. 

“Erm, yes.” He cleared his throat and tried to sound sure of himself. “I’m… safe.”

“Have you had any thoughts about harming yourself today?” 

He hesitated just long enough to sound as though he’d genuinely considered it without causing alarm. “Not today, no.” He bit back the ‘but it's still early’ that wanted to tag itself onto the end. There was a time and a place for his dark humour and he could tell this certainly wasn’t it. 

Ellie smiled and nodded, dipping her head to scribble something on his admission form. “Thanks for telling me that, Louis.” 

She moved through the rest of the questions quickly and efficiently; name, date of birth, address, next of kin, allergies. All the information he’d given them multiple times before, presented to him again like an exam designed to catch him out in a lie. Louis watched as his life was reduced into small, black-lined boxes. 

“And you understand why you’re here?” Ellie asked, making eye contact for the first time in a while. 

He let out a breath and brought his hands together in his lap. “Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was voluntary, so…”

“Could you have a little try at telling me why you’re here, in your own words?”

This was the moment he had dreaded, and it was here, and he had to say it all out loud. Louis had naively thought that this part would come much later, in a dim room with a chaise lounge and a stuffy therapist. He watched a bead of cold coffee roll down the outside of Ellie’s mug, waiting until it touched the desk before he spoke again. 

“I wasn’t coping,” he admitted. “I thought I was, but… I wasn’t. I kept telling myself I just needed to get through the next thing. The next week. The next night. I’ve been doing that for years, since I was about 20 I’d say. It’s always worked for me, or at least it’s worked in the sense that I could function. And then all of a sudden it started feeling like there wasn’t a next one to get through.”

Her pen paused, the rhythmic scratching gone and leaving silence behind. Ellie looked up at him properly; there wasn’t any unkindness or judgement in her gaze, but Louis could feel her scanning him professionally. He felt exposed and a little silly, like maybe he was wasting everyone’s time coming here, and taking up a space that someone else needed more. He felt like a fraud of a patient, a pathetic loser that couldn’t handle being a little sad without turning into a whiny bitch. Some people had it so much worse than he did. 

“So coming here, how does that feel?” Ellie’s voice dragged him back into the room, putting an end to the self-deprecating spiral he was heading for. 

“Like I’ve been grounded.” Louis huffed out a laugh, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. “But also like… maybe I should have done this sooner? Not let it get so bad, y’know. And also like, maybe I’m a fraud and I don’t actually need to be here?” 

“A lot of people feel that way, Louis, all muddled up and confused about the hows, and the whys, and the ifs. It makes sense, because coming here is a shock to the system. No one ever imagines themselves in this position because unfortunately, there is a lot of othering that goes on around mental health and psychiatric treatment, even in this day and age. But actually, taking the steps to get better and live a full life is an extremely brave and kind thing to do for yourself.”

Leaving him to digest her words, Ellie closed his file and stood up. She dragged his case over, lifting it onto the table behind them. “I need to take a look in your bag now. Is that alright with you?” she asked, already snapping on gloves.

Louis nodded, and watched as she started to unzip it. It felt uncomfortably intimate, watching this stranger than knew everything about rifling through the clothes his mum had folded for him. She was seeing his books, and the kind of pants he wore. She was moving his favourite hoodie with the frayed cuffs to look methodically through everything, then returning it to its place as well as she could. She had her hands inside his shoes, even the ones he never wore socks with. When she came to the tin of mints he’d carried around since he was a teen, she quietly folded them into her palm and turned towards him. 

“These are fine, but we do need to keep them behind the desk for now. You can ask for them whenever you want to have one.” 

It was hard to understand, but he still agreed with a smile and a tiny nod. It was just another small part of him that he had to relinquish in the name of healing, and in that moment he doubted that he would ever find it in himself to go and ask if he was allowed a mint like a kid. He turned away and listened to the sound of his case being closed again.

“I’ll need you to give me your phone out of your pocket, love,” Ellie added as she reached for a small plastic box and dropped his mints into it. She tore one of his name labels off the sheet in the front of his file and stuck it haphazardly on the lid. “And I do have to take your shoelaces, too. Just procedure, a precaution for you and the others on the ward.” 

Without a word, Louis turned off his phone and dropped it into the plastic box, and then began untying his shoes. His fingers felt clumsy and alien, his cheeks flushed with the indignity of it all. He unthreaded the laces and quickly handed them over, too aware of how naked his trainers looked without them, how ungainly they felt on his feet. 

“Thank you,” Ellie said quietly, dropping them into the box beside his other belongings. “We’ll keep them safe until you get them back.” As though they were precious. Louis supposed that in a place like this, they were. 

Like magic, Liam appeared back at the open door and knocked half-heartedly. “Are you two all done?” 

Ellie nodded, and then turned to Louis and smiled. “All done. Welcome to Ashmere, Louis.” She handed his case over to Liam, and went back to sit at her desk. 

He scrambled to his feet and muttered an awkward ‘thank you’ as he stepped back around the desk. Louis rubbed his thumb against the opposite palm, pressing down on the pressure points the way he’d been taught three therapists ago. He followed after Liam dutifully, looking around outside the door and trying to remember which way they were supposed to be walking. 

“I’ll show you to the ward common room now, and get you settled. They’ll be serving lunch soon, and then we’ll get you in your room.” Someone somewhere screamed a string of profanities, and a door buzzed open or closed. “All the bedrooms are private, and we do discourage people from congregating in each other’s rooms. No more than two patients at a time, and the door must remain open.”

A television murmured with canned laughter, and a cup rattled back into a saucer. As the common room grew closer, Louis’ thumb pressed harder and harder into his palm. This was it, no more pretending he was just passing through.