Kate Katie,

Remember that time that you snuck out through your bedroom window to prove how rebellious you were, when we all knew that you weren't. But your mum caught you because she was in the garden for a puff, then you ended up grounded, ruining your career in rebellion forever. We had great times you and me, and I fucked it all up didn't I? I guess I was wrong about doing things the way I did, doesn't cosmo say breaking up with someone over the phone is punishable by death? I don't even remember why I did it, really why. Maybe I just thought I had to, we couldn't work out or something. Liam and Louis do a great job at it though, so lately i've been bashing my head against the wall over how I treated you. I thought it was the right thing, sorry I made the wrong choice.

Harry x

He crumpled up the letter, tossing the ball of paper to the floor so it joined the others. The ugly beige carpet looked like a hail storm had been through the room, various sized bits littered as many surfaces as they could. He couldn't do this, he was just torturing himself by writing all of these meaningless words (as in words that had lost all meaning) in the form of a letter, ones he knew he wouldn't be sending.

But every time he tried to stop, the pen lurched forward like it had a mind of its own. He scribbled furiously in between the lines, dear Kate, dear Katie, my dearest Katie, Kate Fairfield, sincerely, sincerely yours, always Harry. He brought up memory after memory that they had shared together, alone.

He didn't notice the theme, it was things that they did alone. He didn't recognize that they seemed to act like a normal, teenage couple in private but when they were together in public you could fit two people between the distance they kept. There was no kissing in public, she didn't care for PDA. There was no hand holding, it felt awkward and forced. They were friends to those around them, but so much more than that behind closed doors.

He crumpled another sheet, ready to rip the curls from atop his head, it only he wasn't wearing a stupid hat.

"Whoa," he heard behind him, just after the sound of a clicking door came. "What's all this then?"

Harry grumbled something under his breath, waving the pen around wildly like a Neanderthal who had just discovered fire.

Louis only raised an eyebrow, picking up a few snowball shaped papers to unfold and read them. "Uh Harry, who's Kate?"

He knew that Louis didn't read beyond the starting point of the letter, if he had he wouldn't be asking such a stupid question.

He grumbled again, and still no coherent words seemed to leave him.

Carefully walking around to the side Harry was perched on, afraid that it he moved too quickly some prehistoric tool would come flying towards his chest. The sound of paper crunched beneath his feet like autumn leaves but with sharp edges, reminding him of what he was truly stepping on. Cautiously taking a seat, Louis shrugged his shoulders before motioning towards the sheet of half written on paper. "Harry, mate what's going on?"

He had been asked that question so much lately, but with the last seven days of virtual silence it seemed like he was being asked for the first time. It didn't annoy him, like it would have not so long ago. He didn't want to shove the only one who was still talking to him off the side of the bed, putting the final nail in his coffin and alienating everyone.

"Louis I...there's this," trailing off, Harry sighed. He shoved his face in his hands, shaking his head. "Everything's just a mess."

He had gone crazy, he thought to himself then. This was the only explanation as to why he was manically writing letters to this girl, who would have rather seen him hit by a car than have to look at him for one more minute.

There was a pause, Louis wasn't sure how to respond and Harry was too busy counting the stars behind his eyelids.

When he raised his head, Harry looked at his friend with the saddest, most desperate eyes. "How do you do it?" He asked quietly.

"Do what?"

"How do you and Eleanor do it? Isn't hard to be together but not really talk about her?"

Louis sighed, clamping a hand on his shoulder with some sympathy. "It isn't so bad, it's not like I couldn't rave about her if I wanted I just respect our relationship, and her. My private life is private, I care enough about her...I love her, she didn't sign up for what I did. Why, do you have someone you want to talk about Harry?" A smirk crossed his features then, fading as quickly as it came when he saw his friend's face.

"I screwed up, badly. I don't know what to do Louis, I think I've gone completely mad."

He went into the complete story, how things ended with Kate, how he found her on Facebook, the text messages, the letter and finally the meeting just a week ago.

He laid out the reasons (or excuses if you were Liam) why he was being so weird, why he had snapped when they cornered him in another intervention.

Louis cringed, the whole story so unlike Harry. But it shed light on all of the things the boys had been wondering about.

"I don't know what to do," Harry added, his voice so low Louis had to strain his ears.

Sighing, he sat for a moment to gather his thoughts before responding with the best advice he could give. "I think you should apologize to Liam especially, but also to Zayn and Niall. Then you should just give Kate time, let everything settle down a little bit before you extend your hand to apologize. If you force it on her now, she's going to resent you even more."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, pursing his lips before he raised his head to look at his best friend.

"I already knew you were sorry Harry, you don't have to apologize to me," Louis responded as bubbly as he could, clamping his hand on his shoulder again. "Now just say that to the rest of them and everything will be good again."

But would they be good again? Maybe with the lads, Harry thought, but was that all he wanted? He didn't want all of the tension between them, avoiding one another unless they were in front of a camera or an audience. He was worried the longer that went on the more people would start being able to see through the cracks. It weighed heavily on him, but not as much as Katie did.

He didn't know if he could listen to Louis' advice, there was something deep in his belly that was pushing him to sort things out with her. It was just a case of letting that win out over common sense.