Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I killed him.”

The wind answers before I can. Blows sharp and wild like it already knew tonight would end like this—with blood spilled, a heartbeat silenced, a soul slipping off to whatever waits past the edge of breath.

The moon watches from behind a haze, too dim to bless this kind of night. And the stars—cowards—hide behind thick clouds. No witness but me.

And him.

A boy. My boy.

He stands on my parents porch, soaked in the dark, hoodie clinging to him like it’s holding him up. My hoodie. The one he stole from my drawer a month ago. The sleeves are wet and darker now, streaked with red. His hands shake, fingers twitching like they haven’t yet realized what they’ve done. Or maybe they have.

He doesn’t cry. Not yet. But I know it’s coming. By morning, the flood will break. For now, it’s just shock—cold, quiet, cruel.

“No man will hit me again,” he says, voice hollow. “No one.”

I have no doubt he has made sure of that.

I don’t say anything. What can I say?

He’s standing here in the dead of night, a boy I’ve kissed a hundred times and memorized twice as many. His eyes—those fire-lit, green-gold eyes—are wide and too dry. His curls are damp, sticking to his forehead. He looks like a ghost already. Or maybe a survivor.

My hand tightens on the doorframe. Not to slam it. Just to anchor myself. To keep from shaking like he is.

“He’s dead,” he says again. Quieter this time.

I know who he means. I don’t ask.

I swallow hard. My mouth tastes like copper and regret. I’m not angry—not with him. I could never be angry with him. Because I know him. I know what his hands are capable of. I know they play guitar, and twist the strings on juice boxes, and once held mine so tight I thought my heart might bruise. I know they were never made for violence.

But tonight, they made an exception.

“Say something,” he pleads, voice breaking like the rest of him might follow.

I read his face again, even though I’ve read it a thousand times before. It’s all still there, beneath the horror: the stubbornness, the hurt, the hope.

“What do you need?” I ask, softly.

Because no matter what he’s done—he still came here. He still found his way to me.

He blinks. Just once. And then, “A cuddle.”

And God. Of course that’s what he needs.

The moment I shift, opening my arms, he collapses into them. All six feet of him trembling like a kicked dog. I wrap him up anyway, chin tucked to his shoulder, arms around his ribs, like I can hold the pieces of him together with just my touch.

He’s taller than me, broader too, but in this moment he feels impossibly small. Like someone scared of being seen. Or worse—not being seen.

His fingers curl into my shirt, twisting in the fabric like he needs proof I’m real. It was white when I put it on. Now it carries the evidence of what he’s done. Two matching stains—one over my heart, one on my shoulder.

I don’t flinch.

I step back just enough to pull him inside. To close out the wind, the night, the noise. No sirens yet. I pray they stay silent.

And when I have him in the quiet, I hold him tighter. The kind of hold that doesn’t ask questions. The kind I’ve only ever used on him.

Because he’s more than a boy to me. He always has been. I don’t need stars or signs or tarot cards to tell me that.

“I’m scared,” he whispers, voice shaking like a match about to burn out.

“I know,” I say, forehead against his. “Me too.”

He exhales, ragged. “I killed a man. I watched his eyes go soft. Like… like he stopped being someone. And then he was just… gone.”

“It was self-defense,” I tell him. I wasn’t there, but I know. I know this boy, and he would rather run than raise a fist. Would rather break than become what broke him.

That’s enough for now. He doesn’t have to tell me everything. Not tonight.

Tonight, he just has to be held.

And I’ll hold him for as long as he needs. Until the blood dries. Until the shaking stops. Until the world decides what to do with a boy who survived.

The warmth of the house wraps around us, a stark contrast to the cold horror he’s dragged in from the night. I can feel the rhythm of his heart against my chest, a frantic drumbeat that slowly, incrementally, begins to steady. My own heart aches with an intensity that threatens to shatter me, but I hold it together for him. I smooth his damp hair back from his forehead, tracing the lines of his face that are both achingly familiar and terribly new. The boy who just confessed to taking a life is still the boy who needs somewhere to land.

I hold him like it’s only us in this world.

And God, I wish it was.

If it were, maybe he wouldn’t have blood on his hands and bruises hidden beneath his clothes. Maybe his heart wouldn’t be cracked down the middle like a window hit by a stone, just barely holding together. Maybe he wouldn’t be here, trembling in my arms like a boy who broke something sacred just to save himself.

But this isn’t our world. It never has been.

We’re standing in my parents’ living room. The same living room where I learned to walk. Where I lost my first tooth. Where my mum still leaves the lamp on because she hates the dark. And down the hall—barely twenty feet away—four kids are fast asleep. My little sister’s. Innocent, untouched by this kind of night. Still dreaming about dragons or football or whatever makes their hearts light.

I wonder if they’ll wake in the morning and know that something shifted in the air. If they’ll taste the weight of this moment without ever understanding it.

I press my lips to his temple. Just a soft touch. Barely there.

He exhales like he’s been holding that breath for hours. Maybe he has.

“You’re safe,” I whisper, even though I’m not sure it’s true. I say it anyway. Because he needs to hear it, and because I need to believe it.

His fingers tighten at the back of my shirt. Not to pull me closer—just to stay. Like he thinks if he lets go, the ground will give out beneath him.

“I didn’t know where to go,” he mumbles.

“You did, you came here,” I say. Quiet but steady. Because this—this is what I can give him. My arms. My room. My name, if he needs it. And if he asked for the stars, I’d find a way to give him those too.

————-3 months earlier————-

I pass the spikes to Niall on my left. He catches them easily, the laces swinging between his fingers. I don’t see him much these days—not since he transferred schools last year. Different timetable, different uniforms, different hallways. But today, Doncaster’s offering us one of its rare good days—a slice of sunlight, sky clear for once, like the town itself is pausing to breathe. So I made the effort. Because Niall’s still Niall. Still laughs like everything’s funny and plays like losing’s never on the table.

He takes the spikes and the small goals we bought together last autumn. It was supposed to be temporary—just something to help Zayn learn how to shoot properly so he wouldn’t keep shanking the ball over the hedges—but now it’s permanent. Their goal. Their thing. They’ve made a ritual of dragging it out to the fields every time the sun so much as hints it might stay out.

I wipe my sleeve across my forehead, swiping away the beginnings of sweat. The sun is bolder than usual for a September day. It’s climbed past ten degrees, which for Doncaster is practically summer. The grass is damp but warming, the earth soft under our feet. There’s a weightlessness to it all, like the kind of day you only get once or twice a season. The kind you remember in January, when everything’s frozen and grey.

“Busy day,” Liam says, voice casual. I glance over to find him perched on a low stone pillar, one leg swinging, his face tipped toward the sky and squinting right into the sun like it owes him something.

I roll the football under the sole of my foot, glancing behind me toward the rest of the park. He’s not wrong. There’s a small crowd gathered today—kids darting through the grass with neon water guns, shrieking and slipping on their own joy. Parents in circles, sipping takeaway coffees and leaning into gossip. Further down, near the old skate bowl, a few teens our age sit on the cracked concrete. I recognize maybe two of them. We share corridors at school, but not lives. Not really.

It is busy. Busier than I’ve seen in a while.

“We were lucky to get here early,” I say, nudging the ball toward Liam’s foot. “Could’ve been stuck kicking against a fence.”

He nods, grinning faintly, then drops down from the pillar with the easy grace of someone who’s always in motion.

Niall comes bounding back from the far end of the field, his trainers skimming grass, energy bubbling over like always. Zayn’s trailing behind him—calmer, quieter—but his lips are curved in that soft smile he saves for when he’s happy without needing to say it.

“Goals are set,” Niall reports, tossing one of the unused cones in the air and catching it again. They won’t be needing them today—we’re not doing drills. I only bring them out of habit now, like a ritual I haven’t outgrown.

“First to five?” I ask, stretching my arms over my head.

“Losers buy lunch?” Liam replies, already grinning like he knows he won’t be the one paying.

We all nod in agreement, the familiar rhythm of our little group falling into place like it always does. Then Zayn points at me, grinning, a glint in his eye. “As long as I’m with Louis, I’m good. Last time I played with Nialler, I lost miserably.”

“Oi! That wasn’t my fault,” Niall shoots back, indignation already bubbling. “That kid ran into me! I was ambushed.”

I laugh—because I remember it. Of course I do. Liam hadn’t been with us that day—had to pick up a shift at the ice cream parlor to help out at home. So it was just me, Zayn, and Niall. They figured teaming up against me would give them the upper hand. To be fair, they were doing alright—until a kid tore across the field mid-game with a water pistol the size of his whole torso, and crashed headfirst into Niall’s knees. The poor lad went down like a sack of potatoes, and I slipped the ball right past Zayn while he was still laughing.

Liam arches a brow. “A kid ran into you?”

Niall puffs up like a wronged cartoon character. “Full speed, mate! Nearly broke me rib!”

Liam just chuckles, clapping Niall on the back like he’s proud of him anyway, and that’s it. No official team calls. It’s clear in the way they drift off down the field together, Niall already halfway through a dramatized retelling of his tragic tackle.

I roll the football under my foot again, the leather warm from the sun, then scoop it up and tuck it under my arm. Zayn falls into step beside me as we cross to our side of the field, quiet like he always is, but steady. Familiar.

I glance over, smirking. “How are you not burning up in that?” I press our shoulders together, grinning as the heat practically radiates off his all-black ensemble. Trousers, shirt, even his trainers. The lad looks like he’s dressed for a funeral, not a casual game in a sun-drenched park.

He shrugs like it’s nothing, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Style over survival.”

“You’re gonna be a puddle by halftime.”

“Worth it,” he says with a soft smile, dry as ever.

Once we fall into rhythm, it’s like something clicks into place—a kind of muscle memory built over years of Saturday meetups and scrappy street matches, even with the gaps in between. I drift closer to the center of our makeshift pitch, the grass uneven beneath my shoes, the air heavy with heat and the scent of sun-warmed earth. Zayn hangs back just a touch, playing defense in that way only he can—quiet, calm, calculated. Liam’s mirroring him across the field, trying not to make it obvious he’s tracking Zayn’s every step, but I can see the way his eyes flick over. Always watching. Always ready.

Niall’s on me. Always is when we play. He likes to mark me like we’re in the bloody Premier League, even if he’s never been serious about football a day in his life. I glance up and catch the look on his face, and I know. I know what he’s about to do. It’s written all over him, like it always is.

He’s about to cut in. Wants to strip the ball if I overstep, then try for a fast break. It’s a move he’s been working on since summer and he gets proud when it lands. I almost smile. Niall’s not the best defender—but he’s clever. And that counts for something.

I flick my fingers behind my back—just once—and I don’t need to look to know Zayn’s seen it. We’ve played enough matches together that he reads me like a second skin. No words, no shout—just movement. Trust. I feel the shift in air as he slides into position behind me, where I need him, before the play’s even begun.

I drop the ball, hold it steady under my foot for half a beat longer, baiting Niall forward. His weight shifts, eager. Too eager. He lunges.

I spin.

The ball’s gone before he’s even realized what happened, flicked back toward Zayn, who taps it once to settle, then sweeps a clean pass right back to me down the left side. I hear Niall groan behind me, half annoyed, half impressed.

“Should’ve seen that coming,” he mutters.

I don’t reply. I’m already sprinting.

Liam’s fast. I’ll give him that. He sees the danger and moves to intercept, but I angle wide, dropping my shoulder to sell the fake. For a second—just a second—he buys it.

And that’s all I need.

I take the shot.

The ball hits the back of the net with a thud, just as the heat presses heavy into my lungs and my legs burn from the sprint. I throw my head back, grin splitting my face as I turn to Zayn. He’s already jogging toward me, his expression unreadable except for that small, satisfied nod. I hold out my hand, and he slaps it with his own, rough and quick.

“Four more!” I call, still breathing hard but grinning through the air.

Niall flops down into the grass with an exaggerated groan, arms stretched out like he’s just run a marathon. “I need a water break or a priest. Whichever gets here first.”

“You’ve barely been on the pitch ten minutes,” Liam says, hovering over him with a shadowed grin. “Get up. We’re not losing to these two again.”

“Excuse you,” I say, kicking a bit of turf at him. “These two have names, mate. Legends, actually.”

Zayn snorts. “One of us is a legend. The other just talks a lot.”

I feign offense, clutching my chest. “Betrayed. On my own team. Tragic.”

But Zayn just shrugs and offers me the smallest wink.

We set up again. Same places, same rhythm settling in like muscle memory, but this time Niall’s glaring at me like I’ve just nicked his last chip. It makes me laugh—really laugh, the kind that scrapes up from somewhere deep and bright. There’s something about playing with him like this, in the sun, on a borrowed patch of grass with our own made-up rules, that feels like being thirteen again. No one watching, nothing expected. Just us.

I pass the ball to him, light on the touch, and he traps it with the inside of his foot, eyes still locked on mine like he’s planning some kind of revenge. We don’t play by strict rules, not here. Not when it’s just the four of us and the day stretching long ahead. Here, if you score, the other team starts with the ball. There’s no whistle, no sideline ref with a flag. The game moves as long as we do. As long as someone’s got breath in their lungs and something to prove.

There’s a sort of freedom in that. A kind of silent promise that this place—this game—belongs to us. No coaches. No parents yelling from the edge. No looming deadlines or grades or heartbreak waiting back at home.

Just the sun. The field. Our rules.

Zayn shifts beside me, bouncing on his heels like he’s warming up for something bigger. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, one brow arched like a dare. I bump my shoulder into his, and he bumps back. It’s small, but it settles something in me.

Liam’s already cracking his knuckles like this is a proper match. Niall’s talking shit under his breath and smirking like he knows he’s already won. He let the ball roll forward, and the match starts again—not with a whistle, but with the sound of Liam shouting “go!” and Niall charging like a man possessed.

Once we finally hit two to three—me and Zayn up—we call a half-time break. It’s nothing official, really. No whistles or benches or proper sidelines. Just an unspoken agreement to pause, catch our breath, let our shirts cling to our backs while the sun keeps pressing down like it wants a match of its own.

We drop down in the grass, half-sitting, half-sprawled. The kind of rest that isn’t graceful, just necessary. Someone makes a joke that fizzles out halfway through, and we laugh anyway. It’s mostly just us bullshitting—trading insults and soft punches to the arm like it’s a love language.

Sometimes Liam brings those little oranges, the ones you peel with your fingers and pass around in pieces. He usually divides them up without saying anything, chucking a segment at your face if you’re slow to reach for one. But today, his hands are empty. I notice the way he tugs at the hem of his shirt instead, like maybe he wishes he’d remembered but didn’t have the coin, or the time, or both.

I don’t press him. I won’t. I know what he carries—how hard he works, how much weight he balances on that quiet spine of his. I don’t need oranges to know Liam cares.

I chugged from Niall’s water bottle, the cool liquid a shock against the heat in my throat. I never remembered to bring my own. Maybe I expected the comfort of being looked after without asking, or maybe I just forgot. Either way, no one made a fuss. It was passed to me like it always was, without ceremony, like it was a given.

Liam was tracing patterns in the damp grass with his finger, his brow furrowed in concentration, but I knew he was listening. Niall, ever the performer, was already halfway through another embellished tale of some near-miss from the first half, his voice loud and animated. Zayn, as usual, was quieter, perched on his knees, picking at a loose thread on his black trousers. He wasn't entirely disengaged, though. Every now and then, his lips would twitch, or a low chuckle would escape him, usually at Niall's most outrageous claim.

I leaned back on my hands, feeling the dampness seep through my shirt, but not caring. The sun was warm on my face, a gentle pressure that promised a long, bright afternoon. This was it, wasn't it? These stolen moments of ordinary joy, of easy friendship. No complications, no expectations, just the shared understanding that we were all better when we were together. We’d seen each other through dodgy haircuts and first crushes, through exam stress and family dramas. There was a history here, a quiet, unbreakable bond.

“Ni, when do you go back to school?” Liam asks, voice light, like he’s just passing the time. But we all know the answer. We all know Niall goes back next week. It’s not really about the question—it’s about filling the quiet.

Niall shrugs like it’s nothing, brushing his thumb across the condensation of his water bottle. “Monday,” he says, exactly like I expected.

There’s a short pause. Then he adds, softer, “You know it’s still a bit weird not having you lot’s faces in the hallways.”

I glance at him, just for a second. He’s looking out at the pitch, not at any of us. Like if he does, it’ll make it too real.

It hits me in a way I wasn’t expecting—that ache of growing apart, even when no one’s really left. We’re still us. We still show up at the fields, still play footie like nothing’s changed. But time moves on anyway. Schedules shift. Schools change. People disappear down different corridors, and suddenly the space between us gets filled with unfamiliar faces and routines we’re not a part of anymore.

“I miss it too,” I say, trying not to sound too sentimental, but honest enough that he hears it.

Zayn hums in agreement beside me. “Not the maths class, though,” he mutters, and we all laugh. The kind of laugh that says we’re okay, even if things aren’t quite how they used to be.

But I don’t miss the feeling that follows—quiet and a little sharp. Because when Niall left for Ireland, he didn’t talk about it. Not really. Just packed his bag and went. And now he’s back like nothing happened, but something did. I can feel it. It sits between us like a question none of us wants to ask.

“You alright though?” Liam tries, careful.

Niall gives a nod that feels too practiced. “Yeah,” he says. “Just had to sort some stuff.”

And that’s all he offers.

We let it go, because that’s how it works with us. If he needs to say more, he will. And if not, we’ll still pass him the ball, still save him a seat on the grass, still keep the rhythm of these days like nothing’s broken.

The silence after that is gentle, not heavy. Like we all understand there's more under the surface, but we're not here to drag it out—just to hold it quietly until he’s ready. We don’t dig unless the other’s drowning. And Niall? He’s still breathing. Still laughing. Still here.

So we let it lie.

“Alright,” I say, clapping my hands once to break the quiet. “You lot ready to get flattened again?”

Niall groans, tossing a blade of grass at me. “In your dreams, Tommo. This time I’ve got divine intervention on my side.”

“Yeah? And what, exactly, does that look like?” I ask, raising a brow.

He wiggles his eyebrows. “Liam’s legs. Zayn’s silence. My charm.”

Zayn snorts softly. “Sounds like a terrible strategy.”

“I’m improvising.”

I stand, brushing the grass from my shorts, and reach down to pull Niall up by the wrist. He stumbles into me, off balance for a second, but I catch him by the elbow and steady him. He grins at me, wide and cheeky, like the past five minutes of quiet vulnerability didn’t happen. Like he’s decided to shove it all into a drawer for now and slam it shut.

I let him.

Zayn and Liam follow suit, stretching and brushing themselves off. The second half of the game feels looser somehow, like something’s been released between us. We fall back into the rhythm easily, no need for planning or even speaking—just movement, instinct, trust. It’s beautiful, really, the way we fall into sync. Like the game was never about goals or wins. Just us, making the world small enough to hold.

At one point, I’ve got the ball balanced between my feet, Liam close behind, breathing down my neck like he’s got something to prove. His steps match mine beat for beat, shadow overlapping mine as he tries to sweep the ball out and turn the whole play around.

I bolt. My chest is heaving, breath ragged, the sting of wind rushing past my face. The small goal is blurry in the distance, just a flicker of hope, but I line up anyway. Heart pounding like a bird battering against the inside of my ribs, I swing—

And then Liam’s there. His body cuts across the path like a wall, and my shot goes wide, veering off to the side with a sharp thud.

I go down hard.

The fall isn’t graceful. My knee skids across the grass, skin tearing in a messy streak. Warm blood blooms beneath the surface, and bits of dirt and green cling to the new scrape like a badge. But I’m laughing. It’s breathless and ridiculous, but I can’t help it. There’s something stupidly freeing about going all in like that.

I bounce back up fast, brushing myself off as best I can. The ball’s disappeared somewhere off-field, tucked away in a small shadowy crook under the trees—one of those places the sun doesn’t quite reach, even at midday.

“You alright, mate?” Liam asks, his hand warm and steady on my back. His voice’s got a smile tucked inside it, but I know him well enough to hear the edge of worry under the joke.

“Yeah,” I nod, stretching out the leg as pain zips through the joint. I wince, but it fades quickly. “Just a scrape. Good defense, by the way.”

Liam grins, his whole face softening. “Hah, yeah? Thanks.”

Before either of us can say more, Niall whistles from midfield, arms thrown wide. “Oi! Stop riding each other’s dicks and get the ball! I’m starving!”

I bark out a laugh, shaking my head. It’s only jokes—crass and stupid and familiar. But still, my chest twists with something warm. It wasn’t always like this.

When I came out to them, I half-expected the floor to drop out from under me. For the laughter to fade, for the closeness to shift. And for a beat, it had shifted—went quiet, a little awkward. Like we were all holding our breath. But then it passed. They didn’t make it weird. Didn’t treat me like a different version of myself. If anything, I could breathe a bit easier after that. Like the world had shifted its weight, just slightly, off my shoulders.

Only they know. My sisters are still too young to clock anything beyond the cartoons they watch. Mum probably knows—she hasn’t asked, but she’s got that look sometimes. The kind that says she’s waiting for me to say it first. And the lads at school? They don’t need to know. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I figure anyone with eyes and half a brain could put the pieces together.

“You’re always hungry, fatass!” Liam shouts back, cupping his hands around his mouth dramatically.

Niall gasps like Liam’s just insulted his entire lineage. “Liam!” He glances theatrically around the park, eyes wide and hand to his chest. “There are children present.”

Liam just gives him a deadpan look. I can’t help but laugh again—belly-deep this time. It aches in that good way. The way that makes you feel full. Full of something soft and unspoken and temporary. Something you know you’ll miss before it’s even gone.

One day, this will change. Liam will pick up more shifts and run out of weekends. Niall will be back in his hometown full-time, chasing some degree or another. Zayn will disappear into another art project and resurface only when the world tilts just right. And me… who knows.

But today, we’re still here.

“I’ll get the ball,” I offer before anyone can argue, already moving toward the edge of the pitch. My knee throbs, but walking it off feels right. Like I’m proving something, even if only to myself.

I follow where I saw it roll, weaving between shadows. It’s tucked in the kind of place that always made me uneasy as a kid—too quiet, too still. Like it’s holding its breath, waiting for something.

There’s always something lurking in the dark. That’s what I used to tell myself. Shadows don’t just sit still for nothing. It’s just a matter of time before you find out what they’re hiding.

And then—

“Excuse me, is this your ball?”

The voice cuts clean through the stillness, low and unfamiliar. I turn toward it, heart jumping.

And there—half in the light, half in the shade—stands someone holding our ball.

Someone I don’t recognize.

But somehow, they feel familiar anyway.

“Must say though, it was a good kick,” They say again, softer this time.

A head of curls catching the golden hour like it belongs to it. The color of his hair is impossibly warm, like chocolate left in the sun, soft and unruly and made to be touched. But it’s his eyes that catch me. Green. Not just green, but alive—like a forest on the edge of blooming. There’s a flicker in them, a kind of knowing light I won’t recognize until much later. A glimmer that stays with me long after he’s gone.

I don’t answer at first. My body’s caught in that moment between thought and feeling, breath and movement. It’s like my brain short-circuits, scrambling for a word, any word, while my heart goes thudding like it’s been waiting for him longer than I have.

I laugh—quiet, startled—and look down, pretending to brush something off my knee even though it’s long gone. The heat on my cheeks betrays me instantly, climbing higher the longer I try to ignore it. It’s not the sun. I know it’s not the sun.

It’s him.

I glance up again, just briefly, and he’s still watching me. Not in a way that makes me shrink, but in a way that feels oddly safe. Like I could stand in that gaze for a while and not be burned by it.

I reach out for the ball, fingertips brushing the worn edge. “Yeah, um… thanks.”

My voice is rougher than I meant. Quieter, too. Something about him pulls the noise right out of me.

His smile doesn’t waver.

And in the back of my mind—barely a whisper—I know this is going to matter. This moment. This boy. The green in his eyes. The way he said my kick was good, like he already knew me.

I don’t know him yet.

But I will.

“Are you from here?” I ask, voice a bit steadier than I feel. Because I would’ve remembered him. A boy that pretty doesn’t just pass by unnoticed. Not by me.

He tilts his head, curls shifting with the motion. There’s something easy in the way he stands, like he’s not in a rush to be anywhere else.

“Um… not really,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair. “I just moved here.”

I nod slowly, tucking the ball under my arm the way I did earlier in the game, but now it feels like a prop—an excuse to stay standing here a little longer. “Yeah? From where?”

He smiles, soft and a little self-conscious. “Holmes Chapel.”

My expression must give something away—maybe the surprise, maybe the name doesn’t ring a bell right away, or maybe it’s just how obvious I am. Either way, it makes him laugh. Not a big laugh—just a breathy little thing that curls at the edge like sugar melting on the stove. It’s sweet enough to knock the wind out of me.

“You know Manchester?” he asks, eyebrows raised like he’s offering me a hand.

I nodded quickly. “Yeah. Manchester’s not too far.” Manchester was only about an hour or so from Doncaster. Close enough to visit, far enough to feel like a different world. He was still smiling, and the warmth of it spread through me, easing the awkwardness.

“Well, it’s just a little past that.”

He says softly, like that’s good enough. There’s a pause, not uncomfortable, just long enough for the breeze to rustle between us, carrying the sounds of the park—laughter, distant footsteps, the sharp whistle of someone calling for their dog.

I shift the ball under my arm, the pressure grounding me. “You like it here so far?”

He shrugs. “hard to say. Haven’t seen much of it yet.”

I raise a brow, daring a grin. “Well. If the local football scene’s your first impression, we’re off to a decent start.”

That earns a laugh—real and warm and brighter than I expect. His eyes crinkle a little when he does it. “Yeah, I guess so. You lot looked like you were having a good time.”

“We always do.” I glance back toward the pitch where Niall’s flailing his arms at Zayn like a cartoon character and Liam’s drinking water like he’s just crossed a desert. “That’s our version of professional sport, right there.”

He laughs again, and something about the way he’s looking at me now—curious but soft, like he’s not in a rush to look away—makes my skin buzz. Not in a bad way. In a way that feels like something’s beginning. Quiet and slow and a little dangerous, like lighting a match just to see what happens.

I glance down, catching the blush creeping up my own neck, and try to shake it off with a breath. “I should get this back before they start shouting again.”

“Right,” he says, stepping aside with a little nod. “Nice meeting you.”

“You too,” I say, starting to turn—and then glancing back. “Hey—what’s your name?”

He smiles, almost like he’d been waiting for me to ask.

“Harry.”

It fits him. Somehow, it already fits.

I nod once, smiling back. “Louis.”

“Louis..” He echos.

We both should’ve known then that it wouldn’t be the last time we said each other’s names.
Wouldn’t be the last time they’d hang in the air like something sacred. Like something that mattered.

When people ask me about time travel, I never say it out loud—but I hope it exists someday. Not for the lottery numbers or world-changing events, but for this.

This memory. This moment. This day.
A sun-soaked afternoon and a boy carved out of light. A boy who didn’t know it yet, but who was about to be saved in ways neither of us could name.

And me—God—me too.

If I could go back to any moment, it’d be this one. Every single time.

I nod to him once as I turn, trying not to linger—but I feel it. That strange pull in the space between us, invisible and certain. He steps back into the shade like it’s second nature, like it’s home. Like he belongs to the dark and doesn’t even realize he deserves more.

I tell myself not to think about him.
I fail before I even make it three steps.

“Who was that?” Zayn asks as I reach the group again, using the collar of his shirt to fan himself off, brow raised in a way that says he saw more than I wanted him to.

I open my mouth to answer, then shut it again. My cheeks flush hot, and I tilt my face to the sky—let the sun wash over me like it might burn the blush off. “Just found our ball. Nice guy, I guess.”

I don’t say the rest.

That he smiled like he had stars tucked into his mouth.

That his voice curled around my name like it belonged there.

That he looked like someone I was meant to meet.

I don’t say that he was made of dimples and gravity and something I couldn’t quite name yet.

Zayn gives me a look, one of those unreadable ones he’s mastered—like he’s collecting information he’ll unpack later, on his own terms. He doesn’t push, though. That’s not his way. Just nods slowly and tosses the question aside like a stone into a pond, letting it sink with the rest.

Niall’s sprawled on the grass now, head resting on Liam’s leg like a cat in the sun, yelling something about needing snacks before he keels over. Liam’s grinning, ruffling his hair half-heartedly, and I take a second to watch them—just… be. Just exist. Loud and whole and exactly themselves.

It’s strange, how easy it is to forget the moment something begins.

Because even now, with the taste of Harry’s name still fresh in my mouth, I don’t know the full shape of what just happened. It hasn’t hit yet. The weight of it. The shift. Like the universe just clicked into place by one tiny degree, too subtle for anyone else to notice.

But I felt it.

“Can we just call it game?” Niall asks, voice already half-lost to the wind as he peels his shirt from his chest with a groan. His cheeks are flushed and there’s sweat at his temples, the kind that makes his blonde hair stick out like a crown gone crooked. “We could just head back to Lou’s and eat there?”

I laugh—not because it’s that funny, but because it’s so Niall. He’s always been this way: bold suggestions and wide eyes, like the world might just say yes if he asks loud enough. And part of me wants to say yes, just to keep us all together a little longer.

But I also know the truth. “You know Mum doesn’t let people over on a school night,” I say, kicking the ball lightly so it bumps against his thigh with a hollow thump.

Niall huffs, dramatic as always, and flops backward onto the grass like a corpse. “She loves me, though,” he groans. “She wouldn’t say no to me.”

I grin, but the smile pulls a little tight at the edges. Because yeah—Mum does love him. Still calls him her sixth child when he’s around, still buys his favorite cereal without asking. But it’s different now. He’s not the boy from three houses down anymore. He’s a town over. A school away. A life that’s brushing up against mine, but not quite tangled like it used to be.

He half-lives at my place still—on weekends, holidays, lazy afternoons when he shows up unannounced and raids our fridge like nothing’s changed. But it has. And every now and then I feel it in my chest like a pulled thread. That ache of knowing some things don’t stretch forever. Some things snap.

“Wait, Lil—you have Smash Bros, right?” Niall asks, squinting up at Liam like the heat’s made him delirious but hopeful.

Liam rolls his eyes, gently shifting Niall’s head off his lap. “Yeah, course I do.”

Niall lights up like a kid offered ice cream before dinner. “Well, what are we even doing here still? Let’s go!”

Zayn groans, dragging himself upright from the spot he’s been half-napping in. “Mate, you barely know how to hold a controller.”

“That is a vile lie,” Niall says, dramatically clutching his chest like Zayn just accused him of murder. “I just choose chaos. It’s not the same as losing.”

“You literally jump off the edge half the time,” I say, grinning despite myself. “You’re like a lemming with a death wish.”

“Excuse you, that’s called strategy.”

Liam and Zayn both laugh, and I let myself sink into it for a second—the sound, the familiarity of it all. These are the boys I’ve grown up beside. Not always perfectly. Not without bruises or bruised feelings. But here. Always here.

I tuck the ball under my arm, watching as the sun starts to bleed orange at the edges. The sky stretches wide over us, the kind that makes everything feel bigger and smaller all at once.

“Alright then,” Liam says, clapping his hands once. “Let’s head back to mine. Mum’s making stew anyway, and I think there’s garlic bread if Niall doesn’t mind fighting my dad for it.”

“I live for combat,” Niall declares, stumbling to his feet.

We pick up our mess—maybe even leave it better than we found it.

It’s something Liam started after doing a stretch of community service a couple summers back. He’d come back quieter, more thoughtful. Told us how picking trash out of ditches makes you see things differently. Now, every time he spots a crisp packet or a half-squashed bottle, he bends to scoop it up without a second thought. No lecture, no performance—just quiet consistency.

And the rest of us… we started following suit. Maybe out of guilt at first, or habit, but now it feels like something more. Like respect. For the place, for each other, for the time we’re spending.

The nets are knotted and frayed at the corners, but we fold them anyway, pack them into the bag with the cones and worn-out ball. It's all shoved into the boot of my car—my faithful, slightly rusted hand-me-down with the dodgy stereo and the backseat that still smells vaguely of petrol and pine from the last road trip.

I’m the oldest, if only by months, and that makes me the default driver. The one who pays for the petrol, who waits around after matches to drop everyone home. I don’t mind. Not really. I like being useful. I like being needed.

But sometimes—when I’m stuck in traffic taking one of my sisters to piano lessons or waiting outside a netball game in the rain—I feel the ache of missing it. The small, golden minutes I could’ve spent here instead. With my boys. The running jokes, the shared water bottles, the quiet hum of music through Liam’s speaker. The way we never say everything, but still manage to say enough.

“Shotgun!” one of the lads shouts, cutting through the heavy thump of the boot slamming shut. I can’t tell which one it was—Niall maybe, or Zayn, already jogging toward the passenger side like it’s a race.

I laugh, shaking my head as I brush dirt off my hands.

It’s stupid and small and familiar. But that’s what makes it good.

When I come around the car, everyone’s already inside—doors shut, seatbelts clicked, laughter already in the air like I’m late to my own life. Niall and Zayn have claimed the back seat, limbs sprawled out like they own the space. Liam’s up front, flipping through the stack of CDs I keep in the side pocket. His fingers leave smudges on the plastic cases, but I don’t mind. It’s all part of the ritual.

I slide into the driver’s seat, the upholstery warm from the sun, and catch Liam muttering under his breath as he sifts through the collection.

“Green Day, Green Day…” he counts off, brows raised in mock disapproval. “The Fray? Oasis? Radiohead? Jesus, Lou, do you listen to anything that doesn’t sound like heartbreak in a leather jacket?”

I roll my eyes as I turn the key in the ignition, the car coughing to life. “I like songs that mean something,” I say, backing out of the lot, even though we both know he’s just winding me up.

The Bluetooth doesn’t work unless I plug in the dodgy cigarette lighter attachment, and I’ve never bothered to buy the actual music. I figured what I had was enough. I’ve always been good at making do.

In the midst of Liam’s dramatic rant about my "musical depression spiral," there’s a softer hum of conversation from the back. Niall taps the window, laughing as he points out at something—or someone—across the road.

“Someone’s sleeping on the couch tonight,” he says, voice full of mischief.

Zayn leans closer, grinning. “Bet it was his fault, too. Bloke looks like he’s pleading for his life.” He agrees, stretching out his legs like he’s settling in for a gossip session.

I glance at them in the rearview mirror, only half-listening. Figured it was just another couple in a spat. Happens all the time around here—raised voices, someone storming off, someone else sleeping it off on the porch or in a car or wherever the fallout lands.

I didn’t know. Not then. That the person they saw—the figure slouched, arms folded and shoulders hunched like the night itself was pressing down on him—was Harry.

If I had known… God, if I’d known.

Maybe I would’ve stopped the car. Rolled down the window. Asked, “You alright, mate?” the way I would with any of the lads. Maybe I would’ve offered him a lift, or my jumper, or just a moment of kindness he wasn’t used to getting.

The thing is—I didn’t stop. I drove on, laughing at Liam’s dramatics, teasing Niall for being nosy, tapping the steering wheel to the beat of some sad Oasis track like the world hadn’t just turned a little heavier behind me.

And now, when I see those bruises—purple blooming beneath soft skin, fading but never fully gone—I think of that night. Of the boy with too many secrets and no safe place to land.

I think of how sometimes, it’s not the big moments that haunt you. It’s the quiet ones. The ones you drove past without knowing they mattered.

And yeah. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed everything. But maybe it would’ve changed something.

And that’s enough to haunt me.

Chapter Text

I don’t see Harry again until Monday at school.

Not that I was looking for him. Not exactly. I’d convinced myself he was just a moment—one of those fleeting, golden things that passes through your day and glows a little too brightly to stay. A pretty boy with green eyes and a laugh like a secret, here and gone before I could even figure out what to call him.

I told myself it didn’t matter. That I didn’t need to think about him too much. But the lie settled wrong in my chest, like a pebble in a shoe, small but impossible to ignore. Because no matter how full the weekend felt—how loud the laughs were or how warm the sun stayed—I knew I was walking around with something missing.

I didn’t know it at the time. Couldn’t have. He was still a stranger, just a boy with curls and a smile and a voice that stuck to the edges of my memory like honey. But now, looking back, I know. I didn’t just leave a piece of my heart with him—I gave the whole thing away, without even realizing I’d let go.

The weekend passed in a blur—one of those hazy stretches of time that felt full but somehow hollow, like I was going through the motions with a piece of me missing and not quite knowing why.

After the game, we ended up back at Liam’s. Zayn and Niall dove straight for the console, as expected, their laughter and shouts filling the room with a kind of familiar chaos. I didn’t join them. Instead, I found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Liam, where the noise faded into the background and the only sound I really focused on was the quiet scratch of pencil against paper.

He was showing me how to make objects symmetrical. How to measure space with your eyes, feel out balance without a ruler. It was the kind of thing that looked simple until you tried it. I’d never really cared about symmetry before—not until I saw how calm it made him. How focused. Like all the noise in his head went quiet the second he started to draw.

I use the same technique now, sitting in maths class with Mr. Charlie droning on at the front of the room. I’m supposed to be solving equations, but the worksheet in front of me has already become a canvas—edges smudged, margins filled with lines and shading. I press my pencil into the paper, letting it wander. Letting it breathe.

I never thought I’d be someone who draws. That had always felt like Zayn’s lane, or Liam’s. The creative ones. The ones who could pull beauty out of nothing with their bare hands. I didn’t think I had that in me. Not until that movie night at mine.

We’d all piled onto the couch, limbs tangled, snacks half-eaten, laughing at the wrong parts—at the parts that were supposed to make you cry. And there was Liam, sat on the floor with a notebook balanced on his knee, barely even watching the film. His eyes kept flicking from the curve of a chipped coffee mug on the table to the lines unfolding on his page. His brow furrowed, jaw tight with focus—and then, slowly, it eased. He smiled. Not big, not loud. Just this quiet little thing that said yeah, that’s it.

That night, I watched more of Liam than the film. Watched how art wasn’t just about making something pretty—it was about noticing. About seeing the world differently. About giving attention to things most people overlook.

So I’d asked. Quietly. Carefully. A few questions here and there. “How do you make the sides match?” “Why curve that line like that?” And Liam, always steady, always patient, gave me more than answers. He gave me space. He gave me time. A pencil nudge. A warm nod. No judgment, no fuss.

Now, when I draw, I find myself always going back to hands. There’s something about them—how no two are the same. Some long and slender, others wide and calloused. Some with chipped nail polish or bitten nails. With scars. With stories. They let me make mistakes without being wrong. Let me fill the lines with freckles, tattoos, little imagined bruises. They remind me that imperfect doesn’t mean inaccurate. It just means real.

Liam says I don’t need much help anymore. That practice will take me further than anything he can teach. I hope he’s right. Because one day, he won’t be sitting next to me. One day, he’ll be busy with exams, with his life, with bigger things than my shaky lines and quiet questions. And when that day comes, I’ll have to trust that the hours I spent watching, learning, trying… will be enough to carry me through.

Sometimes I wonder—really wonder—if I’d known back then what I was drawing.

If I’d known that hands, the same ones I sketched in quiet classrooms and shaded with softness, were also the reason behind the cuts and bruises on a boy I would come to love… would I have still drawn them the same?

Would I have still found beauty in the curve of knuckles, in the shadows between fingers?
Would I have still imagined stories in every freckle and scar?

Or would my pencil have hesitated, stilled by the weight of what I didn’t yet understand?

Back then, hands were just hands—tools for expression, for reaching, for holding on.
I didn’t yet know they could be weapons too.
That softness could be stripped away by force, replaced with bruises you learn how to hide under sleeves and silence.

It makes me ache, remembering the versions of myself that never knew better. The version who thought bruises only came from sport, and silence only meant shyness.

The version who didn’t know Harry yet.

That version of myself, ended the moment the door to the classroom thumped open.

It wasn’t loud, not really. Just enough to cut through Mr. Charlie’s droning and make a few heads turn, including mine. My pencil stilled mid-curve, the half-drawn line hanging like a breath caught in my throat. I looked up, not expecting much. A late student, maybe. Someone looking for the wrong room.

But then I saw him.

A mess of curls, soft and untamed, half-hiding behind the shoulder of our guidance counselor like he wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to be here. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be. His eyes flicked nervously around the room, never settling. His hand gripped the strap of his bag so tight his knuckles went pale.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

I remember thinking he looked… new. Not just to the school, but to everything. Like he’d been dropped into a life that didn’t quite fit, sleeves too long, expectations too loud. I hoped, selfishly, that he was my age. There’s a kind of loneliness that comes with being seventeen and feeling like you’re already behind—already different. But I’d learned not to get too hopeful. I’d met plenty of older kids who looked younger, plenty of boys who wore gentleness like a mask.

I try to pry my eyes away, tell myself it’s none of my business. I’d only talked to him once, and even that had been fleeting—half a conversation, a flicker of something in the dark. It shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t matter. But somehow, Harry feels like a thread I tugged at without meaning to, and now I’m unraveling slowly, stitch by stitch, just from watching him stand there.

It’s like he’s made of something magnetic. Like looking away would be harder than staring.
He hasn’t even spoken yet—not really—but I can’t stop watching. Can’t stop the way my chest tightens every time he moves, subtle and uncertain.

Mr. Charlie sticks out his hand, and I watch as Harry’s fingers curl around it—tentative but sure. There’s a softness in the way he moves, a kind of grace that feels out of place in this room of clunky desks and chewed pencils. I remember thinking—quietly, shamefully—that Mr. Charlie was lucky. Lucky to hold something that soft, even for a second. Lucky to be touched by someone who looked like he belonged to a different world than the rest of us.

The guidance counselor offers Harry a gentle pat on the back and turns to leave, her smile wide as she waves to a few girls who call out her name like it’s a secret between friends. Then she’s gone, and Harry’s left behind—alone, pressed awkwardly between his too-tight backpack strap and the tug of his jumper sleeve. I watch his fingers pull the fabric down, until it’s swallowed his hand whole. Like he’s trying to disappear without leaving the room.

Mr. Charlie says something I can’t make out, just a low murmur, and points toward the seat beside me.

My stomach flips.

That desk has been empty for weeks, and not because there was no one to fill it. Mr. Charlie gave up trying after the bath bomb incident. Some kid said I wouldn’t do it, I said he wouldn’t either. He did. Then threw up in the hallway. Apparently, that earned me solitary seating. A punishment. A warning. A lesson.

But now, here’s Harry. And he’s walking toward me.

He moves like he’s not used to being looked at—like every pair of eyes is a weight he hasn’t learned to carry. His steps are small, careful. I notice how he doesn’t quite lift his feet all the way, like even the floor might betray him if he makes too much noise. I want to look away. Give him that grace. That space. But I don’t.

I watch him the whole way.

He stops at the desk beside mine, hesitates. His eyes flick down to the seat, then to me. For a second, our gazes catch—and it’s not some cinematic thing, no slow-motion fireworks or swelling background music. It’s quieter than that. Stranger. Like two thoughts brushing in the dark and realizing they’re the same shape.

I try to smile—just a little, just enough—but I don’t know if it lands. He doesn’t smile back. Just slides into the chair with the kind of silence that says don’t look too long. Don’t ask.

So I don’t.

I return to my drawing, or at least I pretend to. The pencil sits light between my fingers, unmoving. The page blurs slightly as my focus slips—not because of the lines or the curve I’m trying to perfect, but because of the boy beside me. Because of Harry.

Instead of sketching, I just stare at the half-finished hand on the page, eyes tracing the lines I’ve already drawn like they might distract me from the weight in my chest. But they don’t. They never do when he’s this close.

My mind is moving faster than I expected it to—quicker than I can keep up with, jumping from the sound of his breath to the way his shoulder shifts slightly every time he writes something down. And all I can think is: does he remember me?

Does he remember that day in the park, the quiet conversation, the softness we’d somehow found between strangers? Or was I just a passing kindness, something small and forgettable in the blur of whatever storm he lives in?

He doesn’t look at me. Not once. Not even a glance from the corner of his eye. And I sit in that silence, let it settle in my bones, in the space between us. A full minute passes. Maybe more. And I tell myself, he doesn’t remember me.

Because it’s easier that way. Easier than believing he does and still chooses not to speak.

If I’d known the truth then—that he did remember me, that every quiet breath beside me was him holding himself together—I might’ve said something. Might’ve turned to him and whispered hi like it meant something. Because to me, it would’ve.

But he doesn’t say a word. And neither do I. Because I don’t know that his silence isn’t a punishment. I don’t know that it’s protection. That remembering me costs him something.

He saved himself from a bruise that day. And I, unknowingly, let him.

So I stare down at my drawing and pretend not to notice that I’ve stopped breathing whenever he shifts. I pretend that the quiet between us is just that—quiet—and not a thousand things unsaid.

I don’t know yet that one day, he’ll tell me he remembered every second of that conversation. That it had stirred something in him just like it had in me.

As we sat there—wordless, still, side by side like strangers forced together by nothing but chance—I told myself the boy next to me couldn’t be the same one from the park.

The boy from the park had started the conversation.

He’d smiled like he meant it, like I was someone worth smiling at.

He’d made me feel seen in a way I hadn’t expected from a stranger, like maybe I wasn’t as forgettable as I sometimes feared.

But the Harry beside me now was distant. Quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful.
He didn’t look my way. Didn’t offer even a flicker of recognition. And I, foolishly hopeful and nursing something that felt bigger than I was ready to name, took that silence as an answer.

As a rejection.

So I did what I thought was smart. I shrunk it all down, made it small enough to pocket.

A silly little crush, I told myself. Just something I’d imagined more into. I could let go. I could forget. Harry clearly had.

At the time, I believed that was the right thing to do.

That if I just told myself enough times that what I felt didn’t matter, then eventually it wouldn’t.

But looking back now, I can see it clearer. I wasn’t trying to move on.

I was trying to hurt him back.

I was trying to act like I didn’t care—like I hadn’t noticed the shift in his eyes, the way he seemed to fold into himself.

Because if he could forget me, if he could sit beside me and pretend nothing ever passed between us, then I could do the same.

Even if it stung. Even if it felt like peeling something tender straight off my skin.

It was childish. Cruel, in a quiet kind of way.

But I didn’t know how to take being left behind—how to accept being erased.

There’s a strange sort of power in pretending you don’t care. It’s hollow. Fragile. But it burns hot for a while—just long enough to feel like armor.

So I wore it.

I let my silence answer his. I matched his stillness with mine. And I convinced myself that I was winning some invisible game neither of us agreed to play.

The truth is, I wanted him to look at me.
I wanted him to turn just slightly and meet my gaze. I wanted a smile. A word. A sign that I hadn’t imagined it all.

That I hadn’t made up the boy from the park, or the softness in his voice, or the way he’d made me feel seen in a way that was quiet but whole.

But Harry didn’t give me any of that. Not because he didn’t want to. Because he couldn’t.

Because when you’re seventeen and scared, love can look like a trap door. And silence can feel like safety.

When the bell rings, a wave of movement ripples through the classroom—scraping chairs, rushed zippers, voices rising in sudden freedom. But I don’t move. I stay seated, tethered to my chair by something heavier than books or bags.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Harry.
He moves slowly, like every gesture has to pass through a filter of fear. He tugs at the sleeve of his jumper again, stretching the fabric down over his hand until only his fingers peek out. Then he leans forward, packing up the few things he has—just a worn notebook and a pen.

He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t look at anyone. He doesn’t look at me.

And maybe he never will.

Still, even now, with all I know—my heart wants to care more than my head will allow. My pride, my defensiveness, my fear of being unwanted again—it all tangled up into this knot that kept me frozen while he walked away.

I used to think not saying anything meant I was protecting myself. But all I was doing was letting him suffer another silent day. Another hour no one asked how he was. Another moment no one saw him clearly enough to say you matter.

When I think back on those early days—on all the times I could’ve reached for him and didn’t—I find myself whispering apologies.

Sometimes I say them when he’s asleep beside me, his breath warm against my collarbone, like maybe he’ll hear it in his dreams.

Other times I say it when he’s awake and clinging to me too tight, like I’m the only thing anchoring him to this world. Like he still doesn’t understand why no one saved him sooner.

Why I didn’t.

And I don’t have an answer for that. Only the weight of knowing I could have—and didn’t.

I finally gather my things. I pass the turn-in tray without a glance and keep walking. The worksheet stays in my bag, untouched. I’ll pretend it’s homework. Mum doesn’t like when I hide in my room, but schoolwork is an excuse she understands.

When I step into the hallway, the noise is immediate—shoes squeaking, lockers slamming, voices weaving through each other like threads too tangled to separate. It’s chaos, pure and unapologetic, but there’s a strange kind of peace in it too. I’ve always liked it, the way everyone moves at their own pace, in their own direction. Like no one’s trying to match—just exist. I find comfort in that. In the clash of movement and disagreement. It made my own opinions feel louder. More mine.

No two groups will ever agree on how fast to walk or which side of the hall is the "right" one. There’s no harmony here, no order—and somehow, that makes the most sense to me. I don’t fight the current. I blend into it. I walk with the people who match my pace, pass the ones who don’t. I let it carry me.

But even with the movement around me, I’m still. Internally jammed. Because I’ve only got two thoughts—neither of which has anything to do with school.

One: I would not let Harry hurt me with his silence.

Two: I needed to find Zayn. Or Liam. Preferably Zayn.

And I do. Not quite with the resolve I’d hoped for the first, but the second? I follow through.

Zayn’s at his locker, pretending to look for something with the casual apathy of someone who has no real intention of finding it. Classic Zayn—stalling, not out of laziness but out of disinterest. He’s never rushed for anything in his life unless it was a smoke break or a chance to make fun of someone’s shoes.

“Mate,” I say as I come up beside him. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t startle the way Liam or Niall might if I snuck up like that. He just turns, nods once.

That’s Zayn for you. A nod that means go on then, talk before I decide you're boring.

So I do. “You know the boy that…um…found our ball at the park?”

Zayn slams his locker shut without looking inside, leans against it like it’s part of the performance. “Not really. But he had the hair… yeah?”

“Curly hair,” I say, trying too hard to sound indifferent. To keep whatever fondness I have buried under a flat tone.

Zayn waves his hand in a vague circle, then crosses his arms like he’s settling in. “Yeah, curly-headed boy. What about him?”

The nickname makes something in me twitch. I try not to smile. Try not to let it soften me. Not because I don’t like it—because I do. Because it fits too well. Curly. It feels too easy on the tongue, too right, and I hate how much I want to say it out loud. How much I want to make it mine.

“Well,” I start, kicking my heel against the tile, “apparently he’s new.” Not to me though.

Zayn raises an eyebrow, that telltale smirk slowly spreading across his face like he’s just been handed a secret. “Gonna be fun watching how long this one lasts. Didn’t the last new kid move after his first day?”

I snort, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Zayn always does that to me—lightens the weight on my chest without even trying. “Not sure if it was the cheese battle at lunch or the fucking disaster of a bathroom that sent him packing.”

Zayn barks a laugh. “Probably both. Kid looked like he’d seen war.”

And for a second, I let myself laugh too. Let myself forget. But even as I do, the hallway still hums around us, and somewhere behind all the jokes and noise, I’m still thinking about Curly. About how I swore I wouldn’t let it hurt me.

But it does.

“Oi, Tommo!”

The name lands like a slap—sharp, unwelcome, echoing louder in my chest than it does in the hallway. My smile drops before I can catch it, and I feel my jaw clench, like my body’s bracing itself for something it already knows how to endure.

It used to be a name that meant something. Tommo. Niall had given it to me without thinking—just blurted it out one day during Year 8 training like he’d known it would stick. And it had. It clung to me like sun on summer skin. He’d made it sound warm, like the kind of nickname you earn after too many late nights laughing over crisps and bad telly. It was his way of saying I see you, and I like who you are.

But after Niall left, the name went quiet. People stopped saying it. Out of respect, I guess. Or just absence. Most of the team understood it had belonged to him, and without him around, it didn’t fit anymore. Like trying to wear a jumper that still smelled like someone else.

Even Danny, who blurts out the first thing that hits his tongue, had respected that. And when he did use it, he always gave me a look first—an unspoken this okay? And I’d nod. Because Danny gets it, in the way only someone who’s seen you at your most honest can.

Long story short: post-match drinks, celebratory chaos, one too many shots. Me and Danny, hands clumsy and desperate behind someone’s shed. He gave me a handjob. In the morning, we both laughed. He figured out he didn’t like dick. I figured out I maybe liked it a little too much to pretend I didn’t.

It wasn’t a dramatic epiphany. No grand, sweeping moment. Just quiet clarity, like a fog lifting. A line drawn in my head a few months later: I prefer boys. I could settle for girls. I probably shouldn’t.

So yeah, Danny understood. Understood why hearing Tommo from anyone else—especially someone who hadn’t earned it—made my stomach twist.

But Noel never got that memo.

“How are you feeling? Better, I hope—been lacking you on the pitch,” Noel says, his voice deeper than his energy ever seems to warrant, like someone else dubbed him over.

There’s nothing wrong with Noel, not really. He’s a solid lad, good player, gives everything during a match. But we clash. We always have. Too alike in all the ways that count—stubborn, sharp-tongued, both convinced we know best. Our fights aren’t even angry most of the time. Just two people trying to bend the world to their own version of right.

And then there’s the Tommo thing.

That’s what grates. What keeps me from softening toward him the way I do with others. He’s not cruel with it, but he doesn’t listen either. Doesn’t hear the silence that follows it. Doesn’t notice how my shoulders stiffen or how I bite down on the urge to correct him. Maybe that’s worse.

“Good,” I say, brushing past it, because that’s easier than explaining. “Trainer said I’ll be alright to play by next week.”

I keep it casual, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like my skull hadn’t bounced against the grass hard enough to knock the breath out of me.

The truth is, it had rattled me. More than I’d admit out loud. One second I was tracking the ball, and the next—blankness. A flash of boot, a shout, the world spinning like I’d been picked up and wrung out.

After, everything was muffled. Like my head had been packed full of cotton. The ache settled behind my eyes and didn’t leave for days. Noise hurt. Light hurt. Thinking hurt. And underneath it all, this quiet fear that maybe something had shifted. That maybe I wouldn’t come back the same.

But time moved on, and the fear dulled. I don’t think about it much now—except sometimes, when I close my eyes and still see that boot swinging toward me like a guillotine.

Noel nods, smiling like it’s just good news. And maybe it is.

I nod at something Noel says—I don’t even clock what—but I do it out of instinct. Just enough to keep the conversation moving without having to be in it. He doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he lets me off easy.

“I’ll let the lads know you’re good to go,” he adds as he walks off, and I watch the back of his head disappear into the chaos of bodies and backpacks and voices.

The hallway swallows him, and suddenly it’s just me again.

I lean against a nearby locker, take a deep breath through my nose, and try not to let the noise creep under my skin. I hate how school can feel so loud and empty at the same time. Like you’re surrounded, but not seen.

“He’s like the nicest dickhead.” Zayn says in a confused but sincere tone that makes the tension in me.

I laugh because I can’t help but to. “That’s weirdly accurate.”

Zayn shrugs like it’s obvious. “He’s the kind of guy who’d help your nan cross the street, then call you a slur five minutes later because you forgot your shin guards.”

I bark a laugh that turns into a groan. “Christ, don’t remind me. I still think Coach only benched me that game ‘cause Noel snitched.”

“Probably. Noel’s a teacher’s pet with a nicotine habit.”

I glance sideways at Zayn. He’s still leaned against the locker like he’s got nowhere better to be, like the chaos of the school day doesn’t touch him unless he lets it. I envy that about him—how nothing ever seems to rattle him for long.

But I’m still rattled. Still thinking about Harry, about the way his eyes didn’t meet mine, about the silence that filled the seat beside me like a smell I couldn’t wave away.

Zayn must see something shift in my expression because he nudges me lightly with his shoulder. “You alright?”

I pause. Consider brushing it off. But this is Zayn. He doesn’t ask unless he’s ready to hear the real answer.

So I nod slowly. “Just tired.”

He doesn’t push. Just pulls a half-crushed pack of gum from his pocket and holds it out. “Sugar helps.”

I take a piece, chewing more for the distraction than anything. “You ever meet someone and… I dunno… feel like you’re supposed to know them?”

Zayn’s quiet for a second, eyes drifting toward the end of the hallway where sunlight streaks through the front doors in crooked slants. “You mean like fate or whatever?”

I shake my head. “Not fate. Just… like you’ve met them in a dream. Or maybe you’re supposed to meet them later, but you bumped into them early by mistake.”

Zayn hums. “That sounds like fate with extra steps.”

I huff a laugh through my nose. “Yeah, maybe.”

He looks at me then—really looks—and it’s the kind of gaze that’s hard to hold. Not because it’s intense, but because it’s too knowing. Like he sees through the words I’m dancing around. Like he already knows who I’m talking about.

“Anyways, have you seen Lil? He owes me a pencil.” Zayn says instead of the obvious.

“Yeah, he’s in chemistry,” I reply, grateful for the shift—even if only for a moment.

Because even after Zayn nods and drifts away toward Liam, swallowed by the moving tides of the crowded hallway, Harry’s silence clings to me like a weight I can’t shrug off. It’s not just the absence of words—it’s the quiet that screams louder than any shout, the space between us that feels like a wound left open.

That quiet makes my chest ache in a way I barely understand, twisting something raw and fragile inside me. I hate how easily he seems to have forgotten me—how his eyes slide past mine without a flicker of recognition—while I’m stuck, tangled in every stolen moment we shared, every small kindness I thought meant something.

Chapter Text

By the end of the week, I hated myself.

It started slow—like most awful things do. Monday bled into Tuesday, and with it, my feelings for Harry bled too. No clean lines, no clarity. Just a quiet ache that settled behind my ribs and refused to leave.
When school let out Monday, I told myself I’d forget him. Swore it, even.

That Harry Styles—curly hair, soft voice, maddening silences—would not take up space in my head. That I’d wash him out with noise, with anything. I listened to Lottie rant about some girl at school she hated, let her go on and on even though I’d sworn off drama like it was a religion. I spoke to people I didn’t care for. I made myself laugh. I distracted every piece of me.

But none of it worked.
Because nothing—no joke, no voice, no crowd—was loud enough to drown him out.

The worst part wasn’t even the fact that I liked him. It was knowing that he was the same boy from the park—the one who smiled like it was a secret and looked at me like I was worth something.
Only now, he wouldn’t look at me at all.

That day in the park, he said my name like it meant something. And maybe it did, to him. But it didn’t stop the way I left with something I hadn’t had when I came—a crush. As stupid as it sounds. A real one.

I slept easy Monday night. But Tuesday morning, it felt like someone had tied a rope tight around my chest. Not choking me, not completely—but pulling, steadily. Unrelenting.

I knew why.
I just didn’t want to admit it.

I was scared. Not in the way you fear monsters under your bed, but in the way your stomach knots before walking into a room you know might hurt you. I didn’t want to see him. Not if he was going to pretend I didn’t exist. Not if he was going to sit beside me and feel miles away.

I hated his silence just as much as I hated the way I felt when he spoke.

And still, here I sit. Mr. Charlie’s class. Head down. Pretending the blank pages in front of me are more important than the boy a few feet away. I didn’t even try to draw today. I just flipped through one of Liam’s old sketchbooks, half-hoping it would distract me. It didn’t.

The pencil in my hand feels like a weight. And every now and then, I swear I can feel Harry’s silence pressing down on my shoulders.

I flip through the pages of Liam’s drawings and pause on one—an unfinished sketch of his mum. Her face is half-done, the lines trailing off like Liam got distracted or just didn’t feel like finishing. I run my fingers lightly down the edge of the page, where the graphite softens into nothing, where her cheek is supposed to be but isn’t.

Liam was always good at that.
Letting things be incomplete.

He could walk away from a sketch and not carry it with him. Could leave something half-finished and still sleep at night.
I never could.

Leaving things undone makes me itch, makes my chest feel too tight. Like there’s a clock ticking inside me, waiting for the moment I give up. And if I do—if I don’t finish something—it’s like proof I failed. Like I wasn’t enough to see it through.

That’s why I never really drew people.
Not properly. Not often.

I hated it. Still kind of do.

Hands were always easier—twisted in sleeves, reaching, resting, clenched. I could draw the tension in fingers, the way a palm folds when someone’s nervous. I could understand that language.

But faces?
Faces are a different kind of intimacy.

I remember trying to draw Niall once. Just as a joke at first. He was grinning, probably teasing me, and I thought I’d capture it—lock that moment on paper. But I couldn’t get his hair right. Couldn’t get the shape of his smile without it looking wrong. It made me angry. Too angry.

I tore the page out and threw it away.
Didn’t even let myself try again.

It wasn’t just about the drawing. It was about not being able to hold someone exactly as I saw them. About falling short. About the fear that if I couldn’t get it right, maybe I didn’t know them at all.

When I do finally look up—really just to check the clock—I catch the tail end of whatever Mr. Charlie’s been droning on about for the past twenty minutes. Something about equations, numbers lined up neatly across the board like soldiers I’ll never command.

Math’s never been my strong suit. I scrape by with the occasional C, and even that feels like a small miracle. But it’s not just me—half the class looks glazed over, lost to their doodles or daydreams. The other half knows the answer and can’t be bothered to prove it.

“I see no one wants to answer,” Mr. Charlie says, his voice carrying that hopeful sternness teachers use when they think shame might do the trick. He paces a few steps, waiting. Silence holds.

And then—
“Well then, Harry. Want to give it a try?”

It’s not my name, but the sound of it hits me like it is.
Harry.

The blood drains from my face and floods back in all at once, my chest buzzing like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. I can’t help it—I turn to him.

Harry.

The boy who was a stranger and somehow not.
The boy who found our football in the park, who smiled at me like I was worth a moment of his world.
The boy who won’t look at me now.

When I glance at him, he’s already stiffened. Just seconds ago, he was hunched over his paper, pen tapping lightly against the edge, sleeve of his jumper pulled over his hand like it could shield him from everything outside that page. He looked untouchable in his quiet—like nothing could get to him here. But I know better. I know that look isn’t invincibility. It’s armor.

Now, though—
Now he’s been called by name.
And the armor cracks.

Color rises in his cheeks, soft pink blooming fast and uneven, and his posture jerks upright like someone yanked a string in his spine. His eyes don’t leave the desk, and yet I can see the way he braces, like if he breathes too loud, the whole room might notice him.

I shouldn’t love this moment.
But I do.

It’s beautiful in a way I don’t know how to explain, even to myself.
Because for the first time, Harry looks… human.

My chest aches.
The kind that feels like breathing underwater—sharp and soft all at once.

“I—um…” he stammers, voice deep and liquid, spilling straight into me.

I don’t look away.
I can’t.

I don’t check to see if anyone else is laughing or smirking or watching him squirm. I’m too caught in the way his hands fidget with his pencil, the way his mouth moves around that uncertainty, the way his whole body seems to fold in on itself and try to survive the moment.

One second, he was safe in his own quiet.
The next, he’s under the weight of the room.
And I am the only one holding him with my eyes.

The ache in my lungs eases for just a second.
Because even if he doesn’t look at me, even if he never does…

He feels real again. And for a selfish, stupid moment, that’s enough.

Mr. Charlie doesn’t give him much time. Teachers never do.

“Well, Harry?” he prompts, voice sharp enough to make a few heads lift. “What’s the next step?”

I can see the question hit Harry like a physical thing. His shoulders twitch, his fingers tightening around his pencil until the knuckles pale. He opens his mouth—then closes it again. His throat bobs in a swallow I feel in my own chest.

“I… I’m not sure,” he finally manages, voice so quiet it barely makes it across the row between us.

It’s nothing dramatic. No one laughs, not yet. But the silence after is heavy, like the air itself is waiting to see if he’ll break any further. My own hands itch to do something stupid—nudge his elbow, whisper the answer (even if I don’t know it), throw him a rope he doesn’t even know I want to give.

“Alright,” Mr. Charlie says, more sigh than scold. He turns to the rest of the class. “Someone else?”

A girl in the second row calls out the answer without even raising her hand. Mr. Charlie praises her, writes it on the board, and the moment moves on. But Harry doesn’t.

I watch the way his shoulders sag with relief when attention slips away, like he’s been holding a weight that only he could feel. His pencil starts moving again, but it’s different now—stiffer, more mechanical, like he’s forcing his body to pretend nothing happened.

And me? I can’t stop staring.

I feel it all in my chest—the quiet panic, the way it clings to him even as the rest of the room forgets. It makes me want to reach over and press my hand to his arm, to tell him he’s okay. That I saw him, and I didn’t think less of him for it. That maybe I understood him in a way no one else here did.

But I don’t.
I sit in my own silence, my own cowardice. because still I want him to look at me first. I want him to bridge that space between us and let me know I’m not imagining it—that the boy from the park is still in there somewhere, still carrying that softness I can’t seem to shake.

He doesn’t. He just keeps his head down, like if he hides long enough, the world might forget he exists.

I know I tried to.

The bell finally rings, loud and jarring, and for a second, the entire class exhales like they’ve all been holding their breath. Chairs scrape, papers shuffle, and voices rise as everyone rushes to escape the monotony of Mr. Charlie’s room.

Harry moves slower than the rest. He always does. Like he’s waiting for the tide to pull out before he dares step into the water. I watch him gather his things carefully, his long fingers tucking his pencil into the spiral of his notebook, his sleeve still shielding his hand like the world might take a swing if he leaves it exposed.

I don’t move right away.
I tell myself it’s because I’m giving the crowd time to thin, but really, I’m stalling.

When he finally stands, his shoulder brushes mine—not enough to mean anything, but enough to make my pulse stutter. I think maybe this is it. Maybe he’ll glance at me, say something small, anything. A “see you,” a nod, a sign that the boy from the park hasn’t vanished completely.

But he doesn’t. He slides past me and out the door.

I shove my notebook into my bag and follow at a distance, feet moving on autopilot while the rest of me burns.

The hallway feels too bright, too loud. Lockers slam, laughter bounces off the walls, someone yells across the hall for a football schedule—but all I hear is the sound of my own pulse, and the ghost of his voice in my chest. I spot him ahead, moving like a shadow through the chaos, and for a wild second, I want to run after him. Tap his shoulder. Make him see me.

But I don’t. Because what if he doesn’t turn?
What if he does, and he looks at me like I’m no one?

Instead, I duck into the nearest bathroom and grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles ache. My reflection stares back at me, flushed and furious and a little bit pathetic.

I think about the rope around my chest, the one that’s been tightening since Monday. I think about how it pulls every time he walks away, every time I let him. I hate myself for it. For letting a boy I barely know live in my ribs like this.

I hate that I can’t stop wishing he’d just look back.

But I don’t get the chance to pour my story into the mirror, to let the ache in my chest spill out where no one will see it. Not when the door slams open, shattering the quiet, and a flood of boys crashes into the bathroom like a storm. Laughter ricochets off the tiled walls—sharp, messy, too loud—and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

They’re younger than me, I think. A year, maybe. Faces I half-recognize from the halls, but no names stick. They don’t even glance my way as they swarm the room, all shoves and elbows and wild energy. One boy slams another into a stall door; another grabs someone in a headlock and drags him toward the urinals. It isn’t anger, not really—just that kind of rough play boys do when they don’t know what else to do with their bodies. Like fun and violence live in the same place.

The sink trembles under my hands as they collide with the porcelain next to me. For a moment, I feel like I’m underwater, watching it all from a distance, waiting for one of them to notice me and snap the bubble I’m hiding in.

The tears that had been burning at the edges of my eyes retreat, startled back into hiding. The noise drowns them. Or maybe it shames them away. My sadness doesn’t belong here, not in this hurricane of chaos and laughter.

I don’t intervene. Why would I? I slip out past the chaos, the squeak of sneakers and slam of stall doors trailing behind me, and release a huff of air that’s equal parts frustration and relief. I should’ve thanked them, really—those loud, reckless boys. Because if they hadn’t crashed into that bathroom when they did, I would’ve been standing there crying over a ridiculous boy who didn’t know me. A boy I didn’t really know, either. They’d saved me from falling into my own head, from tipping into a pit with no soft mat to catch me at the bottom.

So I force myself to walk the halls like Monday never ended. When Harry’s curls or hands or soft, infuriating face flicker through my mind, I push him away like I’m swatting at a wasp. I choke down the memory of his voice before it can sting.

By lunch, I’m sitting with Liam and Zayn, my tray untouched, nodding along as they talk about something I can’t hear. If they notice I’m off, they don’t say a word. Maybe they know better than to pull me out of it. Maybe they don’t care.

I make it through the day like that—ignoring the tug of him every time it claws at me—until the final bell lets me go. Home is supposed to be better. Safe. Familiar. And yet again, I bury myself in distraction like it’s a religion. I play with Daisy and Phoebe while they argue about which marker should color which princess’s dress, their little voices like bells that almost, almost drown him out. I help Lottie and Fizzy with schoolwork, let them roll their eyes when I get a problem wrong, and I even chop vegetables for Mum, letting the smell of onions sting my eyes in place of tears I refuse to shed.

But nothing works. Nothing breaks the curse he’s put over me.

By nightfall, I’m desperate. My skin buzzes with the need to be anywhere but my own head, so I pitch the idea of a movie night like it’s some spontaneous treat. I dig out the old blankets and the mismatched mugs, anything to keep my hands busy, anything to keep that boy from curling up in the space behind my ribs.

Wednesday comes with the sweet whistle of a bird outside my window. It should have been lovely—a soft little song to start the day—but instead, it just reminds me that I have to see Harry again. That he’ll be there, silent and unreachable, a ghost sitting a few feet away pretending I don’t exist.

As I shower and drag a jumper over my head, I catch myself hoping—again—that today will be different. That maybe he’ll finally turn to me, let those green eyes meet mine, and that the smile I once saw in the park will find its way back to his mouth. Just once. Just long enough for me to know I didn’t imagine it.

But like Monday. Like Tuesday. I get nothing.

When Mr. Charlie’s class lets out, I linger in my seat, only to watch Harry’s back disappear into the hall, already a few paces ahead, the distance between us stretched taut like a string I can’t pull.

By lunch, the ache has dulled to a throb I can almost ignore—until Liam’s voice cuts through my haze.

“God, I hate when people smack,” he grumbles, stabbing at his sandwich like it insulted him. “Like, shut your bloody mouth, yeah? No one wants to see your food.”

I blink down at my tray, startled from the spiral of thoughts I hadn’t even noticed myself sinking into. Liam isn’t even looking at me, but there’s fire in his eyes, the kind that only comes from a fresh irritation. Somewhere in the last few minutes, someone’s ruined his lunch break, and now I’m watching the aftershocks.

Across from him, Zayn grins like the devil himself. His dark eyes spark with mischief, and even though his own lunch is nearly gone, he opens his mouth deliberately and smacks his lips together once. Twice. A wet, exaggerated sound that makes Liam’s jaw clench so hard I can hear his teeth grind.

The sound is ridiculous, childish, but it makes something inside me flicker. For a moment, I’m not the boy haunted by someone else’s silence. I’m just a piece of the table, caught in the gravity of my friends’ tiny, dumb orbit—the way Liam glares like he’s going to combust, and Zayn laughs under his breath like he lives to pour fuel on the fire.

And yet, even in the middle of their game, my gaze slips past them. Back to the table across the cafeteria. Back to where Harry sits, head bowed over his tray, and the rope around my chest pulls tight all over again.

I didn’t notice Liam had stopped his pity party until his voice dropped, quieter than usual, and I realized he was following my gaze.
“Seriously?” he mutters, not even trying to hide the edge in his voice.

Heat floods my neck. I snap my eyes back to the table, to my untouched lunch, to anything that isn’t the boy across the room. “What?” I say, too fast, too defensive.

Liam lifts a brow, chewing like he’s debating whether it’s worth the effort to call me out. “You know he has like a boyfriend, right?”

I didn’t. Not really. “Yeah. Of course I know,” I lied, the words bitter and sharp on my tongue, my only lifeline in the middle of that noisy lunchroom. I clung to them like they could keep me afloat, even as my chest tightened with something heavier than I wanted to name.

In that moment, it all made a cruel sort of sense—why Harry wouldn’t look at me, why his silences stretched like walls between us. He knew. He must have. He must’ve seen the way I watched him like I couldn’t help it, the way my body ached when he walked past. And he was… kind enough not to lead me on.

That thought hit like a stone dropped in my stomach—painful, but easier than hope. Easier than believing he was ignoring me for no reason. Easier than thinking I was invisible.

It was foolish, I know that now.
Foolish to think the whole story could be that simple. Foolish to swallow my own hurt like it was a punishment I deserved. Foolish, because I hadn’t seen the bruises yet.
Hadn’t seen the proof that maybe it wasn’t me at all.

The rest of lunch crawls by in a blur I can’t quite touch. Zayn keeps poking at Liam until he snaps and swats him with a balled-up napkin, and the two of them fall into their usual bickering. I nod along, pretend to laugh when I should, but I’m somewhere else entirely—caught between the pit in my stomach and the table across the room.

Harry doesn’t look up once.

Not when someone calls his name from another table. Not when his tray clatters a little too loud as he moves his fork.

His curls shadow his face, and he’s folded into himself like he’s trying to take up less space than he already does. It’s a kind of quiet I know too well—the kind that makes the room feel like it’s spinning without you.

I tell myself to stop staring.

I tell myself to eat my lunch, to let him be, to let this ridiculous crush rot in the corner of my chest where it belongs. But my eyes keep betraying me, darting back to him, collecting little details like crumbs I can’t stop following.

I didn’t know Harry’s boyfriend. Not his name, not his face, not the way he laughed or walked or said hello in the hallway. I didn’t know if he was clever or charming or one of those boys who could talk their way out of anything. But I knew one thing, without question, without hesitation—he didn’t deserve Harry.

Not that kind of beauty.

Because Harry wasn’t just beautiful in the obvious way, the way people notice across rooms or write about in songs. No—he was the kind of beautiful that made you quiet. The kind that made you want to look twice and still not speak. There was softness in him, a quiet weight in his silences, like he carried stories in his ribs that no one had ever asked him to share. He looked like someone who could make you feel safe just by sitting next to you—if he trusted you enough to get that close.

And whoever he was with—whoever got to hold Harry in ways I knew I could do better—he didn’t deserve any of it.

I don’t know at that time how much had he really didn’t deserve Harry.

Wednesday night bled into Thursday morning, and somewhere in that sleepless stretch, I stopped trying to scold myself into forgetting him. I let myself think about him freely, like some reckless confession only my ceiling would hear.

I imagined all the conversations we’d never have.

I thought about how his voice might sound when he’d just woken up, still soft and drowsy, all edges blurred by sleep. I thought about the tone he’d use if he ever wanted something from me—gentle enough that I’d give it without a second thought. I thought about the kinds of things we’d whisper if we were ever brave enough to speak in the dark, under stars instead of fluorescent lights. I imagined him lying next to me in the grass, and me finally showing him what he was to me. How the night sky made me feel small, and how he made me feel the same—but in the kind of way that makes your chest glow instead of ache.

I would have stared up at him the same way I stared up at the stars. Amazed.

And still, I promised myself those thoughts would never leave my room. That they would live in the quiet space between the ceiling and my chest, where no one could laugh at them but me.

But then Harry giggled in class.

Mr. Charlie said something dull, some throwaway joke about a miscalculated problem, and Harry let out this sound—light, unguarded, almost shy. A sound sweeter than Southern tea, sweet enough to make my head spin.

I couldn’t stop imagining it.
That same giggle spilling into a laugh if someone tickled him until his curls fell into his eyes and his cheeks flushed pink. That same laugh bubbling out in the quiet after I whispered something just for him, something that belonged to no one else.

It was ridiculous, the way a single sound could undo me.
The way I could hear that small, perfect laugh and feel hope bloom in the middle of all my ache, fragile and foolish and impossible to kill.

And in the mess of everything I felt for Harry—how consuming it was, how it took root in places I didn’t know could ache—I hadn’t allowed myself to think of his boyfriend.

I didn’t make space for him in the story. Didn’t ask where he fit into the puzzle because I didn’t want him to fit. I pushed him aside in my mind like he was just a footnote, like he didn’t matter. But the truth is, I felt too much about him for someone I’d never even seen.

I hated him for existing.
And I resented myself even more for letting it matter.
Because he had something I wanted.
No—the thing I wanted. The softness of Harry’s voice. His trust. That laugh.
He got to hold the very thing I’d started building entire worlds around in my head.

So just like every day that week, when the bell rang and Harry disappeared into the noise of the hallway without a glance in my direction, I swallowed it all down. The longing. The jealousy. The unbearable ache of not being enough—or maybe never being an option at all.

But the more I tried to force it down, the harder it got.
Because each day I studied him—watched the way his hands folded neatly in his lap, the way his eyes dimmed when he thought no one was looking, the way his laugh never quite reached his eyes—the more impossible it became to pretend my feelings were small.

They weren’t.
They were loud. They were messy. They were taking up more and more room inside me until I couldn’t breathe without thinking about him.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
Not yet.
Not when I still didn’t know if I was the only one watching.

My first Friday knowing Harry came and went, and it didn’t feel any different from the rest of the week.
I woke up with that familiar dread curling in my stomach, the heavy knowing that school meant seeing him again. And still, the cycle repeated itself: I’d walk through the doors, drag myself to Mr. Charlie’s class, and the second I sat down next to Harry, something in me would loosen.

It wasn’t happiness, not really.
Just… relief. Like being close to him made the ache bearable. Like my chest could breathe in his quiet and pretend that meant something. For a while, my feelings felt manageable, like I could tuck them in my pocket and get through the day without falling apart.

But then the bell would ring, and Harry would leave without a glance, and the emptiness would return like a tide I couldn’t stop. By the time I escaped into the hallways, I was right back to the same routine—telling myself to forget him, forcing my brain to build walls around the part of me that still waited for something that would never come.

At least home promised me something better than the endless loop of hopeless pining.
I’d invited Niall over, my last resort in a week full of failed distractions. He was the only thing I hadn’t tried yet to quiet my mind, the closest thing I had to a drug strong enough to numb the obsession that had rooted itself in my chest.

When I pushed open the front door, the first thing I noticed was the bike leaning against the wall outside. A stupid smile tugged at my mouth. Niall always insisted on taking his bike on the tram, no matter how impractical it was, like the world was his to inconvenience. I could picture him brushing off every annoyed stare with that grin of his, the one that dared anyone to stay mad at him.

Sure enough, he was already inside, sprawled on the couch like he owned the place.
Then again, Niall’s always belonged here.

Some friends have to be invited in, like guests. Niall never was. He fit into the noise of my family like a missing puzzle piece—laughing with my sisters, stealing biscuits from the kitchen, dropping his shoes by the door like they’d always lived there. Sometimes I wondered if he loved my house more than I did.

“Oi, welcome home, darling. Now where’s those purple crisps at? I couldn’t find them,” Niall calls the moment I walk in. His voice is warm, teasing, like he owns the place, and if you couldn’t tell, that “darling” was pure sarcasm. It always is. I’ve spent enough time with Niall to know I’m lucky if I even get a nod, let alone a proper hug.

My school bag slips off my shoulder with a dull thud, sliding against the couch as I let it fall. “I hid them because I knew Fizzy would try and take them. And they’re called corn crisps,” I correct as I head for the pantry.

Standing on tiptoe, I reach to the back shelf, my fingers brushing the familiar crinkle of the half-empty bag. Somehow, just the routine of it—the stretch, the hunt, the ritual of hiding snacks from my siblings—grounds me in a way school never does.

When I turn, Niall’s grinning, elbows hooked over the back of the couch as he leans to watch me. His grin is all trouble and comfort in equal measure. “Ah, I knew Fizzy was my favorite Tomlinson,” he says with a mock-serious nod.

I toss the crisps at him and he catches them one-handed, like it’s second nature. “You said the same thing about Lottie last week.”

“She is my favorite,” he says around the first crunch, already pulling the clip off the bag. “Like how the twins are also my favorite. And your mum, obviously. Your mum is everyone’s favorite.”

I roll my eyes, but my mouth twitches in the beginnings of a smile I hadn’t realized I had left in me. For the first time all week, the tight rope around my chest loosens just enough to breathe.

The couch creaks as he shifts, thumping the cushion beside him with the flat of his hand in invitation. I sink down next to him, my body going soft against the worn fabric, and it’s like the ache I’ve been carrying all week finally lets me set it down—if only for a little while.

“Speaking of the girls,” Niall says between chews, “where are they? They usually beat you home.”

“Mum took the twins to a birthday party for one of their little friends,” I say, settling deeper into the couch. The familiar rhythm of home is like muscle memory. “Fizzy’s at dance, and Lottie’s probably just asleep.”

It’s an easy answer because this house, this life, doesn’t change. No matter how my brain spins at school, no matter how the sight of Harry can hollow me out and fill me up all at once, this place stays steady. I can name every noise, every creak in the floorboards. I can picture the girls in all their routines without thinking.

Niall makes a small contented hum around another mouthful of crisps, and for a fleeting second, it almost feels like enough.
Like maybe if I sink into this moment hard enough—couch, crumbs, safe walls, Niall’s stupid jokes—I can forget the boy who doesn’t look at me.

Niall shifts beside me, his knee knocking lightly against mine, and the sound of the bag crinkling fills the soft quiet between us. He’s humming something under his breath—some song stuck in his head, off-key and lazy—but it blends with the faint tick of the clock and the distant hum of traffic outside.

For a moment, my brain isn’t running laps around Harry’s silence or replaying his every movement like a broken film reel. It’s just… here.

I close my eyes for a beat too long, and of course, that’s when Niall’s voice breaks through, “How’s Zayn and Liam?”

“You literally saw them last week?”

“And I used to see them everyday, now pipe up, Tommo.”

I huff a laugh, eyes still closed. “They’re alright,” I say, voice soft. “Liam’s still pretending he doesn’t care about his grades while somehow knowing the entire syllabus by heart. And Zayn’s… Zayn. Mysterious and too cool to text back but shows up at lunch with a perfectly timed insult and a full sleeve sketch.”

Niall chuckles beside me, and the sound is warm in my chest. “Sounds about right.”

Then again he speaks after a second of noting.

“You’re being quiet,” he says, around a mouthful of crisps. “Like, quieter than usual. And that’s saying something, ’cause you’re already a moody little git.”

My eyes snap open, and I turn my head just enough to catch his smirk. He’s watching me like he’s got me cornered, like he knows something I don’t want to say out loud.
“I’m fine,” I lie automatically, because what else is there to say? I’m losing my mind over a boy who won’t even look at me? Yeah, no.

Niall doesn’t buy it, of course. He rarely does. He just leans back against the arm of the couch, one arm slung over the top, looking far too comfortable.

“Right. And I’m the bloody Queen,” he says, crumbs dusting his shirt. “C’mon, Lou. I’ve known you since you cried over that dead goldfish in Year Four. You think I can’t tell when you’re being weird?”

I huff, trying to act annoyed, but the corner of my mouth twitches again despite myself. “It wasn’t just a goldfish. It was—”

“—your best friend, yeah, yeah, I remember,” he interrupts with a grin. “Had a little funeral and everything. Anyway, point is, something’s up. Spill, or I start guessing.”

I hesitate, staring at the bag of crisps in his lap like maybe the answer’s hidden there. My chest feels tight again, the rope tugging as if Harry’s name is pressing against my ribs, trying to escape.

But I shake my head, leaning it back against the couch, letting my eyes trace the familiar cracks in the ceiling. “There’s nothing to spill,” I mutter, softer now. “Just tired.”

Niall doesn’t push, not yet. But I can feel his gaze lingering on me, sharp and careful beneath all the joking. He’s the kind of friend who laughs first and listens second, but when he does listen, he hears everything.

For now, though, he lets me have my silence. He crunches another crisp and nudges my knee with his. “Well, if you’re tired, movie night’ll fix that. I brought the worst rom-com I could find. It’s gonna make you cry in the dumbest way possible, and I can’t wait.”

I nudge him back with my foot. “Just start it before Mum gets home and kicks us off the telly.”

Niall snorts, letting me win for now. He slides off the couch to rummage through his bag, muttering about “cinematic masterpieces” as he digs out a scratched DVD case.

The telly clicks on, washing the room in flickering light, and I curl into the corner of the couch. Outside, the sky is sliding toward evening, soft blue and bruised with clouds, and for a little while, it feels like the world has shrunk to just this—home, Niall, and the hum of a story I don’t have to think about.

But even as the opening credits roll, my mind betrays me. I picture Harry watching movies somewhere else, head resting on someone else’s shoulder, and wonder if he ever feels this safe.

In the middle of the film, during a lull in dialogue, Niall sniffs and leans his head just slightly toward me. “We should do this next weekend,” he says, his voice low, like we’re tucked into a dark cinema instead of my living room.

“Yeah,” I answer automatically, but I turn to meet his eyes, letting him know I mean it.

“But with Liam and Zayn,” he continues, and there’s a soft, eager note in his tone. “Like a proper movie night. Popcorn, the little bags of sweets, the stupid blankets and tissues and everything.”

I can almost feel the warmth of the picture in his head, the way he reaches for that simple happiness like someone who doesn’t get to hold it often anymore. There’s something in the way his grin falters at the edges, just enough for me to see how much he wants that room full of laughter again.

“Yeah,” I say, softer this time. “I have a game Friday, but… we could do it after. If we win, we celebrate. If we lose…” I shrug, a ghost of a smile tugging at my mouth. “…we’ll just drown in chocolate instead. I’d have to ask Mum, but…”

Niall nods quickly, eyes sparking like I’ve just given him something bigger than permission. “Yeah, yeah. I just thought it might be nice,” he murmurs, turning back toward the telly.

The movie washes over the room in flashes of soft light, but I can still feel Niall looking at me from the corner of his eye. And sure enough, a moment later he turns fully toward me again, his expression shifting to something quieter.
“Are you nervous for the game?” he asks. “I mean… after the whole injury?”

The question hits me in a place I hadn’t touched in days. My chest tightens, like he’s cracked open a door I’d kept locked. I blink, glance away from him and the telly both, toward the darkened window where our reflections flicker faintly in the glass.

I hadn’t thought about it. Not really. My brain has been stuck in one relentless loop all week—green eyes, soft curls, and the ache of wanting what isn’t mine. I’ve spent every waking hour pining for a boy who doesn’t look at me, wishing for moments that never come. And in the process, I’ve ignored what I do have.

I do have a concussion that scared my mum half to death.
I do have my first match back on the pitch in less than a week.
I do have this quiet little life that will keep moving whether Harry ever notices me or not.

My heart gives a strange, off-beat thump at the thought of stepping onto the field again, and for a split second I taste the fear I’d been holding off—grass, sweat, the blur of impact, the world tilting sideways.

But Niall’s looking at me with those open, waiting eyes, and I can’t let him see the flicker of panic. He believes in me too much for me to feed him anything else.

“Yeah,” I admit, voice low. “I’m nervous. But I’ll be alright. Trainer’s words, yeah?”

Niall studies me for a second longer, like he’s weighing my answer against the truth he can see on my face. Then he nods and goes back to crunching crisps, letting the room fall into the easy rhythm of soft light and quiet chewing.

And I lean back into the couch, letting the comfort of home press against my shoulders, all the while feeling the shadow of next week—the game, the pitch, and the boy in my head—waiting just outside the door.

Niall slipped out Saturday morning before the girls were even awake. He was always like that—gone with the first stretch of light, leaving only the faint smell of crisps and his laughter echoing in the walls. The twins and Fizzy never got the chance to properly say goodbye; they’d only mumbled hello last night before disappearing into bed. In a way, it felt like his leaving had gone unfinished, like a page in a book half-turned.

I’ve never liked goodbyes. They always taste too final, like an ending you didn’t agree to. Even when I know I’ll see someone again, the word sits heavy in my chest, a lump I can’t swallow down. So I usually avoid it—slip in a “see you later” or a stupid joke, like laughing will trick my chest out of aching.

But that morning, when Niall’s bike finally wobbled down the drive and disappeared around the corner, all I could feel was the echo of absence. The air in the house seemed to expand without him, too quiet and too full all at once.

It’s strange, feeling lonely in a house so stuffed with bodies. Mum humming somewhere in the kitchen, Lottie’s soft breathing behind her door,Fizzy and the twins tangled up in a bed that’s too small for the both of them—and still, I felt like the last person on earth.

The walls seemed to remember him, though. The couch cushion still warm from where he’d sat. The half-crushed crisp bag slumped on the coffee table. The faintest dent in the carpet where he’d dropped his shoes. Little traces of him, proof that I wasn’t imagining the way he fills a room, the way he leaves it aching when he goes.

And in the quiet that followed, the thought I’d been holding at bay all night returned—soft and inevitable as the tide. Harry.
Always Harry.

That evening, I lied to my mum. Told her I had homework I’d forgotten about—something urgent, something I couldn’t do from the couch surrounded by noise and sisters and the soft lull of normal life. Somehow, she believed me. Or maybe she just let me have it, sensing I needed the space.

I slipped upstairs and shut the door behind me, sealing myself into the quiet of my room like it might forgive me for everything I couldn’t say aloud.

In here, I let myself think of Harry. Just… think. Without flinching. Without apologizing to myself for it.

I slumped back in my chair, feet kicked up on the edge of my desk, the cheap wheels squeaking faintly as I leaned into the quiet. But even now—even in the one place I’m supposed to be safe from myself—my thoughts betrayed me.

They started soft. Just the usual ache. The curl of his hair, the slope of his shoulders when he’s not sitting up straight, the way his fingers twitch when he’s holding in a laugh. Things I’d memorized without permission.

But then my mind drifted—too far, too fast—and I pictured his lips.

I hadn’t seen them smile at me once this week, but still I knew them like a line from a song I couldn’t stop humming. I knew the way they creased when he smirked at a teacher. The way they parted slightly when he was concentrating. And suddenly I hated myself for wondering how they’d taste.

It made something sour twist in my stomach—this awful, electric ache.

Because it wasn’t just wanting to be near him anymore. Not just the far-off softness of wondering how his voice might sound when he’s tired, or how he’d laugh if it were just the two of us. No. My brain had jumped to the thought of him being close—close enough to touch, to kiss.

And that was the line. That was the thing I couldn’t excuse.

I shoved the thought away, hard. Like it could bruise me if I let it settle too long.

Because what the hell was wrong with me?

Harry had a boyfriend. A whole person who got to hold his hand, kiss his mouth, hear him laugh up close. He didn’t need someone like me—a boy with a reckless heart and no sense of timing, a boy who falls too fast and wants too much—to ruin that.

And still… I wanted.

I wanted all the things I wasn’t allowed to want. I wanted what wasn’t mine.

And that made me hate myself most of all.

The buzz of my phone yanked me out of the spiral.
I blinked down at my desk, pen still clutched in my fingers, spinning slow circles in the grooves of my palm. The vibration rattled against the wood, small and sharp in the quiet of my room.

I set the pen down and reached for the phone like it was a lifeline.

A notification. Just a tweet. One of the lads from school reminding everyone about a house party on Sunday, and where to meet if you wanted to help set up.

I stared at it for a long moment, letting the words blur until the screen dimmed to black.

I hadn’t even known about the party. I never do. That’s Niall’s territory—he’s the one who collects parties like souvenirs, shows up to any house with music pulsing from the walls and somehow always leaves feeling welcome. Me? I only ever know about them if someone physically drags me along.

But now that I knew, my brain did what it always does: turned straight to Harry.
Would he be there?
Did he know about it?

And then I hated myself—hated—for how automatic that thought was. For how every tiny thing in the world somehow bent its way back to him, like a compass needle trapped in my chest.

I locked my phone and stared at my reflection in the dark screen, and in that split second, I saw it. My out.

This party could be my escape.

This party could make me forget him.

If I went—if I let the noise and bodies and music swallow me whole—maybe I’d remember that Harry wasn’t anything special. That he was just a boy with curls and green eyes and a smile he refused to give me. That he didn’t deserve the way my chest burned for him.

I could go and find someone else. Someone with warm hands and a willing mouth. Someone who could remind my body that it didn’t have to ache for him, specifically. That there were a hundred other ways to feel wanted.

I told myself it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. It was just… hunger. A craving for warmth I hadn’t felt in too long. A stupid, reckless body that wanted to be held, touched, kissed—and I’d convinced myself Harry was the only answer.

If I could let someone else close, just for one night, maybe I could finally pry him out of my chest. Maybe I could stop hating myself for wanting what wasn’t mine to take.

I pushed away from the desk and stood, phone clutched tight in my hand, like holding on to this decision might stop me from unraveling.

I told myself I’d go.

I told myself I’d let it all go.

And I hoped—desperately, foolishly—that someone else’s warmth could smother the fire Harry had left in me.

I went down for supper that night, I had laughed a little bit more. Because I knew that tomorrow I wouldn’t be home for supper.

Chapter Text

I fit into the party scene. I don’t wear glasses and a blouse, so people assume I belong here—assume I’m the kind of person who thrives under low lights and loud music. And maybe they’re right. I look the part. My jeans cling in all the right places, my smirk comes easy, and yeah—I get drunk often enough that no one questions why I’m here.

But if I had it my way, I’d be home. Always. Tucked under a blanket with my sketchpad or some rerun playing low in the background. The kind of quiet that lets you think. Or maybe the kind that lets you not think, which is what I need lately.

Still, I move through the bodies pressed into this too-small house like I’m supposed to be here. Like I’m not carrying a knot of something sharp and restless in my gut. The crowd isn’t massive, but it’s enough to make the air taste stale. I slip through them, making my way toward the drinks. No surprise—it’s a table littered with warm beer cans and a questionable red punch that looks like it’s mostly sugar and regret. I don’t expect top-shelf vodka or anything. Still, something cold would’ve been nice.

I grab a beer anyway. Pop the top, let the fizz burn away quickly, and lean back against the nearest wall. I let my eyes scan the room for a second, out of habit more than interest.

Usually, I’d be looking for Zayn or Liam—or even Niall, if it were still possible. But tonight, I didn’t invite the boys. I didn’t want Liam’s quiet disapproval, his calm voice telling me this plan to forget Harry is bullshit and that I’m only hurting myself. I didn’t want Zayn, with his effortless grin and unintentional magnetism, pulling attention like gravity and leaving me to feel like a shadow of myself. And I didn’t want to remember Niall’s absence—not really. Not when forgetting already takes so much effort.

So I came alone.

I take a sip. The beer’s as warm and bitter as I expected, but I don’t flinch.

Toward the back of the house, where the lights are brighter and the crowd thins, I see her. She’s standing near a folding table, backlit and easy to look at. Her curls fall in soft shapes around her shoulders—dark, like Harry’s. Because, yeah. I have a type.

I don’t see the color of her eyes. Just that they meet mine.

I should feel something. A flutter. A pull. Even a flicker of heat. But I don’t. Not the way I do with Harry—Harry, who doesn’t even need to touch me to ruin me. Harry, whose silence says more than most people’s confessions. Harry, who breathes near me and leaves me wrecked for days.

But her? She looks at me and I feel… nothing.

And god, I smile at that. Not because I’m charmed. Not because she’s beautiful, though she is. I smile because the emptiness feels familiar. Easier. The absence of butterflies is a relief.

She raises an empty glass toward me like it’s a question. A gesture. A game. I laugh under my breath, my head dropping forward, because this will be easy. Easier than wanting someone who won’t—or can’t—want me back.

When I lift my head again, she’s still watching me. Her drink lowered. Something unreadable in her gaze.

At that time, I didn’t think twice about that look. But now—I’ve spent too long reading Harry. Too long memorizing the flinches he tries to hide. The way he disappears into himself to keep the world from bruising what’s left.

Now, I see more than I used to. Now, I understand what it means when someone smiles with their mouth but not their eyes. I recognize the way someone makes themselves into what they think they should be—what they think you want—just to be wanted back.

I didn’t know how to read people like that when I was younger. Back when toxic love was just a storyline in a film and bruises meant falling during footie practice.

I raise my beer to her. I watch her smile like it means something. And I wish—god, I wish—she knew what she was doing when she waved me over. I wish I knew what I was doing when I started walking.

Because I wasn’t looking for a connection. I was looking for an absence. I was looking for somewhere to put my hands so I wouldn’t remember how much I ache for his. I was hoping that if I let someone else hold me, I might stop feeling like a live wire every time I think of him.

But Harry’s curls won’t vanish just because I tangle my hands in someone else’s hair. His softness won’t unmake itself just because I pretend I don’t care. My body can be touched by someone new, but it’ll still miss the hands that never reached for it in the first place.

Back then, I told myself Harry was just a passing thought. Just a boy with a kind mouth and eyes that knew too much. I thought I wanted him because it had been a while. Because I was lonely. Because I wanted to be wanted.

But that wasn’t the truth.

The truth was—I’d already given something to him. Quietly. Without asking anything in return. I’d offered myself in pieces, in glances, in unspoken things. And no one else could take that back, not even if they kissed me hard enough to bruise.

Still, I stepped toward her.

Because I hadn’t yet admitted what I was really doing.

“Hi,” she says, grinning at me like it’s easy. Like I haven’t already made this harder than it needs to be.

I smile back, but it’s small—tight around the edges, a little frayed. I can already feel it, that flicker of embarrassment crawling up the back of my neck. She’s my height. Maybe even taller. And I know that shouldn’t matter, not really, but it does—just enough to make my stomach clench.

She tilts her head, curls bouncing softly around her face. “You wanna dance?”

It’s not pushy. Just a question. Just a girl asking a boy to do something normal at a party.

But I’m not normal tonight. I’m not even sure I’m fully here.

Still, I nod. “Sure, love.” The nickname slips out on instinct, smooth and practiced.

Then I add, “But just know I can’t dance.”

I say it with a half-laugh, but my voice wavers at the end, betraying more than I mean to.

She smiles like she doesn’t notice. Like she hasn’t already picked up on the way I keep glancing past her shoulder, like I’m searching for something I’ll never find in this room.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says, reaching for my hand. “You’ve got rhythm, I can tell.”

I let her pull me forward. Let the music wrap around us. Let the noise distract me from the fact that the only rhythm I’ve ever followed instinctively was Harry’s—his laugh, his breath, the quiet between his sentences.

And I try. I really try.

We don’t really dance—just sway. A slow, quiet kind of motion that doesn’t belong to the music playing around us. Her body is pressed to mine, close enough that I can feel the rise and fall of her breath against my chest. Her hands settle lightly on my shoulders. Mine fall to her hips without thinking.

We talk, our voices soft and half-lost in the hum of the party. I don’t really need to hear her to respond—I’ve gotten good at this, at making conversation feel real when it isn’t.

I learn a few things.

Her eyes are green. Of course they are.

Her name is Hailey.

She’s not from here—just tagging along with a friend, just passing through.

There’s something fitting in that. She’s here for a night. And I’m not here at all.

I answer her questions with a practiced smile, that lazy, automatic charm I’ve relied on more times than I care to admit. It gets me through. Makes people think I’m fine.

But I’m not fine. I’m somewhere else entirely.

Because every time she looks at me like she means it, I see someone else. I see him.
Every time she laughs, I wonder how Harry would’ve laughed if he were here.

If he’d trace the scar on my wrist the way I sometimes trace it myself, like it might tell him something about me that I can’t say out loud.

And it’s not fair. Not to her. Not to me.

But pain—real pain—makes you selfish.
And longing… longing makes you cruel in ways that don’t look cruel. It turns your body into a shell and your smile into a lie.

So I let it happen.

I let the night pull me along, tide rising around my ankles until I’m waist-deep and too tired to turn back.

I let her take my hand and guide me up the stairs.

Let her open a door I won’t remember tomorrow.

Let her lean in, breath catching, lips brushing mine like she’s asking permission.

And I give it.

I kiss her back.

Because I want to forget. I want to forget that Harry ever had smiled at me.

She tastes like cherry lip gloss and cheap rum, and I think I’ll remember that longer than her name. Not because I want to, but because it’ll be proof—proof that I tried, that I gave someone else a chance to rewrite the ache in me. That I let someone look at me like they could matter.

Her hands slide beneath the hem of my shirt, soft and curious, and I let her. I let her explore a body that doesn’t flinch, but doesn’t respond either. I close my eyes and try to make her touch feel like something new, something healing. But all I feel is the missing pleasure of his hands.

She pulls back a little, breath warm against my neck. “You okay?” she asks, and I hate that question. Hate that she noticed. Hate that I don’t know the answer.

“Yeah,” I lie, swallowing thickly. “Just… little drunk, that’s all.”

She hums, fingers tracing idle shapes over my ribs. “Me too.”

I nod. That’s the problem, maybe. We’re both a little drunk. A little lost. A little too good at convincing ourselves we’re choosing this.

I kiss her again—deeper this time, rougher, like I’m trying to prove something. Like I think if I press hard enough, I’ll bruise out the memory of him.

I flip us so her back’s against the mattress. Her laugh bubbles up, breathless and surprised. I kiss down her throat, let my hands roam with practiced ease, and it’s not that she isn’t beautiful. She is.

But she’s not Harry. And I’m not someone who can forget that.

She arches beneath me, her breath catching in a way that should make me feel powerful. Wanted. But instead, it just makes me feel lonely. Like I’ve wandered too far from something real and can’t find my way back.

I bury my face in her neck, eyes burning. I want to disappear into this moment. I want to want her. But I don’t.

I pull back from her neck, just enough to look her in the eyes.

Her lips are parted, soft and swollen from all the kisses we’ve already shared, but the sight doesn’t warm me like it should. It doesn’t stir anything close to desire—it just knots something low and guilty in my chest.

Her shirt slips open beneath my fingers—slow, like the undoing of something delicate. I trace the line of skin I reveal, gentle, measured. I do everything I know how to do. Every move calculated for closeness. Every touch practiced from nights like this before.

She exhales softly, like she’s falling into the moment. Like she thinks I am, too.

But I’m not. I’m hovering just above it, barely tethered.

And I keep going. I keep touching her like she deserves to be touched—softly, with reverence, with the illusion of meaning. She responds with warmth, sighs into my mouth, grips the back of my neck like she wants to be pulled closer. Like she thinks I want that too.

And maybe a part of me does. Wants to be wanted. Wants to be anywhere but alone with the truth of him. But that part is small. Shaky. Dying under the weight of all the pretending.

Her fingers curl around my arm as she whispers my name—once, like it matters. Like it’s real. And I swallow hard, because I’ve heard Harry say it differently. He said it like it was a secret. Like it cost him something every time he let it slip.

I kiss her again so I don’t have to think about that. Don’t have to think about how this feels like erasing myself. Like stripping down not just my body but my heart—and handing it to someone who doesn’t know it’s not theirs to keep.

She shifts beneath me, pulls me tighter, and I give her more. More of what she wants. What she thinks I’m here for.

I kiss her again. She gasps a little, one leg hooking around my waist, pulling me down like she wants to disappear under me. And maybe that’s all either of us really wants: to disappear. To forget. To be someone else, even just for tonight.

But I can’t. I can’t stop thinking of him.

Harry, with his soft voice and that stupid, crooked smile that ruined me more than it should’ve. Harry, who would never pull me into his bed like this, but whose absence feels more intimate than this whole moment. He’s in the way she breathes, in the way I don’t. He’s the reason I’m here, pressing kisses into skin I won’t remember, giving away pieces of myself I already lost to him.

And I wonder—briefly—what it would’ve felt like, if it had been Harry under me like this. If he’d ever let me close enough to learn the weight of him. The sound he makes when he falls apart. If I would’ve touched him like this and finally felt something that didn’t make me ache. If his boyfriend wouldn’t be another man, but me.

But that never happened. That was never ours.

And this, this with her—it isn’t mine either.

When I finally push into her—slick, warm, welcoming in a way that should unravel me—her body arches against the mattress, finding a rhythm I can only follow, never lead. I brace myself on trembling arms, pretend the moan I let slip is for her, that it’s about pleasure and not the ache twisting inside me like a knife.

She murmurs soft encouragements, gentle commands—faster, closer, just like that—and I obey, not out of desire, but obligation. Because making her feel wanted is easier than admitting I don’t. Because if I keep moving, keep pretending, maybe I can outrun the part of me that knows none of this will fill the hollow place Harry left behind.

Her nails dig into my back. Her breath catches like she’s close. And I try—I really do—to be present. To feel. But all I can think about is how wrong it feels to be touched like this by someone who isn’t him. How I’m giving her a version of myself that stopped being real the moment I let someone else mean more.

I close my eyes, squeezing them shut until spots dance behind my eyelids. The low lights of the party bleed through the thin curtains, painting the room in a blurry, indistinct glow. I focus on that, on anything but the warmth of her body beneath mine, the soft sounds she’s making, the way her hips move in sync with mine.

I quicken my pace, a desperate, frantic attempt to reach an end, any end. I push deeper, harder, chasing a phantom sensation, a release that I know, even as I pursue it, won’t come from this. It’s a performance, a charade, and I’m playing my part with a grim, aching competence.

She cries out, a sharp, surprised sound, and her body tenses, then relaxes beneath me. Her fingers clench in my hair, pulling me down, and I bury my face in the crook of her neck, pretending that the shudder running through my body is satisfaction, not a cold, desolate emptiness.

“Oh, god,” she whispers, breathless, a triumphant note in her voice. “That-“

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what she means. She means it was good. She means I made her feel something. And that knowledge, instead of bringing relief, just twists the knife deeper. Because I made her feel something real, with a body that felt nothing but the ghost of another’s touch.

I lie there for a moment, heavy and inert, the weight of my deception pressing down on me. Her hand comes up to stroke my hair, a gentle, comforting gesture. And that’s when it hits me, a wave of disgust so profound it nearly buckles me. Disgust not for her, but for myself. For my cowardice. For my willingness to use her warmth to chase away my own cold.

I pull back, slowly, carefully, peeling myself away from her body. She makes a soft sound of protest, a small murmur of wanting me to stay, but I ignore it. I need to get out. I need air. I need to be alone.

I sit up, my back to her, and reach for my jeans, pulling them on with fumbling fingers. The beer from earlier churns in my stomach, a bitter taste rising in my throat.

“Where are you going?” She says, her voice soft, a little confused, a little hurt.

I don’t turn around. I can’t. “I just… I need to go.” My voice is flat, devoid of emotion, a stark contrast to the performative passion of moments ago.

“But…” she starts, and then trails off. I can feel her eyes on my back, tracing the outline of my hunched shoulders.

I pull my shirt over my head, the familiar fabric a small comfort against my skin. “I’m sorry, Hailey,” I say again, the words tasting like ash. “I really am.”

I stand, finally turning to face her. She’s sitting up, pulling the sheet around her, her beautiful hair a tangled mess around her shoulders. Her green eyes, no longer clouded by desire, are now clear, filled with a quiet understanding that rips through me. She sees it. She sees the emptiness.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says again, her voice steadier this time, a defensive edge creeping in. “It’s fine.”

But it’s not fine. I know it. And I think she does too.

I nod, a brief, sharp movement. There’s nothing left to say. No excuses that wouldn’t sound hollow, no apologies that could fix this. I just need to leave.

I turn and walk out of the room, not bothering to close the door behind me. The noise of the party rushes back in, loud and jarring, a stark reminder of the world I’m trying so hard to escape. I don’t look back. I just keep walking, through the throng of dancing bodies, out into the cool, dark night.

The fresh air hits me like a physical blow, clearing my head even as it makes me shiver. I walk fast, not knowing where I’m going, just away. Away from the party, away from the lie, away from the raw, painful truth that no matter how many bodies I lose myself in, Harry will always be the one I’m really looking for. And he will always be the one I can’t have.

That night, when I finally dragged myself home, the world felt hollow.
The party clung to my skin like smoke, like a memory I wanted to scrape off. My head still buzzed with the echoes of music and laughter, but underneath it was that familiar ache—heavy, gnawing, unshakable.

I thought of Hailey.
I wondered if she’d go back to the party, slip into the crowd like nothing had happened. God, I hoped she would. I hoped she’d laugh with her friends and dance under those ugly yellow lights and forget I’d ever touched her. Because I didn’t deserve to take up any space in her night.

I’d tried. That was the only thing I could give myself—I’d tried to forget him.

I went straight for the shower like I could wash the night off me. I cranked the knob until the water scalded my skin, until steam rolled over the mirror and blurred my reflection into a ghost. I wanted to disappear into that blur, to stop being a person who made these choices, who hurt people without meaning to.

I stood there until the heat bled out and the water turned sharp and cold, but even then, I didn’t move. I wanted her touch gone. I wanted all of it gone—the party, the music, the taste of someone else’s lips that hadn’t been his. I wanted to rinse off the part of me that thought I could fix this ache by giving myself to anyone who wasn’t Harry.

Because no matter what I did, it ended the same way.
Hurting myself.
Hurting the people who cared about me.

I’d hurt my mates by shutting them out, letting them see the cracks but never the truth. I’d hurt Hailey by using her as a bandage I knew wouldn’t stick. And worst of all—though I hadn’t known it yet—I’d hurt Harry. By letting my own heartache blind me, by wanting him so badly I hadn’t noticed the shadows under his smile.

The water kept running, cold now, until my fingertips pruned and my skin trembled, and still the ache clung to me. Some things, I realized, couldn’t be washed off.

Chapter Text

That Monday at school, I wasn’t myself. Not even close.

The guilt from last night still clung to me like fog, sinking into every pore. I kept thinking about Hailey—how I’d left her, how I’d used her. I hadn’t meant to. Not really. But I had, and it made my skin crawl. And underneath that guilt, like a bruise that wouldn’t fade, was the ache I carried for Harry.

Harry, who had given me nothing. Not really. Just a single conversation. One moment, maybe less. And then… silence. Like I’d imagined it all.

I hated him for that. For being so quiet. For not looking at me again. For disappearing into the world like I hadn’t sat next to him with my heart in my throat.

But I loved him anyway. Loved him like an idiot. Like someone who didn’t know better. Like someone who still believed silence could mean something.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I’d tossed and turned, stared up at the ceiling until the shadows began to move. And all I kept thinking was that I should’ve never gone to that party. That I shouldn’t have let it happen with Hailey. Because I didn’t just use someone I had no real interest in—I’d done it thinking it might make me forget.

But all it did was make me remember.

All it did was make me want Harry more.

Hailey didn’t help. Her mouth, her hands, her soft sighs in the dark—none of it helped. Sex didn’t help. The alcohol didn’t help. Nothing helped.

I was sick. Sick and stupid and heartbreakingly in love with someone who barely knew my name.

By the time I slid into my seat in Mr. Charlie’s room, my chest already felt tight. But I waited. Waited for those curls to bounce through the doorway. Waited for the way Harry always carried warmth with him, like it clung to his skin and soaked into mine by proximity.

But the seat next to me stayed empty. The bell rang. The door shut. And Harry never came.

He was never late. Not once in the week I’d sat beside him. He was always there, early even, spinning a pen between his fingers or doodling aimlessly in the margins of his notes.

So I waited longer. I told myself he’d show. That he’d walk in, that I’d feel him beside me again and my pulse would settle.

But he didn’t.

And slowly, quietly, panic began to creep in. Not the loud kind. The soft kind. The kind that burrows deep and says: He’s not coming. He doesn’t want to be next to you. He’s done with you.

I hated that my mind went there. Hated how quickly I believed it. Hated that I could still pretend to know someone I’d never really spoken to outside of one fleeting moment. But I couldn’t stop thinking: What if he’s avoiding me? What if I did something wrong?

What if he regrets ever sitting beside me at all?

Eventually, I gave up on waiting and picked up my pencil. If I didn’t draw, I’d spiral. And I couldn’t afford to unravel—not here, not in front of everyone.

I grabbed the thinnest scrap of paper from the corner of my notebook and let my pencil find a rhythm. I didn’t think. I just let my hands move.

And somewhere along the way, I realized I was sketching his hands.

The hands I’d never held but desperately needed to. The hands I imagined brushing mine in the dark. The ones I dreamed about—curled around a cup of coffee, reaching toward me across a bed I had no right to picture.

I drew every curve, every knuckle, every imagined scar. And when I was done, I just stared at them.

“Nice for you to join us Mr. Styles.”

My head snapped up so fast my neck twinged.

Harry stood in the doorway, curls messier than usual, like he’d slept on them and hadn’t bothered to fix it. His bag hung off one shoulder, strap twisted, his jumper oversized and swallowing his frame in a way that made something in my chest twist up tight.

But it wasn’t the messy curls, or the oversized jumper that made something in me twist with protectiveness. No—it was the red-rimmed eyes. The kind you get after crying too long, too hard, when blinking starts to sting and everything feels raw.

It was the pink mark at the side of his neck, just beneath his jaw—faint but fresh. A mark someone had left on him. Someone who wasn’t me.

And it did something cruel to me.

Because back then, I still didn’t think it was a bruise.
I didn’t let my mind go there—not even close. I didn’t picture fingers digging into soft skin, or a hand pressing down too hard, too long. I didn’t think about how a hand could choke, how something as simple as touch could leave behind a mark that wasn’t tender at all.

My brain chose the softer lie.
It spun stories for me instead.

Maybe it was a love bite. Maybe someone had leaned in close, lips on Harry’s neck, and left a little proof behind. A mark meant to be sweet, claimed, adored. I told myself that was what it was—a sign of love pressed into his skin, something he chose to wear. Something I wasn’t allowed to want, but could understand.

I swallowed that story whole because it hurt less than the truth.
The truth was jagged, and I wasn’t ready to bleed on it yet.

That mark would be the first sign he had let me seen and I brushed it off.

I told myself it was nothing. I told myself all kinds of lies to keep the world soft, to keep my heart from cracking open in the middle of Mr. Charlie’s classroom.

So I looked back down at my drawing. Harry’s hands on paper. Harry’s imagined warmth pressed between the lines of graphite and notebook grain. I didn’t look at him again. Couldn’t.

Because if I did, I’d see the red rims around his eyes again. I’d see the mark blooming against his skin like a secret. And I’d feel that strange mix of jealousy and protectiveness I wasn’t ready to name.

Jealousy, because someone else got close enough to leave a mark where I only ever dreamed of touching.

Protectiveness, because something in me—some quiet, trembling part—knew it wasn’t all softness. Knew that even if it was a love bite, love wasn’t supposed to make your eyes look like that.

I buried it anyway. Shoved it all down with the same stubbornness I used to crush every feeling I couldn’t handle. If I didn’t look, if I didn’t ask, I didn’t have to know.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that classroom.

Not to change what he did, but to change what I didn’t.

To be braver. Softer.

Less wrapped up in my own selfishness and more willing to lean into his.

I wish I’d looked at him, really looked, and told him that he would just need to tell me he’s not okay for me to act. That I remembered everything from the park.

That his face had stayed with me like sunlight after closing your eyes. That his curls had threaded their way into my dreams, gentle and wild and tangled in every corner of my longing.
That I ached for his touch, even though I’d never felt it—just imagined it a hundred different ways. The ghost of it lived on my skin before it ever did in reality.

But I didn’t say those things. I didn’t even know how to think them without flinching.

The bell rang, Harry packed his things and left, and I only moved once I was sure the doorway had swallowed him whole.
Last week I would’ve at least tried to redirect my mind, force my thoughts toward anything other than him. This week? I didn’t bother. I knew what letting them loose would do to me—that they’d claw and ache and make my chest feel raw—but I still thought it was safer than letting them bottle up until they drove me to another stranger’s bed.
Better to bleed quietly in my head than make another mistake.

So I walked through my day with the image of that mark etched behind my eyes.
A love bite.
It had to be.
It was easier to believe Harry had let someone hold him close than to imagine the darker possibilities creeping around the edges of my mind. Maybe I wasn’t brave enough to think of the truth yet. Maybe I didn’t want to face the idea that Harry’s silence wasn’t indifference—it was survival.

And if it was survival, what did that make me?
Cold. Distant. The boy who sat inches from him and did nothing.
I couldn’t bear that. So I didn’t let my brain go there. I shoved the thought into a locked drawer and sat on the lid.

It stayed locked until later, when I found myself on the sidelines of the pitch. I practiced skills by myself with the trainer, and now Liam stood shoulder to shoulder with me, his presence steady as we watched the team finish up drills under a warm stretch of sun. The air smelled faintly of cut grass and sweat, the sound of cleats scuffing turf punctuated by whistles.

“Are you still having trouble sleeping?” Liam asked, voice low, his eyes never leaving the players.

I didn’t look at him either. We’d always been like this—side by side, words passing between us without the weight of eye contact.

I kicked the toe of my boot into the turf, then pressed it flat again. “Not anymore,” I lied, or at least half-lied.

He meant the nightmares—the ones that had chased me during recovery. Waking drenched in sweat, my skull still ringing with the echo of the crash. In those weeks, the silence of my bedroom had been an enemy, and closing my eyes meant reliving the hit, the sickening moment my body didn’t get back up.

The truth was, sleep was still difficult. But for different reasons now.
It wasn’t the ground rushing up at me anymore—it was Harry.
Harry on the edge of my dreams, Harry’s laugh that I hadn’t heard in days, Harry’s neck with that single, damning mark.
And saying that out loud? Explaining that the thing keeping me awake was a boy I couldn’t touch? A boy I was maybe already failing?
I wasn’t ready for that.

“Good,” Liam said after a moment. His tone was almost cheerful, and that unsettled me more than if he’d been upset. There was a tightness under it—like he was trying to pull happiness over worry the way you pull a blanket over cold feet that never quite warm.

We stayed in the sun, letting it kiss the tops of our arms. I knew I’d regret it later when the bright school lights made my eyes ache in that washed-out, dizzying way they sometimes did since the concussion. But for now, the warmth felt like something I’d been starved of.

Then Liam cleared his throat, and the seriousness in the sound tightened my chest.
“I’m not trying to be rude,” he said carefully, “but I’m worried about you, Lou.”

I blinked at him, surprised enough to finally turn. He was already watching me, brows drawn in that quiet, earnest way he had when the jokes ran out.

“What?” The word came out more startled than defensive. I hadn’t even let myself think of being worried about me. My head was too full of guilt and want and the kind of self-loathing that left no room for self-preservation.

“Look…” Liam’s eyes flicked toward the field, following the streak of a ball arcing across the sun, before returning to me. “Don’t you think it might be a little soon to get back on the pitch? You just got cleared for practice, and now you’re talking about throwing yourself into a game. You could still be hazy. Out of rhythm. Rusty.”

He drew in a long breath, and the pause that followed reminded me of that awful suspended moment after my fall—the one where the crowd held its collective breath and the world seemed to tilt sideways.

“I just want you to be safe,” he said finally, his voice softer now, frayed at the edges. “It scared us all, Lou. Seeing you like that. Not moving. I don’t… I don’t want a second time.”

The words hit deeper than I expected. Because for a moment, I remembered something outside of Harry. I remembered that I had people who saw me fall and didn’t look away.

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly too tight. Liam’s words had cracked something open in me I didn’t even realize I’d been holding shut.

Because he was right.
I remembered the sound of my body hitting the pitch. I remembered the dizzy blackness swallowing me whole, the helplessness of being aware enough to know I couldn’t move. I remembered the panic in my mates’ voices, the echo of the crowd holding its breath.

“Did you hear me?” Liam’s voice was softer now, pulling me back from wherever my mind had wandered.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing my voice steady. “I hear you. I’ll… I’ll be careful.”

“You can always wait for next game to play, there’s not rush to recovery.”

I nodded, even though the words landed like guilt in my chest. Not because I disagreed. Not because Liam was wrong. But because somewhere deep down, I didn’t want to wait.
I wanted to run until my lungs burned. I wanted to feel something other than what I’d been feeling. I wanted control, even if it meant pushing myself too far, too fast.

But I didn’t say that. I just looked down at the pitch, watching the blur of our teammates as they passed the ball back and forth like they hadn’t seen my body crumple against the grass just weeks ago. Maybe they had moved on. Maybe I hadn’t.

“Thanks,” I said finally, voice low.

Liam shrugged like it was nothing, but I saw the way his jaw clenched. “I have your back, always.”

I open my mouth to appreciate, but before I could find the words, the whistle blew, sharp and shrill, cutting across the field. Practice was over. Boys jogged off the pitch, sweat glinting on their necks, and a few of them waved in our direction. Liam waved back absently.

But my eyes drift past the sweaty lads, past the scuffed goalposts, over the chain-link fence that buzzes faintly in the sun, and into the small parking lot beyond.

I don’t see it perfectly—the green mesh of the fence blurs the world into broken pieces—but I’d know Harry anywhere.

He’s walking with his arms crossed tight over his chest, shoulders hunched in on himself.
Next to him, a taller figure gestures wildly, his mouth moving fast. I can’t hear the words from here, can’t see them clearly enough to read lips, but I don’t need to.
I can feel it. The sharp, frantic edges of it.

I don’t realize I’ve frozen until my voice comes out quieter than I meant: “Hey, Lil.” My hand lifts, almost on its own, pointing through the fence. “Is it me, or is the bloke next to Harry… yelling?”

Liam steps forward a little, shading his eyes against the late sun. He follows the line of my arm and then squints. He only watches for a second before shrugging, casual in the way I can’t be. “Probably. Wouldn’t put it past him, countin’ the other things he’s done.”

My stomach lurches. My eyes stay locked on Harry as he slows, hesitates at the edge of the lot. His boyfriend—because who else could it be—pulls open the driver’s door of a small white car. Harry moves around to the passenger side, soft and careful, and slides in like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible.

The car engine turns over, and the vehicle pulls out of the lot. I don’t look away until the tail lights vanish beyond the school gates.
 When I finally turn back to Liam, my throat is dry.

“What do you mean?” I ask, sharper than I intend. My voice cracks halfway. “What do you mean, ‘the other things he’s done’?”

Liam’s smirk falls. His brows pull together, and he looks at me for a long moment like he’s deciding how much to say.

“You didn’t see the mark on Harry’s neck?” he asks finally, voice softer than before.

“I…” My chest tightens. “I thought it was a love bite.”

Liam actually lets out a short, incredulous laugh, though there’s no humor in it. “God, no. We need to get you laid if that’s what you think a love bite looks like.”

I don’t laugh. I don’t even smile. I just stare at him, because suddenly my stomach feels hollow. My chest is tight enough to hurt. 
I can’t tell if it’s jealousy or fear or both.

Liam must sense it, because his sighs heavy, the kind that means he’s giving in to the weight of his own thoughts. His shoulders sag a little.

“Look, I don’t know anything for sure,” he says. “But I heard some of the Year Sevens talking about it. About how the mark on Harry’s neck… looked bad. Like someone had choked him. Harsh.”

The air feels cold now, even with the sun on my skin. My ears ring.

Liam hesitates before adding, “Not in a… you know… fun way. Not unless he likes being choked half to death.”

The words make my stomach turn.
Because suddenly, the love bite I’d chosen to believe in feels like a lie I told myself just to stay safe.

And behind it is something darker—something that makes the back of my neck prickle and my hands shake.

Harry. Harry with red-rimmed eyes. Harry curling in on himself like he’s trying to disappear. Harry silent because he had feared his voice would earn him marks.

That night, I felt cold in a way a blanket couldn’t fix. I didn’t reach for one anyway. My body wouldn’t move, heavy and stiff, like the weight in my head had seeped down into my bones.

I lay flat on my back, eyes locked on the ceiling. Not imagining Harry’s mouth or his hands like I used to, not spinning daydreams about kisses I’d never have. No—tonight my brain was only piecing together the ugliest, heaviest truth.

The ceiling blurred as tears slid down my temples and into my hairline. No sobs, no shuddering breaths. Just quiet, endless streaks of wetness that didn’t even burn.
 I didn’t wipe them away. Didn’t roll over. Didn’t grab for anything but the pillow I clutched to my chest like a life raft I didn’t feel I deserved.

I had hated Harry for his silence. 
I’d twisted myself up thinking he didn’t see me, that I was invisible, forgettable. I’d punished myself for the way he didn’t turn toward me, didn’t speak. I convinced myself he didn’t remember the park. Maybe he didn’t. But that was never the point, was it?

I’d fallen in love with the boy I thought I saw—a boy who was soft and warm and untouchable—and I hadn’t even noticed the bruises under the skin. I hadn’t seen the quiet terror stitched into his stillness.

My throat tightened, and a weak, shaking sound slipped out of me—not a real cry, just the echo of one. My fingers dug into the pillow, and guilt carved its way through me in slow, sharp lines.

I thought about all the ways I’d tried to run from him.

All the ways I’d told myself he wasn’t mine to want, so I should just forget. 
How I’d blamed him for my feelings, blamed his silence for my own aching, blamed him for leaving me in the dark—

And then I’d gone and tried to drown him out in someone else’s body. I’d pressed my hands to Hailey’s skin thinking it would erase him, thinking it would free me from the ache.

But Harry didn’t need to be forgotten.
 He needed to be seen.

He needed someone to notice the fear, the hurt, the mark on his neck that wasn’t soft or claimed in love—it was survival written on skin. And I’d looked away. I’d told myself a prettier story because it was easier than believing the truth.

The guilt spread like frost in my chest, cold and quiet, as another tear slipped down the side of my face into my hair.

I stopped blaming myself for his silence that night.

I stopped wishing for him to turn to me, to finally reach back and give me the warmth I’d been aching for.

Because I understood, finally: he wasn’t silent because he was cruel. He was silent because he was scared.

I stopped trying to force the boy from the park onto the boy in the classroom. They were always the same boy. And for the first time, I realized that loving him meant more than wanting him.

Chapter Text

That Tuesday morning in Mr. Charlie’s would change my life, though I couldn’t have known it yet.

I was drawing—or trying to. The pages in front of me were mostly empty, scarred only by half-hearted lines and abandoned shapes. For days, I’d felt hollow where my creative spark used to live. The motivation to draw had bled out of my bones, leaving nothing but the echo of want. But today… today there was a flicker. A restless itch in my fingers, a whisper in my chest that told me to pick up my pencil again.

Maybe it was because of yesterday—because my hand had panicked and sketched Harry’s hands without my permission, the curve of his fingers spilling out across the page like muscle memory. I didn’t know why that moment had flipped the switch, but whatever the reason, I was grateful.

Sleep hadn’t come easily the night before—not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to. My mind spun and spun, replaying flashes of Harry, but I clung to the stillness of my room, refusing to surrender to dreams. Sleep felt like it would steal something from me, and I wasn’t ready to let go.

When Harry slid into the seat beside mine, quiet as a breath, I didn’t greet him. I didn’t want him to feel ambushed, not after everything. He deserved gentleness, a hand reaching out in his own time, not mine.

But even if I didn’t talk to him, I noticed him. The collar of his jumper sat higher than yesterday, tugged close to his throat like a shield. Hiding the mark.

The mark. The one Liam had noticed. The one the year seven girls had whispered about. The one we had all seen—and all ignored.

The memory of it twisted like a knife. It made me sick that the world had looked straight at him, had seen him, and still turned away. And what made me sicker was knowing I had done the same.

I had seen it.
I had swallowed it.
I had looked away.

I swore to myself last night that I wouldn’t do that again. That I wouldn’t match his silence anymore, because his silence had a reason mine didn’t. His silence was survival; mine was cowardice.

But now, with him here—close enough that I could feel the faint heat of his arm through our sleeves, close enough that the air between us buzzed with unsaid things—I froze. The wall of quiet that had grown between us loomed heavy and cold, and I didn’t know how to break it without breaking him.

If I spoke too soon… if I stumbled or said the wrong thing… if I reached for him with all this heavy, clumsy love, and it came out wrong… he might not trust me.

And the thought of Harry not trusting me was worse than the thought of him never loving me back.

So instead of talking, I watched his hands. Always his hands. The way he tapped the eraser against the edge of the desk in a slow, distracted rhythm. The faint ink smudges across his knuckles like he’d been writing too much, or maybe gripping his pen too tight.

I wanted to reach out. I wanted to turn his hand over in mine, run my thumb along the inside of his wrist where the skin was thin and soft, and tell him that I saw him. That I knew now and that had to matter.

“Mr. Charlie,” a voice called from the doorway, warm but carrying that edge of authority that could slice through any classroom chatter. “My apologies for interrupting, but could I see you in the hallway for a moment?”

Our guidance counselor.

Her presence alone was enough to shift the air. The room stilled in a way that wasn’t natural for a Tuesday morning—pencils pausing mid-scratch, whispers snapping shut. Even the sunlight through the dusty windows felt like it faltered. Every set of eyes, mine included, turned to the door.

And my stomach sank.

Because guidance counselors didn’t appear in class for nothing. They didn’t leave their quiet offices unless something had gone wrong—or unless someone had been seen. A part of me, the part already buzzing with guilt and fear for Harry, tightened like a fist. I felt the weight of it in my chest, pressing harder with every heartbeat.

Even before Mr. Charlie set down his pen and started toward the door, I was holding my breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

They would take Harry from me before I ever got the chance to help him.

The thought coiled in my chest like barbed wire. I feared that they had seen the marks, that this time the right adult had noticed and decided to step in. I pictured it before it even happened: the counselor walking back in, soft voice calling his name, Harry standing slowly, shoulders drawn in like a boy bracing for rain. He’d shove his things into his bag with trembling hands, and I’d watch him leave—helpless.

Because schools don’t fix it. They poke and prod with their careful voices and clipboard questions until he breaks. And then they call it helping. They call it protecting. But all I could see was Harry cornered, Harry flinching, Harry walking home with new bruises where no one would look.

The fear sat like a stone in my throat.

I turned toward him without thinking, heart in my mouth, and found him already looking at me.

For the first time since the park.

His green eyes met mine—soft, sharp, knowing—and the world went quiet. There was no classroom, no chatter, no footsteps in the hallway. Just the unspoken weight between us, the kind that settled into your ribs and refused to leave.

“Can you draw me a picture?”

He said it so quietly, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to ask. Like the words themselves might break if he said them too loud.

I blinked, caught off guard by the softness, the rawness buried in the question. I’d imagined this moment—hoped for it—carved it out in the corners of my thoughts a hundred times. What I’d say. What it would feel like. But now that I had it, now that it was real… I felt nothing and everything at once.

Relief clawed at my chest. Fear curled around my ribs. Like I had just found something precious and the world was already reaching to take it from me.

“A picture?” I echoed, my voice thin and unsteady. My words felt like a failure, like I should have said something better, truer. But the weight of the moment was too much for my lungs, too much for my tongue.

And still, all I could think was: Please trust me. Please don’t look away.

And Harry didn’t look away.

If anything, his gaze settled heavier on me, like the weight of it was the only thing keeping me from falling apart. My lungs felt too small for my own breath.

Then—so soft I might have imagined it—he laughed. Just a quiet huff through his nose, barely there, but it was real. A thread of light in a dim room.

And I had done that.
I had pulled it out of him without meaning to.

“Yeah, a picture,” he said, voice low and careful, like he was testing the edges of the words. “You… you seem like you like to draw. So if it wasn’t too much trouble…” His eyes flicked down to the desk, lashes trembling. “No pressure if you don’t want to, though.”

He was backpedaling. Shrinking into the apology before I could even open my mouth.

It hit me then—hard and unfair—that he was already trying to undo the small, fragile hope he’d dared to hand me. Like he thought asking me for something, asking anyone for anything, was dangerous. Like he’d learned to expect that the world would punish him for it.

My heart twisted.

I didn’t know what I would’ve said if I could speak. My mind was a live wire, sparking in every direction, full of questions I couldn’t ask and promises I didn’t know how to make.

All I knew—down in my bones, in the soft places of me I tried to keep hidden—was that I wanted him to ask me things. Anything. Everything.

I wanted to be the person he didn’t have to take his words back from.

“Yeah, I can.” I said, voice cracking like the rest of me. I didn’t look away as I reached for my pencil. “What do you want me to draw?”

Harry gave a little shrug, so small it barely moved the fabric of his jumper. His eyes flickered down to the blank page, then lifted again. “Anything,” he whispered. “Just… something that’s not ugly.”

God. I wished I’d said it right then—that if I were to draw something not ugly, it would’ve been him. That he was already beautiful in the way sunlight filters through old curtains, soft and unexpected and warm where you thought there’d only be dust. That no matter what I put on the page, if he held it in his hands, it would be beautiful by default—because it touched him, because he chose to keep it.

But I didn’t say any of that.

Because my voice didn’t yet know how to speak to someone that soft. It didn’t know how to form words delicate enough to hold him without crushing something important. Because he mattered. He mattered more than anything I’d ever tried to protect, and I didn’t trust myself not to ruin it by reaching too fast, too much.

So I swallowed it. All of it.

And I let my pencil speak for me.

The graphite kissed the paper, and my hand moved almost without me. I drew him a flower that day. Not because it was easy, but because it was safe. Simple enough to pass as nothing if someone asked, but carrying everything I couldn’t say out loud.

I didn’t tell him it was my favorite flower—the one I’d been sketching since I was a kid, the one I always came back to when my chest felt too heavy and the world too loud. I didn’t tell him that, like the flower, he’d become my favorite without asking to be. My number one. My first and last thought.

The petals curled under my pencil like soft, guarded secrets, thin lines bending toward the center where I pressed darker, shading in the heart of it with slow, deliberate strokes. My favorite part. The part where the shadows settled before the bloom could open.

I worked the edges carefully, thinning the lines where they didn’t need to be seen as much, letting light exist between the strokes. It felt like I was building him something delicate and alive—a piece of beauty he could hold without fear it might hurt him back.

And for a moment, the fear—the counselor, the hallway, the threat of him being taken from me—faded. It was just us. His quiet, my pencil, the hum of the fluorescent lights above.

Then the door clicked.

The air in the classroom shifted with that click, the way it does when a storm rolls in—silent, but heavy enough to press on your lungs.

Mr. Charlie stepped back inside first, his usual calm face tightened into something I couldn’t read. Behind him, the guidance counselor followed, her soft-soled shoes making no sound against the linoleum, like she didn’t want to disturb the quiet she was about to shatter.

In that one moment—before she even opened her mouth, before anyone was called—I’d already seen it play out in my head.

She would say his name.
Harry would flinch like the sound alone could bruise him. And then he would look at me, like maybe I could save him, like maybe I’d finally do what I’d been too scared to do all this time.

And God, I would want to.
I always wanted to.

I imagined him gathering his things with those trembling hands, stuffing pencils and crumpled pages into his bag like it was some kind of shield. I imagined him standing, his shoulders curling in on themselves like a boy trying to make himself small enough to disappear, and walking out of this room and into some quiet corner where adults would ask soft questions and write sharp words on clipboards.

And if he didn’t come back?

The thought hit like a fist.

If he didn’t come back, if that door closed behind him and the seat beside me stayed empty for the rest of the day, the rest of the week.

I’ll never forgive myself for all the times I looked away.

My chest ached with all the things I should have done, all the moments I’d wasted pretending I didn’t care.

“Sarah, would you please come with me?”

Her voice was soft, careful. And the name wasn’t his.

The relief that hit me was sharp and ugly, tangled with guilt so heavy I could taste it. My head spun, my pencil hovering useless over the page as Sarah stood and shuffled toward the door, her chair scraping against the linoleum.

I didn’t even know I’d been holding my breath until it left me in a shaky, silent rush.

“I think she was caught smoking in the toilets.”

Harry’s voice was calm, almost casual, but it wrapped around me like a blanket. Like he could feel the storm in my chest and was trying to smooth it away with a few simple words. I didn’t understand why, not then. To me, he was still the boy from the park who’d looked at me like he didn’t remember a thing we’d said. I was just the boy sitting beside him, full to the brim with love I didn’t know how to carry, and he was… he was Harry.

But later, I’d understand.

Harry had that thing in his bones, that rare thing most people don’t have—the instinct to soothe. Even when he couldn’t lean on me yet, even when his trust was a fragile thing he kept curled tight in his hands, he still reached for my worry without thinking. He pulled it toward himself, softened it, made it lighter.

He’d done the same at the park, when he’d laughed after I kicked the ball wrong, like it was the most natural thing in the world to comfort someone without letting them know they needed comforting. That’s just who Harry was. No matter how hard the blows hit him—and God, I knew they did—he carried this quiet warmth that nothing could shake loose.

“Smoking?” I repeated, my voice small, still frayed around the edges.

My mind wasn’t fully convinced yet. The echo of that earlier fear clung to me—the image of him being led out the door, taken somewhere I couldn’t follow. Of never getting the chance to say all the things that sat in my chest, aching to be let out.

I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I needed him to stay. How much I needed him to know that I saw him.

Harry tilted his head toward me, just slightly, like he could read the shape of my thoughts. His curls shifted, catching the dim classroom light, and his mouth quirked in a way that wasn’t quite a smile but wasn’t nothing, either.

“A few girls were talking about it in the halls,” he murmured, soft enough that it felt meant for me alone. “She thinks the windows hide her, but they don’t.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and for a second, it almost felt like we were just two boys in a classroom sharing a secret about some other kid. Like the world outside this bubble didn’t exist. Like his skin wasn’t covered in marks I pretended not to see, and my chest wasn’t a knot of fear and love I didn’t know what to do with.

My pencil was still resting in my hand, the flower on the page half-finished. Harry leaned ever so slightly, his arm brushing mine, and looked at it. I felt him notice, felt the air change between us.

“You’re… really good,” he whispered.

The words weren’t anything extravagant, but they hit me like a gift I didn’t deserve. His voice carried that quiet awe I’d only heard once before—when he’d said my name in the park, like he was testing how it tasted in his mouth.

“Is it done?” He asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

I looked at him instead of the drawing. He wasn’t looking at the page—he was looking at me. Like he wanted to memorize my face more than he wanted the flower. Like maybe I was the proof he needed that not everything had to hurt.

“Almost,” I whispered.

My pencil hovered over the page, but I didn’t move it right away. The air between us was thick with something fragile—something I didn’t want to break with a single wrong gesture.

Harry’s eyes flicked down, finally, to the flower. He leaned closer, his curls slipping forward, and the faint smell of his shampoo—something soft, like chamomile or honey—reached me. My chest tightened with the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to keep him right here, close enough to touch, close enough to memorize.

I continue to shade the stem slowly, deliberately, as if I could stretch the moment out longer. I pressed a little harder on the line, gave the smallest curve to the final leaf.

“Do you smoke?” Harry asked again.

His voice was light still, like he was trying to fill the space between us with something that didn’t hurt. But for me, it landed heavier than it should have. I wasn’t used to him talking this much—not to me, not to anyone.

It struck me as backwards, unfair in a way that made me ache. He was the one who had been punished into quiet, the one who had learned to swallow words before they could escape. His silence wasn’t a choice—it was a bruise that never faded, a shadow that followed him everywhere.

And yet here he was, speaking.

While I sat there, the coward, tongue clumsy and hands still, too afraid to risk saying the wrong thing.

“I—sometimes,” I said, my voice catching like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to leave me. “I didn’t really until a few weeks ago.”

Harry hummed, like he was filing that away, and his fingers tapped once against the desk. I couldn’t tell if it was approval or disappointment or nothing at all—he was always like that, holding his reactions like secrets.

“Why?” he asked, and the question was so simple it almost knocked the wind out of me.

I hesitated, pencil still hovering over the flower like even the page was holding its breath with me.

Why?

Because the smoke blurred the edges of everything sharp. It wrapped my head in a fog thick enough that the ache couldn’t find me for a little while. It dulled the thoughts I didn’t want to think, the memories that liked to crawl into my chest at night when the house went quiet. It made the dark feel softer, like maybe I could close my eyes without seeing every moment I was trying to forget.

When I breathed it in, my nightmares felt far away, like they belonged to someone else.

And the concussion—the one I told everyone was nothing, the one I laughed off even when the room spun if I stood too fast—stopped feeling like proof that I’d broken something inside myself. For a few minutes, the smoke whispered that my brain hadn’t rattled against bone, that it wasn’t screaming for rest I didn’t know how to give it.

It made me feel… small, in a way I craved. Like I could shrink down to just lungs and breath, no thoughts, no fear, no weight pressing on my chest.

But I couldn’t tell him any of that.
Couldn’t hand him my weak excuses and let him see how poorly I carried my own pain. Not when he was sitting right there, hiding bruises with his collar and swallowing words like they were dangerous. My hurt was quiet and optional. His was loud and unavoidable.

So I just kept my eyes on the paper and let the lie curl in my mouth. “Just… wanted to try,” I murmured, my voice barely stronger than the scratch of graphite on the page.

Harry didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched thin, and for a second I thought maybe I’d said the wrong thing, that maybe he could hear the lie trembling in my voice. My chest tightened. I wanted to look up at him, to read his face, but I didn’t.

Instead, I traced the last curve of the leaf, darkening the line where the stem met the petals. I tried to focus on that—on the way the pencil moved in my hand, on the soft whisper of graphite against paper—but my ears were tuned to him, waiting for a sound, a breath, anything.

Finally, Harry exhaled through his nose, a small, almost soundless sigh. His fingers drummed the desk again, once, twice, like he was thinking. Then he leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded arms, close enough that his curls brushed my arm.

“I used to think about it,” he said, his voice quiet in a way that felt heavy, not soft. “Smoking. Drinking. All of it. Thought maybe it’d make things… not feel so much.”

I froze. My pencil stilled on the page, caught between finishing the flower and reaching for him.

“Does it work?” he asked after a moment, tilting his head just enough to catch my eyes.

The weight of his gaze landed in my chest. I wanted to lie again, to keep the easy answer between us, but the way he was looking at me—like he was asking something bigger than the question—untied my tongue.

“Not really,” I admitted, and the words felt raw. “It just… tricks me for a little while. Makes the night quieter. But it all comes back.”

Harry hummed again, softer this time, and turned his eyes toward the paper. His lashes cast thin shadows on his cheeks. “That’s what I thought,” he whispered, almost to himself.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything else. The classroom buzzed around us—chairs scraping, Mr. Charlie’s pen clicking—but all I could hear was the slow rhythm of his breath near my arm. It felt like we were in a bubble, like no one else could reach us if they tried.

Then he lifted a finger, hesitated, and barely brushed the edge of the paper. “Can I… keep it when it’s done?” he asked.

My heart stumbled over itself. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked to keep something I’d made. Couldn’t remember the last time I wanted someone to.

“Yeah,” I said, and I meant it more than anything I’d said all day. “It’s yours.”

Harry smiled then—small, lopsided, and gone almost before it appeared—but it was real. And in that tiny, flickering moment, I felt something in me shift.

I wanted to say something else—to fill the quiet, to tell him he could have every drawing I’d ever done if he wanted them—but my throat locked up. Words felt too heavy, too clumsy for the space between us.

So I just kept drawing, letting the pencil do what my voice couldn’t. I added the last soft curve to the petal, shaded the shadow where the bloom curled into itself. I pressed lighter now, almost careful to the point of reverence, like finishing it too fast would shatter something fragile in the air.

When the last line fell into place, I let my pencil rest. My hand hovered over the page a second longer, reluctant to pull away.

“It’s done,” I whispered.

Harry lifted his head, and his curls fell back from his forehead. His eyes went to the page, then to me. Back and forth, like he was comparing the two. Something in his expression softened—a warmth that settled under my skin and made my chest ache.

He reached for the paper with slow, careful fingers, like he was picking up something that could break. For a second, I thought he might not take it at all. But he did—gently, like he was touching more than graphite and paper.

“It’s…” His voice caught, “It’s beautiful, what is it?”

“A flower.”

Harrys eyes crinkle with a laugh, “No, silly. What type of flower?”

“A violet,” I said after a pause, though my voice wobbled like it wasn’t sure. “They’re… they’re one of my favorites.”

Harry traced a finger just shy of the page, not quite touching the graphite, like he was afraid to smudge it. “That’s my birth month flower.”

My head snapped up. “Really?”

Harry nodded, his mouth quirking like it was a secret he hadn’t planned to share. “February,” he said softly. “Violets. I read that once. Didn’t think I’d ever… you know. Have one.”

I stared at him, my throat tight, “No one’s ever gave you flowers?”

Harry’s gaze flicked up, green and soft. “No, not in a while actually.”

The words not in a while hit me like a stone dropped into a still pond, sending ripples through my chest.

Not never, but close enough. Close enough that I could picture it—Harry going years without someone deciding he deserved something as small and soft as a flower.

I wanted to fix it, right then, in the middle of Mr. Charlie’s class with the fluorescent lights humming above us and my heart climbing into my throat. I wanted to pull every page out of my sketchbook and cover them all in violets. Pile them in his hands until he couldn’t hold them all, until he laughed for real, bright and unguarded.

Instead, I said the only thing that made it past my teeth.

“Well…you have one now.”

Harry’s eyes flicked to mine—just for a second, just long enough to land something in the center of my chest and leave it there. Something wordless. Something warm.

He nodded. Not a big nod—just the kind you give when anything more would crack the surface.

He folded the drawing in half with slow, reverent hands, like he was handling something holy. His thumb smoothed the edge. Then he tucked it into the front pocket of his jumper, where the paper rested over his chest.

The bell rang a second later, shattering the hush between us. Chairs scraped. Backpacks zipped. Someone threw a paper ball and missed the bin.

But Harry didn’t move right away. Neither did I.
He stood only once most of the room had cleared, his movements careful, like standing too quickly might snap the moment in half.

As he slid his bag over his shoulder, he glanced down at his pocket. Then—unexpectedly, like it surprised even him—he smiled. Just a little. Just for himself.

I followed him out of the classroom a step behind, resisting the urge to walk closer than I should.

We didn’t talk in the hallway. Not then. But as we turned the corner toward our lockers, someone bumped into Harry’s shoulder, and I watched his hand reflexively press the paper in his pocket, like he was making sure it was still there.

Like it was something worth protecting.

That night, before I let my thoughts sink into dreams that I knew would spill over into Wednesday, I sat on my bed with a pencil in hand. It was easier than thinking.

Thinking meant spiraling. Thinking meant remembering the way Harry’s voice dipped soft when he said something not ugly, the way he’d react to anything I said without meaning to. Thinking meant hearing the whisper in the back of my mind—cruel and relentless—that wanted to twist everything into something dangerous. It would tell me Harry had been flirting, that maybe he wanted me too, that maybe I had a chance.

And I knew better.

I knew my reality, the one that sat heavy in my chest whenever I let it. Harry had a boyfriend. A shithead one. The kind who didn’t know how to hold soft things without breaking them. I hated him without knowing his face, and I didn’t need to know it. He didn’t deserve Harry—not his hands, not his laugh, not the way he folds himself smaller when he’s scared. Not any of it.

So instead of thinking, I drew.

I let the graphite take the weight of what I couldn’t say out loud. I let it catch the smoke of my thoughts before it choked me. My fingers smudged and moved, light against the page, and for a while, that was enough.

I found myself sketching a hand curled around a cigarette, the smoke curling into soft, twisting lines that bled into the empty white space. A small sketch, meant to take no more than an hour. But like everything about Harry, it pulled me in deeper than I meant to go.

I thought about what he’d said—that girl smoking, the way he’d noticed her. I could see it the way he might have: a fleeting, haunted kind of picture. Someone holding something between their fingers like it was an anchor and a danger at once. I wanted to make the page feel like that. Like the moment existed for no one but him.

Pencil scratched paper. Shadows bloomed under my hand. Smoke flooded the page in soft spirals until it looked like it might drift right out of the sketchbook and disappear into the night.

I didn’t know if Harry would even like it.

But I knew I wanted him to see it.

Chapter Text

By the week’s end, the bruises had multiplied. Tiny galaxies blooming under Harry’s skin, each one a silent accusation I could barely stand to look at. And every time I saw them, I promised myself the same thing: I would help him. Even if he never loved me back.

I think I convinced myself it was a responsibility, but really, it was guilt. Heavy, aching guilt that coiled in my chest every time I let myself think about it for too long.

As I was busy running from him, Harry had been suffering. Alone. Hurting. So I decided I couldn’t keep doing nothing. Not when I felt so much for him I thought I might burst from it. Not when I knew he didn’t deserve to carry the weight of his world alone.
Unlike last Wednesday, I spoke first.

He slipped into Mr. Charlie’s classroom the way he always did: quiet, shoulders drawn in like he was hoping the walls might fold around him. But when his eyes found me, he offered a tiny quirk of his lips—barely a smile, but it was enough to set something alight in my chest. I didn’t think he knew what he did to me. I prayed he didn’t notice the heat rushing to my cheeks, or the way my ears always betrayed me, pink and warm.

Butterflies beat against my ribs, frantic and dizzying,
like they wanted out. I kept them caged. He didn’t need to see that. He didn’t need to feel the weight of my feelings pressing in when he was already carrying so much.

Harry pulled out his notebook and a pen. I’d noticed that before, how he used pens instead of pencils. I used to think it was vanity—that he liked the way his handwriting looked in ink. Later, I’d learn it was because he couldn’t stand the sound of a pencil snapping. Something about it made him get flashes of a house he didn’t think he could escape from.

I watched him for a moment, tracing the familiar lines of him with my eyes: the curve of his shoulders, the way his hair fell forward like a curtain, the soft frown of concentration he wore when he thought no one was looking. My chest ached with the need to bridge the space between us.

I had words ready—simple ones. Do you want to see my sketch? or maybe I drew something for you. Something easy. Something that might make his eyes light up the way they had before. I wanted him to look at me and ask for something again, to let me be the person who gave it to him.

But every time I gathered the courage to speak, the air slipped right out of my lungs. My chest tightened. My throat closed. All that came out was silence.

And so I sat there, holding a whole storm inside me, praying for the courage to let even one drop fall.
Soon, the sinking truth settled in: I wasn’t going to find the courage to talk to him. Not today. Not with the way my heart kept beating itself against my ribs like it was trying to break free. By the time I strung the words together, he’d already be gone, swallowed up by the hallway and the rest of the day.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I turned slightly in my chair, pretending to reach for something in my bag, but really I was hiding the tremor in my hands. My fingers brushed over sketchbooks, loose pencils, crumpled receipts, until I found what I was looking for—a single sheet of paper I’d torn out of my sketchbook.

It wasn’t perfect. The edge was jagged from where I’d ripped it free, and my thumbprint smudged a corner of the shading. But it was something of me, and something I thought he could hold without it breaking.

I hesitated for just a moment, staring at the small piece of my heart lying in my palm. Then I shifted, letting my shoulder brush his lightly—just enough to make the connection feel real—and nudged the paper against his arm.

For a second, he didn’t move. Didn’t even glance down. And in that heartbeat of stillness, I thought I’d made a mistake, that I’d crossed an invisible line I wasn’t supposed to. My stomach twisted, ready to swallow the moment whole.

Then Harry looked over at me, and something in his eyes—soft, startled, almost… careful—pulled all the air out of the room. He glanced at the paper like it was a secret, like touching it too quickly might make it disappear.

“I drew something,” I choke a noise embarrassingly coming out of my throat. “Eh, I thought you might like it.”

Harry’s eyes didn’t leave the paper. He held it as if it weighed more than just graphite and torn edges—as if it carried pieces of both of us, fragile and hopeful. His fingers brushed over the shading, tracing the soft curls of smoke like they were memories he could reach for, but wasn’t sure if he deserved.
For a moment, silence stretched between us like a fragile thread, trembling but unbroken. Then, slowly, his lips curved up—small, almost shy—and he looked back at me, eyes wide but warm.

“For me?” he whispered, voice barely louder than a bird flying overhead.

I nodded, heart thudding so loud I was sure it echoed in the whole room. “Yeah. I mean you kinda gave me the idea.”

“Yeah?” Harry’s voice cracked just slightly on the word, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to feel the warmth blooming behind it. His thumb brushed over the darkest part of the shading, slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the weight of every line.

“Mhm,” I hum, and my throat felt tight, words rough with something I didn’t want him to hear in them.

“You mentioned that girl. The one smoking in the toilets. I… I thought maybe this is how you saw her. Or how you’d imagined her.”

Harry blinked, his lashes fluttering like he was trying to keep the air from touching him too much. Then, with a softness that went straight to my bones, he said, “It’s better than how I imagined her.”

It felt a little silly to me, the way we were talking about the drawing like I’d captured the whole story on that single sheet of paper. Like all those shaky pencil lines and smudges somehow meant more than just a picture—like they were a map to something deeper. I knew we didn’t need the pencil lines to see Sarah holding the cigarette; the memory was already burned into both our minds.

“Good,” I said, nodding, my voice quieter than I wanted it to be. I wasn’t sure what else to say, and the silence felt heavier the longer it stretched between us. I wanted the conversation to keep going, wanted to reach across the space between us and say something that mattered, but the weight of the classroom pressed down on me. If we got caught, I’d be isolated again—left to sit with that awful loneliness all over again.

So instead, I just kept my eyes on his, hoping they could carry the things I couldn’t say. My heart hammered like it was trying to rewrite the rules, like it didn’t care about consequences or caution. But my mouth was stuck shut.

His eyes flicked up to mine again, shy but steady this time, like he was testing the water, seeing if it was safe to wade in. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Thank you, Louis. Really.”

His voice, soft and clear as he said my name, sent a sudden spark straight from my chest, spreading warmth through every inch of me like ripples across still water. It was a small thing—just my name—but it meant the world. It meant he remembered me. Remembered that moment in the park, the way we’d shared a laugh, a glance, something unspoken but electric.

I tried to hold back the grin tugging at the corners of my mouth, tried to keep my face steady, but it slipped anyway, unstoppable and bright. That simple recognition, his voice carrying my name like a secret, felt like a lifeline—proof that maybe I wasn’t invisible to him after all.

Harry looked down again, and I watched his fingers brush the paper like he was afraid to smudge it. My chest ached with how careful he was being, like he understood it wasn’t just a drawing—it was a confession I didn’t know how to put into words.
He tucked the page into his notebook with a gentleness that felt almost reverent. Then, for a second, he hesitated. His hand hovered over it, as if he wanted to close the notebook and keep it safe but also didn’t want to hide it from the world. His thumb traced the edge of the page once more before he finally let the cover fall shut.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until it came out in a shaky exhale.

Mr. Charlie’s voice droned in the background, something about post-war literature, but the words were just noise. The room had shrunk to a bubble around Harry and me, fragile and quiet, filled with the soft hum of pencil scratches and the faint tapping of rain against the windows.

I risked another glance at him.

He was pretending to take notes, his pen moving slow across the page, but his other hand was curled against his chest like he was holding something invisible there.

When he caught me staring, a flush bloomed across his cheeks, pink spreading from his nose outward. I almost looked away, but then he smiled—small, barely there, but real—and I couldn’t. My own mouth betrayed me, tugging into a crooked grin that felt like sunlight after days of rain.

It was the kind of moment that could have ended there, soft and sweet, but Harry leaned just slightly closer, enough that I could smell the faintest hint of his soap and the rain in his hair.

“Is it just sketching or do you paint as well?” He whispered, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask it out loud.

My laugh was quiet and a little choked. “No, just sketching. My mate Zayn is better at colors and paint.”

Harry nodded slowly, like he was tucking that little fact away for later—filing it somewhere safe under things Louis likes, or things that matter. His eyes dropped to the edge of my desk for a second before flicking back to me, thoughtful.

“I think I would like painting,” he murmured. “But my boyfriend doesn’t like the mess.”

The word boyfriend hit me like a dropped weight, heavy and cold, knocking the air right out of my lungs.

I forced my face to stay neutral, forced my fingers not to curl into fists on the desktop. My stomach turned in on itself, a slow ache spreading through my chest. A boyfriend who doesn’t like messes still makes his lover bleed, still causes uneven purple dots on Harry’s skin.

“Oh,” I said, my voice thinner than I wanted. “Yeah. I guess paint can get everywhere.”

Harry’s eyes flicked to me, searching for something, and for a second I thought he’d caught the wobble in my voice. But he only gave a small shrug, like the topic didn’t really matter. Or maybe like he was used to making things that hurt him sound like nothing.
“He doesn’t like… clutter,” Harry said after a moment, his pen dragging an absent line across his paper. “Or… surprises. He likes things neat. Predictable.”

He didn’t say it bitterly. He didn’t say it with a
smile either. Just a fact, placed between us like a feather that still managed to feel like lead.
I stared at him for a moment, the words settling heavy in my chest. Neat. Predictable.

Those weren’t the words I would ever use for Harry. He was soft edges and quiet storms, laughter that could bubble out of nowhere, the kind of person who deserved to live in color. He deserved paint-stained hands and messes that didn’t come with fear attached.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Sounds…boring,” I murmured before I could stop myself.

Harry’s pen stilled. His fingers tightened just slightly around it, and for a heartbeat, I thought I’d said too much. But then his shoulders lifted in a small shrug.
“It’s… fine,” he said, but the pause before the word stretched longer than it should have. His eyes stayed on his paper, his handwriting wobbling for a second before steadying again. “It’s what he likes.”
I hated that. I hated that Harry had molded himself to someone else’s idea of acceptable, that he had quieted all his own edges just to survive in someone else’s neat little world.

“Yeah,” I said, softer than before. “But what about what you like?”

His head tilted, just slightly, as if the question caught him off guard. Slowly, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say it out loud, he whispered, “I like the idea of painting. I like… mess. A little bit.” His lips quirked, barely there, as his thumb traced over the edge of his notebook again. “I like… feeling like things don’t have to be perfect all the time.”
Something twisted deep in my chest—warm and aching all at once. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be perfect with me, that I’d take every messy, unguarded piece of him if he let me.

But I don’t have time before the bell rings. The sound rips through the air, sharp and merciless, and it jolts me out of the soft little world I’d made for myself. I wanted just one more second—one more breath in this moment with Harry—because it felt like I’d finally gotten something I’d been aching. But the bell doesn’t care about that.

I watch him, like always. I don’t even know when I started doing it—this quiet habit of waiting for him to move first, of watching him leave before I even think about getting up. It’s like if I don’t, I’ll miss something, some invisible thread that tugs between us. For years to come after school, hanging back just long enough to see the curve of his shoulders as he disappears through a room.

Harry’s halfway to the door before he hesitates, his hand brushing the frame. Then he turns, like some part of him knows I’m already looking. Our eyes meet so easily it almost knocks the air out of me.
“Thanks,” he says, soft but certain. “For the picture.”
I nod, swallowing against the thud in my chest. “Of course. I like drawing for people.”

That’s a lie. I almost never give my art away. My sketchbooks are graveyards of sketches no one will ever see. But I wanted him to have this one. I wanted a piece of me to exist in his space—a space that should be safe, that I know isn’t. Maybe if my drawing is there, some part of me can protect him.
He smiles then, just a small thing, but it lands in me like sunlight hitting cold glass. And when he turns and walks away, my heart goes with him, trailing after him down the hall.

That day at lunch, as Liam and Zayn carried on with their usual bickering over something neither of them would remember by the end of the day, a quiet realization settled over me: I didn’t have anything else to offer Harry.

Not really.

I couldn’t keep giving him my drawings. He might smile and thank me, he might even mean it, but that wasn’t trust. That wasn’t the kind of bridge I wanted to build. A drawing was just a snapshot of how I saw him—it didn’t let me see him. And I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

I wanted to know the story of him—not the one written across his skin in purpling bruises, not the one someone had beaten into his ribs and his quiet flinches—but the real one. The one he probably kept locked so deep that even he had trouble finding it.
I stabbed at the limp vegetables on my tray, thinking, thinking, until I finally just blurted, “Hey, Liam.”

He barely missed a beat, but I saw his attention flick to me instantly. He could tell when I was interrupting for a reason. Zayn too went quiet, eyebrows raising like I’d just announced something scandalous. I wasn’t usually this serious at lunch, and they both knew better than to push.

“Yeah?” Liam said, like he was bracing for impact.
I hesitated, flicking at a cold piece of carrot, then forced myself to look up. “How do I start a conversation with someone… without coming off like an asshole?”

There was a beat of silence—and then Liam’s mouth twitched. Zayn outright snorted, nearly choking on his fries.

“That’s what’s been eating at you all lunch?” Zayn said, half incredulous, half amused.

I huffed, trying to keep my face straight even as my ears warmed. “It’s a serious question.”

Zayn leaned back in his chair, still grinning. “Being an asshole is just who you are, mate. It’s part of your charm. Makes you funny. Embrace it.”

That dragged a reluctant laugh out of me, soft and quiet, even as I tried to glare at him. And for a moment, the weight in my chest loosened. But it didn’t disappear. Not really.

It hovered there, just behind my ribs, the way something does when you know it won’t be fixed with just one conversation or one laugh. Because this wasn’t about being funny. It wasn’t even about being liked. It was about Harry.
And I didn’t want to mess it up.

“I’m serious,” I said, this time quieter. “I want to talk to him, not just… be around him.”

Liam’s smile faded into something gentler. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, giving me that steady look he only used when he was choosing his words with care. “Just ask about him then, people always like talking about themselves.”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?” I muttered, more to my tray than to them. “What if he doesn’t want to talk about himself?”

Liam shrugged, patient as ever. “Then ask about something else. His music. His weekend. His favorite crisps for all I care. Doesn’t have to be deep, Lou. Just… start somewhere. People trust you more when they see you’re actually listening.”

Zayn nodded slowly, picking at a fry. “And don’t make it sound like an interrogation. You do that thing where you stare like you’re trying to solve a puzzle. It’s creepy.”

I scoffed, shoving his shoulder lightly. “I do not.”
“You do,” he said, grinning. “Makes sense though. You’re obsessed with him.”

My ears went hot, and I turned back to my tray, pretending the pile of peas was suddenly fascinating. “I’m not—”

Zayn’s smirk deepened. “Sure you’re not.”
Liam shot him a warning look, the kind that said don’t push it, and Zayn lifted his hands in mock surrender. I appreciated it, even if I didn’t say anything. Because they weren’t wrong.

I was obsessed. Just… I hadn’t realized it was that obvious.

And maybe it wasn’t—not really. Liam and Zayn saw the surface, the jokes and the staring, the way my attention kept snagging on him like a thread catching on a nail. They didn’t see the rest of it.
They didn’t see the way I’d tried to burn him out of my head—tried to forget the boy in the park, the one who looked at me like he was starved for air—and how now, I was doing the opposite. Memorizing him. Every angle of his face, the quiet hunch of his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched when he was anxious. Like learning him piece by piece could stitch something whole back into him.

They didn’t understand that it wasn’t just me falling for a boy too scared to speak above a whisper. It was me falling and trying to catch him at the same time, reaching for him with hands that weren’t steady enough to hold someone so breakable.
And maybe I was a fool for it. A fool for thinking I could help.

“Don’t listen to him, Lou,” Liam said, his voice calm in a way that immediately cut through Zayn’s teasing. That was the thing about Liam—he didn’t raise his voice, didn’t need to. He just anchored you with it.

I could already feel the tough-love speech
coming, the kind that landed somewhere between advice and a warning.

“I don’t know everything,” he started carefully, eyes flicking toward Zayn, then back to me. “But if you really want to talk to Harry… just be careful.” He hesitated for half a second, as if weighing how much truth I could handle. “He’s clearly not in a good place at home. And sometimes—” his voice softened even more, “—sometimes trying to intervene when someone’s not ready can hurt more than help. It can make them shut down. Or worse… it can make them run.”

The words sank into me like stones, heavy and unwelcome, because I knew he was right.
I swallowed hard, eyes on the fork in my hand. My reflection wobbled in the dull metal, a blur of someone trying too hard to fix something that wasn’t his to fix.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” I murmured, barely audible. It wasn’t for Liam or Zayn—it was for me, like a quiet promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
“I know,” Liam said, and the gentleness in his voice made my chest ache. “Just… be patient. Let him come to you when he’s ready. Trust takes time, Lou. More time than you want it to.”

I nodded, even though impatience burned under my skin. Because I wanted to do something now. I wanted to reach across that chasm between us and pull Harry out of whatever darkness he was drowning in.

But maybe Liam was right.
Maybe all I could do for now was wait—and hope he didn’t slip too far before he let me in.

Chapter Text

By Thursday morning, I had made up my mind: today, I was going to have a real conversation with Harry. One that didn’t end with just a polite smile and a nod, but with something—anything—that felt like trust. Maybe even a laugh.

It was greedy, I knew that. Wanting a piece of him when he was already giving so little to the world felt selfish. But if I didn’t let myself dream about progress, about tiny wins, I knew I’d freeze. I’d never have the courage to try.

I also knew—God, I knew—that getting close to him would hurt. I could already feel it in my chest, like a bruise blooming under the surface. My feelings for him, this messy knot of love and worry, would only grow sharper the more I learned about him. And if he never looked back at me with the same soft want in his eyes, if he never let me in the way I was desperate to be let in… that would destroy me.

But none of that mattered. Not compared to what he was living through.

My heart didn’t get a vote—not when his was the one breaking in real time.

My feelings, my wants, my pathetic need to be wanted—none of that mattered if he was hurting.
And I knew he was.

Knew it with a certainty that made my stomach twist.

Whoever his boyfriend was—the one he never mentioned, the one I’d never seen—I knew he was the reason Harry flinched, the reason he sometimes moved like every muscle in his body was bracing for impact.

But knowing and understanding weren’t the same. I didn’t understand until that morning.
Not really.
Not until Harry walked into class.

He was always good at hiding things. The faint mark on his neck from earlier in the week had faded, almost ghostlike now, but I’d caught it once when he leaned too far toward the window. He wore his secrets like second skin, tucked behind too-big clothes and practiced smiles.

But even if he tried to hide, I’d see. I always saw.
Except… I didn’t. Not at first.

Still, in that first moment, I smiled. My heart thumped hard enough to feel in my throat as he slid into the seat beside mine, and I tried to hold on to the hope I’d woken up with.

“Hi,” I said, soft but certain.

I didn’t have a drawing for him today. No sketch to hide behind.

All I had was myself—my voice, my attention, the unspoken promise that I wanted to know him.
And I prayed, stupidly, that it might be enough.
Harry’s eyes flicked toward me, then down at his desk. It was barely a glance, but it was something.
“Hi,” he murmured back, almost too soft to hear. His voice always did that—like he was afraid to take up space with it.

I wanted to say more. Ask him something light. Something normal.

What kind of music do you like?
What’s your favorite class?
Did you eat breakfast this morning?
—Does anyone ask you these things?

But the words stuck. My throat tightened around them, because I couldn’t pick the right one, couldn’t find the tone that didn’t feel like too much or not enough.

And then he reached down to unzip his bag.
It was instinct—the way my eyes followed the motion. I didn’t even think about it. I just watched the hem of his jumper ride up, a careless little slip that revealed a sliver of pale skin.

And then I saw it.

The bruise bloomed there like a secret, like a shadow someone had pressed into him with cruel hands. Deep purple fading into yellow at the edges, raw in the center where it hadn’t yet learned to hide. It was small—just a fragment of the whole story—but it was enough to knock the air out of me.
For a second, the world narrowed to that mark. The chatter of the classroom fell away, muffled under the rush of blood in my ears. My fingers curled tight against my thigh, like if I didn’t hold myself together, I might reach for him. Might touch the evidence of someone else’s violence just to prove it was real.

I’d always known—known—that something was happening. That someone was hurting him. But knowing it in my head and seeing it painted on his skin were different things entirely. That first mark could still have just be a misunderstanding, it was just a theory a few girls made up. But now? It wasn’t a theory anymore. It was a bruise. It was him.

And the worst part was how normal he looked, how he didn’t even flinch as he straightened up and set his folder on the desk. Like he’d done this a hundred times before—pulled on his jumper, tucked away the proof, and carried the weight of someone else’s anger in silence.

My chest ached with something raw and ugly. Guilt. Anger. Helplessness. A desperate urge to fix it, to protect him, to stop whoever kept leaving fingerprints of violence across his body.

I dragged my gaze to his face, half afraid he’d caught me staring, half praying he would—so he could see in my eyes that I knew and wanted to help.

But Harry just smiled that quiet, practiced smile, as if nothing at all had happened.

I forced myself to smile back, but it felt brittle, like glass ready to splinter.

He looked away first, eyes down on the folder he’d pulled from his bag, and began fiddling with the corner like it might unravel if he twisted it enough times. My chest felt too tight. I wanted to say something—anything—but the words wouldn’t come.
What could I even say? I saw it. I know. I’m here. Please let me help.

But I didn’t. I just sat there, my hands gripping the edge of my desk until my knuckles ached. Because Liam was right—pushing too hard could make him shut me out completely. And I couldn’t risk that.
So I bit my tongue and let the silence settle between us, the weight of it almost unbearable.
The teacher started talking, and I tried to focus, but all I could think about was that bruise. That piece of him someone had stolen with their hands. I imagined him going home, slipping off his jumper, and revealing a whole constellation of pain hidden under the fabric. I imagined him standing in the mirror, tracing them, knowing no one would stop it.

The thought made my stomach twist. My leg bounced under the desk, restless and useless, because I couldn’t do anything. Not here. Not now.
I stared down at my own hands and thought about how badly I wanted to touch him—not for me, not for want, but to hold him. To let him know he wasn’t alone. But all I had were the small, stupid gestures I could make in public.

My voice. My attention. The tiny offerings that might one day become trust. I leaned a fraction closer, my voice low, careful. “You tired?”

Harry blinked, glancing at me like he hadn’t expected me to speak again. His mouth twitched, and for a second I thought he might actually tell me the truth.

Instead, he nodded. “Yeah. Little bit.”

His voice was so soft I almost missed it, but it felt like a gift.

I wanted to give him one back.

“Me too,” I said, letting my shoulder bump his lightly—just enough to feel the warmth of him, to make the space between us a little less lonely. “This class is brutal.”

Harry didn’t answer right away. Just kept looking down at the folder like it owed him something—answers, maybe, or a map out of whatever mess he was wading through.

So I stayed still. Let the quiet breathe for a moment. Let him have control of the silence. But that didn’t last long until I had another idea. “I think Mr. Charlie might be a demon.”

His head snapped up so fast I almost laughed, but I kept my face deadly serious, eyes narrowed in mock-concern. “Like, actual demon. From hell. Possibly with hooves. Have you seen his shoes?”
Harry blinked at me, startled. Then—slowly, cautiously—he let out a tiny, choked breath of a laugh. Like the sound had slipped out before he could catch it.

My heart soared, ridiculous and wild, like it had been waiting its whole life to hear that exact sound from him.

“Not hooves,” he whispered, glancing down quickly like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to laugh again. “Just… orthopedic.”

“Oh,” I said gravely. “So not from hell—just from the clearance aisle at Skechers.”

That earned me another breath of laughter, this one a little louder. A little freer. He pressed his lips together, like he was trying to keep it in, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him, curling up in the tiniest, most beautiful rebellion I’d ever seen.
“I mean, have you ever seen him blink?” I asked, leaning a little closer, like I was sharing a state secret. “I swear he just stares into your soul until you start confessing sins you didn’t even commit. I almost apologized yesterday for stealing a pencil in Year 2.”

Harry’s fingers twitched where they were still picking at the folder. His eyes flicked up to mine again, green and cautious but shining just a little now, like a window cracked open.

“You’re weird,” he murmured, voice warm enough to melt a glacier.

I grinned. “Thank you. I pride myself on it.”

He shook his head, but I saw it again—another tiny smile, reluctant and real.

I tapped my pen against my notebook, thinking.
“Alright, but if he ever sprouts horns, I get to say ‘I told you so.’ Deal?”

Harry hesitated. Then nodded. “Deal.”

And oh, I wanted to frame it—the way he said it. Like he meant it. Like it was a promise.

A few minutes passed. The lesson dripped on in the background, slow and syrupy and entirely ignorable.
Then he spoke again, so quiet I nearly missed it. “You really think he’s from hell?”

I turned to him slowly. “Harry,” I whispered, solemn and wide-eyed. “Have you seen his PowerPoints?”
That made him laugh, for real this time. A quiet, breathy thing that bubbled up from somewhere deep, like it had been waiting for a reason. He ducked his head, hiding behind his curls, but I caught it—the way his shoulders loosened. The way the edge came off his eyes.

It was small. It was fragile. But it was ours.
I didn’t touch him. Didn’t push. I just sat close and let the air between us buzz with something new. Not safety, not yet—but the promise of it. The beginning.

And as he turned back toward the front of the class, his hand stilled on the corner of his folder. No more fiddling. No more twisting like he needed to disappear.

Just a boy sitting next to me, trying to smile.
And I—I was right there with him. Smiling back, like maybe I could catch all the broken pieces and hold them safe until he was ready to pick them up himself.

Even if he never looked at me the way I looked at him.

Even if he never said another word.
He’d smiled. He’d laughed. And for today, that was enough.

Of course the bell rang. Of course it did. Like the universe was trying to break the spell we’d just started to spin—pulling him away with the sharpness of time and routine, before I even had the chance to speak again.

I blinked, stunned by the sudden shift in noise, the shuffle of bodies, the scraping of chairs.

And Harry—Harry was already moving.

He was always quick to go, like staying too long might make him visible in a way he didn’t want to be. His movements were careful but efficient, a quiet escape act perfected over who-knows-how-many mornings just like this one. Bag zipped, folder tucked under his arm, head down.
Gone.

But then I saw it.

A small square of paper, creased once, twice, left like an accident—or maybe not. Maybe on purpose. Maybe for me.

My fingers reached for it before my brain even caught up. Like muscle memory. Like it already belonged in my hand.

And for a second—God, for a second—I thought it might be what I’d been half-hoping for since the moment I saw that bruise. Some wordless cry for help. Some confession scratched in secret letters: Help. Please. I’m not okay.

But it wasn’t that.

It wasn’t a cry or a plea or a secret spelled out in shaking hands.

It was just... a schedule.

A homemade bell schedule, neat little rows of his classes written in his tidy, creative script. The kind of thing most people would crumple and stuff into their backpack, forget about before second period.
But Harry had made this one into something else. Something that felt like him. Like the pieces of him I’d only ever seen in passing—little flashes, brief and beautiful.

Next to first hour, he’d drawn a flower. A soft, curling stem, and a bloom that reached up like it believed in the sun.

Lunch had a sandwich, lopsided and cheerful, with curvy lines above it—smell, I guessed, or steam. Something warm.

His lab class had a beaker, bubbles rising from the mouth of it like they might spill over. And next to choir, the last class on the list, he’d drawn a single music note and a microphone—simple, but deliberate. Like the kind of doodle you make when the thing you’re drawing matters.

I stared at it for a long time, my thumb brushing the edge of the paper. The ink was faint in places, like he’d pressed too softly or changed his mind halfway through. But the marks were still there.

He’d made something small, and simple, and sweet.
And it undid me.

Because this wasn’t a cry for help. It wasn’t proof of pain, or fear, or danger.

It was proof that somewhere beneath all of that—beneath the bruises and the silence and the shadows—Harry was still here. Still trying. Still a teenage boy with a quiet love for tiny things. For flowers, and music, and sandwiches that smelled.
And I could’ve kept it.

God, I wanted to.

I could’ve folded it back up and slipped it into my notebook. A secret treasure. Something to hold onto on the days when he wouldn’t look at me. When the silence stretched too wide. When I needed to believe he was still in there, somewhere, fighting to stay soft.

But I didn’t.

Because it gave me a reason to find him again.

To return it.

To hand back that tiny fragment of who he was, the part of him untouched by fear or cruelty. Maybe he didn’t mean to leave it behind. Maybe he did.
Either way, I was going to give it back.
I wouldn’t see him again—not really—until just before lunch.

And I mean just before. Like the hallway was parting for me on divine command. Like fate had sighed, “Fine, have this one, but don’t get used to it.”

It sounds ridiculous, I know. Like he’s some rare Pokémon and I just happened to throw the right ball at the right time. But that’s honestly the best way to explain it. He was rare. Slippery. And always just out of reach.

So when I caught sight of him—curly head ducked down, standing by the water fountain like he was hoping to disappear into it—I forgot everything else. Forgot the conversation I was in the middle of. Forgot the smell of too many bodies in one corridor. Forgot my own name, practically.

I definitely forgot what Liam was saying.

“—and I swear, the guy’s never even met a stick of deodorant, let alone—"

“Shhh,” I hissed, reaching out and pressing a hand just above Liam’s mouth without even thinking.
Not on his mouth. I’m not suicidal.

I’d learned my lesson after Niall licked me during Year 9.

But Liam still flinched, startled, curling his fingers around my wrist with a slap that was half defense, half offense.

“Don’t shush me,” he snapped. “Not in a hallway of yelling kids, Louis. This is not a library.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t, really. My whole focus was locked in on the boy by the water fountain. On the slump of his shoulders. The way his fingers fiddled with the strap of his bag like it was trying to slip away from him. The way he looked so soft and so far away all at once.

Liam followed my gaze. Of course he did.

He always knew where my eyes landed, even before I did.

“Jesus, Lou,” he muttered. His voice wasn’t cruel. Just tired. Familiar in the way that only someone who’s been through this with you—again and again—can be. “Are we really back here?”

That made my head snap toward him. Fast. Defensive.

“What do you mean?”

Even though I already knew.
Liam didn’t reply. Just let out a long sigh, one that sounded like the wind leaving a tired balloon.
Like he was already done with the conversation before I even opened my mouth.

“Never mind,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’ll see you at lunch, mate.”

And he was gone before I could even tell him to wait. I huffed a breath out of my nose, frustrated, and turned back to the task at hand. Liam was right. I was obsessed, in a way. I saw Harry, and everything else fell away. But how could it not? He was a mystery I desperately wanted to solve, a quiet little sun I wanted to pull into the light.

I walked toward him, the paper clutched tight in my hand. He was leaning against the wall, a little apart from the rest of the crowd, watching the chaos with that same distant, practiced air. He had a textbook tucked under his arm, and his jumper sleeve was pulled down past his knuckles. My heart did that familiar thump in my chest.

He didn’t notice me at first. He was too caught up in his own world, a world I was still only getting glimpses of. But then I was there, standing a few feet from him, and he seemed to sense my presence. He looked up, his green eyes cautious.

“Hey,” I said, my voice soft so it wouldn’t startle him. I held out the folded piece of paper. “You forgot this.”

His gaze darted from my face to the paper, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. He didn’t reach for it right away. He just stared at it, and for a second I was afraid he was going to deny it was his, that he’d just shake his head and walk away, leaving me with this tiny, beautiful piece of him.

“Oh,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Thanks.”

He finally took it, his fingers brushing against mine. The contact was brief, but it was enough to send a jolt through me. His skin was warm. He unfolded the paper and looked at it, his expression unreadable. I watched his eyes, searching for a sign, any sign, of what he was thinking. Was he upset I’d seen it? Was he embarrassed?

He folded it back up and tucked it carefully into the textbook under his arm. “I guess I did,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.

“It’s really cool,” I said, and the words tumbled out before I could stop them. “The drawings, I mean. They’re great.”

He looked up at me again, and this time, there was a small, genuine surprise in his eyes. “Oh. Thanks.” He shifted his weight, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I just... I like drawing them.”

“I could tell,” I said, and I meant it. The drawings weren’t just doodles. They were a window. “Especially the one for choir. Do you like singing?”
He didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, looking down at his feet, his jaw working a little like he was chewing on the question. My heart pounded a nervous rhythm against my ribs. Had I pushed too far? Was this going to be the moment he finally shut me out?

But then he looked up, a faint blush creeping up his neck. “I do, yeah,” he said, his voice so quiet I had to lean in to hear him. “It’s... I don’t know. It’s just nice.”

“I’d bet,” I said, smiling, and I felt a warmth spread through my chest, a feeling of pure, unadulterated triumph. This was progress. This was a real conversation.

He gave me a small, shy smile in return. The hallway was still loud, still full of shouting and laughing kids, but in that moment, it felt like it was just the two of us.

“I should… I should go,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t talking about me, but about the world, about the ever-present need to escape.

“Okay,” I said, and I didn’t push, didn’t try to make him stay. “I’ll see you later, then?”

He nodded, a quick, almost imperceptible movement. “Yeah. See ya.”

And then he was gone, lost in the river of people heading toward the cafeteria. I stood there for a second, just breathing, my hand still holding the memory of his touch. He’d smiled. He’d talked to me. He’d even told me something about himself, something small and important.

He likes singing.

He thought it was nice.

The word—small, plain, almost forgettable on any other tongue—bloomed in my chest like a daisy growing up through concrete. Fragile, but fighting. A softness where there should’ve been nothing but dust and stone. That one syllable, nice, told me more than paragraphs ever could. It meant he wasn’t just surviving. He was still finding things to love. Still letting light in through the cracks, still building tiny temples in the quiet parts of himself where no one else dared tread.

I held onto it like a secret, turning it over and over in my mind as I made my way to the lunch table, just a little later than I was supposed to. I moved like I was floating. Or maybe like I wasn’t quite ready to come back down to earth.

But earth found me anyway. In the shape of Liam’s stare.

He didn’t say anything at first—he just looked at me, eyes sharp and knowing, like he’d been waiting to pounce. Like the whole time I was gone, he’d been mentally drafting the speech I was about to walk face-first into.

I dropped my tray onto the table with a little too much force, trying to feign casual. Zayn glanced up from his phone, gave me a nod, went back to whatever meme he was pretending not to laugh at. But Liam didn’t let me off that easy.

I was naïve to think I could sit down, smile, pretend like nothing happened. Like my heart wasn’t still echoing with the sound of Harry’s voice. Like I wasn’t carrying the weight of that folded paper in my chest like a relic.

“Alright?” Liam asked, all fake innocence and forced chill, his bite hiding just beneath the surface.

I should’ve known then. Should’ve taken the lifeline and said yeah, mate, all good. But I was stupid. Or maybe too full of daisy-blooming hope to be careful.
“Yeah,” I said, starting to unwrap my sandwich. “Why?”

He scoffed. That tiny, deadly exhale. “No reason. Just figured you’d be hungry, after all that standing around by the water fountains.”

Zayn glanced up again, eyebrows raised. I didn’t even look at him. My stomach clenched, appetite vanishing in a puff of embarrassment and something sharper.

“Not like that,” I muttered, too quick, too defensive. “I was just giving something back.”

Liam leaned in a little. Not menacing—just earnest, which was worse. “Lou, I’m not mad. I’m just—worried, yeah?”

And there it was. The kindness dagger. The part where Liam stops teasing and starts caring, and I have no armour for that.

“I know he’s a sweet kid, and you want to help him. But you let him cloud over everything else…”
Liam’s words were quiet, but they hit like thunder, rolling low and heavy through my ribs. My throat tightened. That awful, helpless tightening that made it hard to speak, hard to breathe, hard to be anything but exposed.
My fingers curled into fists around the sandwich I wasn’t going to eat. The bread squashed flat beneath my palm, the edges going damp and soft like everything else I was pretending to hold together.

“No I don’t,” I said, soft. Stubborn. Daisies in the concrete.

But Liam wasn’t buying it. He never did when I was like this. He sighed—the kind of sigh that sagged in the middle and carried too much love in it to be truly angry.

“Louis, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, his voice breaking just a bit around the edge. “You had a bloody concussion not even a month ago. You’re about to throw yourself back into a game you’re not ready for, and all you think about is him.”

And he wasn’t wrong. Not even a little. That was the worst part.

Because it had been Harry’s voice in my head—not the doctor’s clipped reassurances, not the physio’s careful warnings. Just Harry. Quiet, worried, real.
It wasn’t fear that made my chest ache when I thought about going back on the pitch. It wasn’t my own scrambled brain or the half-faded concussion symptoms that lingered like ghosts around the edges of my vision.

No—it was the guilt.

The sharp, bone-deep guilt of misunderstanding his silence. Of reading it wrong. Of thinking he didn’t care, when really, he was just surviving the only way he knew how—quietly, invisibly, beneath the radar of hands that hurt and voices that snapped.
So no, I didn’t bury myself in drills or laps or ice baths just to feel normal again. I buried myself in someone else’s warmth because I hated my own feelings.

Liam was right, I knew it.

But still, I didn’t say it. Didn’t admit it, didn’t even nod.

Just stared down at my squashed sandwich like it might offer me mercy. Like maybe if I just focused hard enough on the crusts curling at the corners, I wouldn’t have to feel the full weight of what he was saying.

Liam watched me. I could feel it, that brotherly brand of scrutiny—blunt, unflinching, too loyal to look away. He never needed my answers to know the truth. He just waited for me to stop lying to myself long enough to say it out loud.

“I just…” I tried, voice rasping like I’d swallowed dust. “He doesn’t have anyone, Li.”

That was it. That was the whole thing, balled up tight and shoved under my ribs like a hidden wound. He doesn’t have anyone. And it wrecked me.

Liam’s jaw clenched, his fingers twitching like he wanted to grab me by the shoulders and shake some sense in.

“And you think you can be everyone for him,” he said, quiet now. So quiet I almost didn’t hear it over the cafeteria noise. “You think you can make up for all the people who didn’t show up. But that’s not your job, Louis. That’s not fair on you.”

The words didn’t hit like a slap—they hit like a hand on a bruise. Gentle. But knowing exactly where it hurt.

I blinked hard. Looked at the table. The tray. My hands. Anywhere but Liam’s face.

“But what if I can be?” I asked, softer than before. A whisper bleeding out of something deeper than my voice. “What if I want to be?”

Liam ran a hand through his hair. Let out a breath so long it could’ve carried a hundred unsaid things. Then he leaned in again, elbow on the table, his voice low and sharp like a scalpel.

“Then you’ve got to take care of yourself first. Because if you don’t, you’re just going to burn out. Or worse—drag him down with you.”

He wasn’t being cruel. He wasn’t even being dramatic. He was just being right.

I swallowed, throat thick. My head ached in that dull, behind-the-eyes way that always meant I’d gone too long without breathing properly.

“This is awkward,” Zayn said, voice cutting through the tension like a butter knife through a very dense cake—blunt, but enough to jostle everything sideways.

I looked up just in time to see him shove a chip in his mouth and raise both eyebrows like he was helping.

Liam groaned, low and long. “Jesus, mate.”

“What?” Zayn mumbled around a mouthful. “You two were having a whole feelings moment. Thought I’d add some sparkle.”

“Yeah, thanks for the emotional glitter bomb,” I muttered, voice hoarse with things I won’t say yet.
But the tension had broken—just a hairline crack, but enough to let me breathe again. My chest didn’t feel quite so caved-in, my fingers uncurled from the smushed remains of my sandwich, and Liam—bless him—leaned back with a tired huff, like he’d decided to call a temporary truce.

Zayn nudged my tray toward me. “Eat, idiot. You’re all drama and no fuel.”

I gave him a half-hearted glare. “Says the guy who lives off vending machine muffins and spite.”

He grinned, unbothered. “Exactly. You wanna keep up with me? You need protein.”

I took a bite of the sandwich, even though it was soggy and sad. Because Zayn wasn’t wrong, and neither was Liam.

And yeah. Maybe I was too wrapped up.

Maybe I was letting him cloud over everything else.
But I didn’t care. Not when I finally got a crack in his walls.

When night spilled across the town like ink, I stayed awake, head tilted toward the moon as if she might have an answer for me.
The air was still, heavy, the kind that pressed on your ribs and made every thought feel louder. My mind spun itself into a spider’s web—threading between Liam’s words, the looming game, Harry’s face, and that one lie I’d told without even flinching.

I’d said he didn’t have anyone. Said it like it was gospel truth. But he did.

He had someone—if you could call it that. A boyfriend.

A shadow who clung to him in daylight and wrapped himself around Harry’s neck at night, not in tenderness but in ownership. And maybe that was the real splinter in my chest—that the corner I wanted to stand in was already occupied by someone who didn’t deserve to be there.

My mind kept dragging me back to the bruise. The way it bloomed along his pale skin like something that didn’t belong—because none of them did. Every mark on him felt like vandalism on a masterpiece. And I knew whose hands had painted it.

For every reason I’d hated that man before, the knowledge that he loved with his fists multiplied my rage until it didn’t fit in me anymore. I wanted him gone. Not just out of Harry’s life—out of the world, rotting in some cold, locked room where his voice could never reach him again.

And still, under all that fury, there was something heavier. Something that made my chest ache in a way anger never could.
Because no matter how much I hated him, no matter how badly I wanted to tear him from Harry’s life—

I couldn’t undo the truth.

Harry already had someone. And all I could do was pray that one day, he’d choose someone else.

But beyond Harry—beyond the bruise and the fury and the ache—there was another noise in me.

A small thunder, rumbling low and constant, about the game tomorrow. The game that would decide if I was back. Back to the me everyone remembered, the me I wasn’t even sure existed anymore. The game that would decide if my spot on the team still had my name stitched into it, or if I was just a ghost haunting the sidelines.

I’d been cleared for it. Cleared—such a flimsy little word for something that could break me. The doctor told Mum it wasn’t the smartest idea, but that my body could handle it if I played careful, if I didn’t fall again. If. Always that word, hanging over me like a loose shingle in a storm.

So I told Noel I was playing, and Noel—God bless his inability to keep a secret—probably told the entire school. Now I had to do it. There was no stepping back without feeling the weight of all those eyes, waiting for me to prove myself.

And if I was risking my mind again? If another hit sent me spinning back into that terrifying, airless place where the world was nothing but a held breath?

I’d deal with it when I got there. That’s what I told myself.

But the truth? The thing that kept needling under my skin, even sharper than the thought of another concussion, wasn’t the injury itself.

It was the idea of looking into Liam’s face afterward—seeing that I told you so in his eyes, the hurt that comes when someone loves you enough to try and stop you, but you go charging into the fire anyway.
And maybe that was the real fear—that he’d be right, and I’d be wrong, and the version of me I was chasing was already gone.

By the time Friday slipped through the thin cracks of my curtains, the light felt different—like it had been strained through some finer sieve, softer, warmer, threaded with the kind of quiet that makes you think maybe today might not eat you alive. I still didn’t know if I was ready for the game, for Liam, for all the things I’d been pretending not to be afraid of—but I felt sure of one thing: I could talk to Harry.

When I pushed open the door to Mr. Charlie’s room, the scene was achingly familiar. Harry was already in his seat, notebook open, pen poised in that exact way he always held it—like the pen might slip away if he gripped it any harder. His bag tucked neatly beneath the desk.

I was late—just barely—but my stomach still gave a small, ridiculous flip when his eyes lifted to mine.
He noticed.

“Hey,” I murmured as I slid into the seat beside him, letting my voice carry just enough warmth to wrap around us. I didn’t reach for my own supplies yet. Touching my things would be acknowledging the class had started, and I wasn’t ready to let go of the little bubble between us.

Harry turned toward me fully, and for once, his gaze didn’t skitter away. “Why are you late?” he asked, voice soft but steady—though there was a thread of hesitation stitched through it. Then, like he regretted even asking, he shook his head. “I mean—you don’t have to tell me. I just… didn’t think you were showing up today.”

Something in me stuttered hard enough to feel it in my bones. That tiny wobble in his voice, the catch of breath—God, I heard it. Worry.
Not the casual kind you’d give an acquaintance, but the kind that came from some secret corner of his mind where the thought had bloomed and sat heavy.

And I swear, that did something to me.
Something stupid and reckless and irreversible.

In that second, every other thought blurred at the edges—fuck the game, fuck Liam’s warnings, fuck the cautious little voice in my head. I loved him. I loved him, and nothing about that felt like it could change.

“Nah,” I said, making my voice as casual as I could manage, like my pulse wasn’t a jackhammer in my throat. “Was helping my mate with the vending machine. He thought he had enough coins. He didn’t. I think it might’ve got kicked out of order.”

A soft sound slipped out of Harry—half laugh, half breath, the kind of sound you could almost miss if you weren’t listening for it like I always was. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, the fragile beginning of a smile he seemed to be debating with himself about giving me. But it was there. And I felt it like a palm pressed warm against my ribs, keeping me steady.

He shook his head, the almost-smile hovering like a bird deciding whether it was safe to land. “You’re gonna get banned from the vending machine one day,” he murmured.

His voice was light, teasing, but his eyes—God, his eyes—were different. Softer than they’d been Monday, softer than yesterday even.

I leaned back, playing along, because if I didn’t, the warmth curling up through my chest might burst out of me in something embarrassingly obvious. “Not me,” I said with mock innocence. “Zayn. I was just the moral support.”

That got me another tiny huff of breath—not quite a laugh, but something real enough that I wanted to cup it in my hands and hide it somewhere safe, so no one could take it from me.

For a moment, I just let myself look at him. Not staring (at least, I hoped it didn’t feel that way), but… memorizing. The damp in his hair from the rain curled into soft spirals at his neck. A drop of water clung to the end of one lock, catching the classroom light before sliding down, disappearing into the loose collar of his jumper. My fingers ached to follow it, to trace its path like a map that might lead me somewhere I’d been dreaming of for a long time.

“You have any plans for the weekend?” I ask, tossing it out there like it’s casual, like my chest isn’t tight with the risk that he might shut down if I go too deep, too soon. Better this than something that makes him freeze up, retreat into himself like a tide going out.

Harry blinks, and it’s such a small thing, but it feels like a slip in his armour. The question seems to catch him off guard—like no one’s asked him in a while, maybe ever, what he wants to do with his time. His pen halts mid-scribble, balanced between fingers that are always too careful, like even touching paper wrong might earn him trouble.

For a moment, he just stares at the page, like he’s checking whether the weekend even exists for him.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. His voice is quiet, the kind that sounds like he’s sorting through versions of an answer in his head, weighing which one is safest to give away. “Probably just… staying in.”

The words fall flat between us, folded in on themselves. Not lazy. Not cosy. Just resigned. And I hate it—hate the way it sounds like “staying in” isn’t a choice at all. Like maybe the idea of going somewhere else, anywhere else, has already been ruled out for him.

“Nice,” I say, soft enough that it can’t be mistaken for pity. I keep my voice steady, light. “Staying in’s underrated, you know. You can wear pyjamas for sixteen hours and nobody can judge you. Except maybe your pet, but that’s just part of the deal.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it softens him all the same. “Yeah. That part’s alright,” he says.

He doesn’t look at me when he says it, and I don’t push. But God, I want to. I want to ask what “staying in” really means for him—whether it’s quiet or dangerous, whether it’s a cage or a shield. But I swallow it down, because I know too much too soon isn’t now trust forms.

I tap my pencil against the desk, just once, and lean a little closer—not enough to spook him, just enough to shorten the space. “I usually sketch on the weekends,” I say, like I’m laying a small piece of myself between us. “Makes it feel less… long, I guess.”

He nods slowly, and when he glances up, it’s different this time. “What do you sketch?” he asks, quiet and curious.

“People, mostly,” I tell him, shrugging like it’s nothing. “But not, like… portraits or anything. Sometimes just their hands. The back of a neck. The way a shirt falls off someone’s shoulder. Little things.”

Harry’s gaze flickers to my hands—quick, almost shy—and I wonder if he’s thinking about the drawing I gave him. If he knows that he’s in my sketchbooks in a dozen tiny ways: the tilt of his wrist, the slope of his shoulder, the stubborn curl of hair behind his ear. I wonder if he knows I’ve drawn him more times than I can count.

He bites his lip—not like he’s nervous, but like there’s something he wants to say and can’t quite let it out. His lashes dip, and then:

“Do you draw people you care about?”

It hits me square in the chest, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

“Yeah,” I say, voice low, steady despite the way my throat tightens. “Only them, really.”

His breath caught—just for a second, but I saw it. The shift of his shoulders, the way his gaze slipped downward like my words had landed too close to something he kept locked away.

“One time I tried to draw a portrait of Niall,” I began, my voice low, warm, leaning toward him as if the air between us could keep a secret. “But he doesn’t stop moving—ever. I got so pissed about it I swore I’d never draw a face again.”

A ghost of a grin tugged at my mouth as the memory unspooled. “And he kept making these stupid expressions, too. Thought he was helping. Spoiler—he wasn’t.”

Harry’s lips curved, hesitant, like they weren’t sure they were allowed to. Then—there it was—the tiniest laugh. Not loud enough for the room to notice, but enough for me to feel it. Proof I could coax something light out of him if I just kept trying.
“Niall’s another one of your mates, I assume?” he asked. His voice was curious, like he wasn’t poking for gossip, but quietly mapping the edges of a life he wasn’t sure he belonged to yet.

It still caught me off guard. Of course he didn’t know—Harry had slipped into my world like he was afraid to leave footprints, and Niall had already left his behind a year ago.

“Um, yeah,” I said. The ache of remembering settled in my chest—sunlit afternoons, guitar strings, his laugh spilling down my street like water over stone. “He moved last year. You… you would’ve liked him.”

Harry’s head tilted, a flicker in his eyes like he wanted to ask why. I could almost hear the unspoken question: What makes you think someone like me could be liked by someone like him?

“He’s…” I paused, spinning my pen between my fingers. The memory was so vivid it felt like pressing my face to a window into a summer I couldn’t go back to. “He’s loud—but in the best way. Not the kind of loud that makes you want to leave the room. The kind that pulls you in, like all the fun in the world’s happening right there, and you’d be stupid to miss it.”

Harry was still, watching me like I was describing a rare animal he’d never seen outside a book.

“In communications class, we used to get in trouble all the time,” I said, smiling despite the little knot in my throat. “Detention at least once a week. He’d make a dumb face across the room, and I’d lose it. Mr. Collins hated it. But Niall… he made school feel lighter. Like the walls didn’t press in so much.”

“You don’t seem like someone who gets in trouble,” Harry murmured, his voice almost cautious. “Not often, I mean.”

I shrugged, leaning back though I could still feel his attention like a steady hand on my shoulder. “I guess I’m not. Not anymore.” My voice dipped without my permission. “After he left, I didn’t… really have a reason to be loud. And then—” My thumb brushed the edge of my notebook. “After the concussion, I just… didn’t want to talk as much. Didn’t want to move too fast or make too much noise. Everything felt quieter. And I guess I just… stayed that way.”

Harry didn’t speak right away. He only looked at me—really looked—like he was trying to read the before and after in the lines of my face. The silence between us wasn’t heavy—it was soft. A blanket pulled over two people hiding from two different storms, heading for the same direction.

When he did speak, his voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it. “I… get that.”

My breath caught. He got that. This raw, unguarded piece of me I hadn’t meant to spill—he met it with something steady and unshaken.

“Yeah?” My voice was barely a whisper, like anything louder might scare the truth back into hiding.

He nodded, still looking down. His fingertip traced an invisible pattern on his notebook, that little nervous habit I’d started to recognize. “Sometimes… it’s easier to be quiet. To not draw attention. Like if you’re quiet enough, maybe no one will notice you. And if they don’t notice you…” His voice thinned, trembled just slightly. “They can’t hurt you.”

And there it was—that faint, aching truth that slid between us like a blade and a balm at the same time.

The air thickened, charged with unspoken truths. My stomach twisted with a familiar ache, an echo of the fear I’d felt after the concussion, the desire to shrink until I was invisible. But Harry’s words carried a deeper, more chilling undertone. He wasn’t talking about the simple desire for peace. He was talking about protection. About survival.

His pen hovered above the page, trembling slightly, leaving the faintest dot of ink where it rested. I couldn’t stop staring at his hand—how still the rest of him was, how that tiny tremor gave him away.
I wanted to reach for him. God, I wanted to take that hand in mine, hold it, let him know he didn’t have to disappear here. Not with me. But the classroom felt like a stage, and one wrong move could make the fragile trust between us crack and scatter across the floor.

So I stayed where I was, my voice barely more than a breath. “Yeah…exactly.”

It felt small. Inadequate. Like a cup of water for a boy drowning in an ocean. But his eyes flicked up at me anyway, just for a second, like he was checking if I really meant it.

And I did. I meant it with every aching, twisting part of me.

My fingers curled against the edge of my desk, digging in like it could ground me. “I… used to feel like that after my injury,” I admitted softly, letting my voice match his in quiet. “Like, if I stayed out of the way, no one would expect me to… be the person I was before. Loud. Strong. Untouchable.” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to keep looking at him even as the words scraped out of me. “Being quiet felt safe. Even if it was… lonely.”

Harry’s lips parted, like he wanted to speak, but he hesitated. His shoulders rose with a slow, shaky inhale, then dropped again. “Yeah,” he whispered, almost like the word hurt. “Lonely.”

That one word—lonely—slid between us, soft but heavy, like it carried more weight than any sentence could. It wasn’t just an agreement; it was a confession.

I thought of the bruises I’d seen, of the way he’d held that page I’d drawn like it was the first soft thing he’d been given in months. I thought of him at home, shrinking himself into corners, waiting for anger to pass over him like a storm he couldn’t outrun.

I swallowed past the ache rising in my throat “So,” I said, lowering my voice conspiratorially, “if you’re staying in this weekend, there’s gotta be something you do?”

It was a soft question, an open invitation, giving him space to share without forcing him. Harry hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he’d retreat again. But then, slowly, a faint blush crept up his neck.

“I… I read,” he confessed, his voice almost shy. “Mostly… fantasy. And sometimes… I journal.” The last word was barely audible, a secret whispered into the space between us.

The corner of my mouth tugged up, not teasing—just soft. “You journal?” I echoed, my voice matching the quietness of his.

Harry’s fingers twitched against the notebook, like he was debating whether to close it and hide it under the desk. He didn’t, though. He just ducked his head, his curls falling forward to shield the pink blooming in his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

I could see him there, curled up somewhere alone, letting the words bleed out in ink because they were too heavy to carry in his throat. I imagined him writing with the same careful hands he held his pen with now, like even on paper he was afraid of breaking something.

“That’s cool,” I said softly, leaning my elbow against the desk so I could tilt just a little closer without making it obvious.

Harry’s gaze dropped to the page, and I watched the way his eyes softened—recognition blooming there, like he could see the parts of himself in the lines I left behind.

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look away either.

“Do you ever write about people?” I asked.

Harry paused. His lips parted, then pressed together again, like the truth was a fragile thing he didn’t want to crack. “Sometimes,” he whispered. “But only in pieces. Never names. Just… moments. Feelings.”

“Like what kind of feelings?”

His lashes fluttered as he looked down at his notebook again. His thumb made another slow pass over the spiral binding.

“Like… how someone makes the air feel easier to breathe,” he said, almost too soft to catch. “Or how they look at you like you’re… not invisible.”

I foolishly didn’t know he was talking about me then.

Not really.

I thought it was just a sentence. A soft, secret line in a quiet boy’s notebook—pretty in its own fragile way, but not meant for me. I didn’t understand yet that he’d peeled open his chest and left that piece of his heart in ink, right there under my nose.

I wouldn’t know until later. Until he trusted me enough to let me read some of his old entries, the ones written in cramped, shaky letters like every word was balancing on the edge of a cliff. He wrote about me the same way I sketched him: in fragments. Little pieces of a person you only notice if you’re looking closely.

And I hadn’t known, sitting there in that too-bright classroom with the sound of pencils scratching and chairs shifting, that I was already in his pages. Already pressed like a wildflower between sentences.

And in between all of that—the soft, secret details—he wrote about sinking.

I feel like I’m going under, one line read. Like tar’s pulling me down and I can’t move. But sometimes he sits next to me and I feel a hand in the dark, just for a second. It’s enough to keep my head above. Then he leaves and it’s quiet again.

When I read that, I think my heart broke and bloomed at the same time.

Because I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known that my presence—my small, clumsy attempts at care—were the only thing keeping him from slipping under. I hadn’t known that when I walked away, when the bell rang and I went back to my life, he stayed behind in the heavy silence I could never quite imagine. Even if I thought I could.

I hadn’t known how much he needed me to stay. I didn’t even know he wanted to talk to me.

And I think about that sometimes, how he must’ve looked at me in those moments, quiet and careful and terrified of being seen, and how I almost missed it. How easy it is to mistake survival for shyness. How easy it is to mistake a cry for help for nothing at all.

The day wisps on like a half-forgotten dream, smeared at the edges, drifting too fast to catch in my hands. I wasn’t really in it—just floating, like my brain was twenty seconds behind the rest of me, trailing after the hours with shoelaces untied.
Second period. Harry in my head, as usual. My notebook becomes a crime scene of distraction: three melting skulls, a cat in sunglasses, and a very detailed sketch of a guy’s hands—though if anyone asks, they’re just “random hands” and they can mind their nosy business.

Drama was… drama. I watched the curtain cords sway near the ceiling and imagined yanking one, just to see what kind of chaos would fall. A little rain of dust and velvet might improve rehearsal.

Fourth was tolerable only because of Liam. 
Sure, I was still a little pissy about his warnings and opinions—still had the aftertaste of them sitting somewhere in my chest—but we didn’t hold it over each other. That’s not really how we work. As soon as I sat down, he launched into a twenty-minute TED Talk about a guy who spent thirty hours in a haunted IKEA.

I kept asking questions, not because I understood, but because watching Liam explain things is like watching a wind-up toy go. He gets all animated, oblivious to whether anyone’s following, and it’s comforting in a way I can’t name—like a documentary you don’t understand, but the narrator’s voice is nice.

And then there’s lunch.

The moment my tray hits the table, my brain immediately splits in two: half on Zayn’s culinary war crime, half on Harry. Mostly Harry. Always Harry.

I lean over Zayn’s tray, horrified and delighted. “What the fuck is that?”

“Art,” Zayn says, grinning like a raccoon with a treasure. He holds up a chip like a paintbrush.

“It’s an ecosystem,” Liam says flatly, already scooting his milk away from the blast radius.
“There’s ketchup, mayo, brown sauce, mustard, a bit of that weird green thing from the salad bar—”

“That’s pesto, Zee.”

“—and sweet chili. For zest.”

I clutch my chest dramatically. “You’re gonna summon something, mate.”

“I am summoning something. Whatever Liam ate for breakfast this morning. And possibly God.”

I offer him the grin of a villain in a cartoon. “How much for you to eat it?”

He raises a brow, wicked. “The whole thing?”

“Every last drop,” I say solemnly, like I’m officiating a sacred rite.

Liam makes a noise like a dying bird. “You’ll ruin your insides.”

“I already have IBS,” Zayn declares, as if it’s a badge of honor, and plunges his chip into the muck.

I flick a few coins from my hoodie pocket with magician flair. “Five quid. Lunch and a show.”
“Seven,” Zayn says, scooping up a blob like it’s crème brûlée.

“Done.”

He slurps the chip like a man unbothered by mortality. Liam hides behind his sleeve. I laugh so hard my sides ache. It’s stupid. It’s gross. It’s perfect.

“Louis?”

The sound cuts through the noise like a soft bell. My laughter stutters, head snapping toward the voice.
Harry.

He’s standing just behind me, half-hidden by the edge of the table, like he isn’t sure the world will let him exist here. His tray is clutched in white-knuckled fingers, held like a shield.

For a second, the cafeteria fades out. I’m still vibrating with laughter, still buzzing from Zayn’s sauce symphony, but now all the air in the room seems to orbit him.

“Hey,” I say, softer than before. My grin lingers, reshaped, no longer about the joke but about him.
Harry’s eyes flick to Zayn—currently licking neon orange off his thumb—then back to me. He looks like a skittish deer, ready to bolt.

“You alright?” I ask.

He blinks, startled, like he didn’t expect me to speak out loud. His voice is soft, almost swallowed by the cafeteria chaos. “Y‑yeah.”

Over my shoulder, Liam is handing Zayn a napkin, scolding him for a plop of sauce that’s made its way onto the table. Zayn doesn’t even look up, but Liam catches my eye, and there it is—the silent warning. I don’t need him to say it. I already know what he’s thinking. This isn’t about Harry personally. It’s about me. About the game tonight. About “focus” and how, in Liam’s mind, Harry is already a cloud hanging over my head.

I turn back to Harry, and something in me aches. He’s small here, not in size but in posture, like he’s already bracing for the possibility that walking over to me was a mistake. Like he’s ready to apologize for taking up space.

“Sit,” I say gently, nodding toward the spot beside me. I keep my voice light, laced with a touch of teasing, so it doesn’t sound like an order. “Unless you wanna stand and eat. No judgment.”

Harry hesitates, weight caught mid-shift like a question hanging in the air. Then, finally, he lowers himself onto the bench beside me. His shoulder brushes mine for just a heartbeat, a quiet, accidental collision, but it feels like something. There’s tension in him—a trembling coil pretending to be still.

Zayn leans over with that feral grin. “You ever had pesto with sweet chili before?”

Harry blinks, wary. “…No?”

“Want to?”

“Absolutely not,” Liam cuts in before Harry can answer, swiping the tray away from Zayn. “Do not corrupt him with that sludge.”

Harry’s mouth twitches—just barely—but I see it. A secret sunrise peeking over the horizon. And God, it does something to me, seeing him here, letting even that thin sliver of light escape onto his face.

I nudge him with my elbow, almost imperceptible. “Don’t worry,” I murmur. “He’s all bark and… well, a lot of sauce. But no bite.”

Harry lets out the smallest laugh.

He unwraps his sandwich—ham and cheese, neat and small. The kind of thing you pack when you don’t expect anyone to care what you’re eating. His whole tray looks like an apology for taking up space.
“Got enough food?” I ask, keeping my tone steady, like it’s just casual conversation and not me wanting to rewrite his whole lunch with something better.

He shrugs, picking at the crust without looking at me. “It’s fine.”

Then I see it—a tiny flicker of distaste for the soggy bread, gone almost as quickly as it appeared.

“You like oranges?” I ask quickly.

His hands pause, tremble once, then fall away from the sandwich. He looks up at me properly, green eyes meeting mine head-on. “…Yeah?”

That’s all I need. I nod, stand, and feel his gaze follow me like I’ve tied an invisible thread between us.

Danny’s table is a warzone—football boys shouting over each other, crumbs flying, half a baguette lying on its side like a casualty—but he’s got his usual ridiculous pyramid of oranges, stacked like he’s preparing for some apocalyptic fruit shortage.

“Oi, Dan!” I call, wading through the chaos like I own it.

Danny grins. “Lou! Doing good, mate? Noel said you’re playing tonight?”

I shrug. I hate thinking about it—about the weight of the game, the noise of it—but I give him the easy answer. “Good as new.”

“That’s great, we need you back.”

“Yeah, well—speaking of needs,” I say with a conspiratorial grin, “think I could snag one of those oranges?”

Danny laughs, tosses me one without hesitation. It lands in my palm with a soft, sun-warm weight, the skin slightly dimpled from sitting out of the fridge. I spin it once between my fingers, a little flourish like I’m pulling a coin from behind someone’s ear, and make my way back—back to where Harry waits.
He sees me coming.

I can tell because his shoulders hitch, then lower again when his eyes find the fruit in my hand. His gaze catches the light like glass catching fire, just for a moment.

“Here,” I say, setting it on his tray like an offering. “Trade you for that sad sandwich.”

Harry’s fingers hover over the orange. “…You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” I say, softer than I mean to. My throat feels tight, like there’s more behind the words than I can afford to let him see. I tap the orange lightly. “Best part of lunch. Vitamin C, joy, hope… all rolled into one.”

A tiny breath of laughter escapes him—so quiet it’s almost invisible—but it’s there, and it’s mine. He picks up the orange with a kind of care that makes my chest feel stupidly fragile.

“You gonna peel it or just… worship it?” I tease, brushing his elbow with mine again.

His cheeks pinken faintly as he digs his thumb into the skin. The sharp citrus scent bursts out, bright and clean, cutting through the cafeteria’s chip-and-bleach haze. I watch his fingers work the peel off in slow spirals. Something about it is hypnotic—like a small, perfect act of quiet.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, barely audible over the lunchroom din.

“Anytime,” I reply, meaning it down to the bone.
The noise of the table swirls on—Zayn still trying to convert Liam to the sauce monstrosity—but it feels like it’s happening somewhere far away. Right here, there’s only the small bubble of me and Harry.

He splits the orange into halves, then quarters, then pauses. His gaze flickers to mine, and for a moment. Then he nudges one piece toward me. His fingers brush mine, sticky with citrus, warm from his palm.
“For you,” he says quietly, like he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to give me anything.

And it knocks the wind out of me. That he’d give me even a fraction of something he’s holding onto—like maybe trust is an orange, and he’s peeling it just for me.

I take the slice, pop it into my mouth. It’s sweet, sharp, alive. I grin. “See? Told you. Hope in fruit form.”

“You’re an idiot,” Harry whispers, but he’s smiling, and it sounds almost fond. Almost. Like maybe I’m growing on him the way ivy grows on old brick—slow, a little stubborn, and hard to shake once it’s there.

He pops the slice into his mouth, and I’m briefly, unreasonably jealous of the orange. Of the way it gets to rest on his tongue, sweet and dissolving, making him wrinkle his nose just slightly at the tang.

And maybe I’m staring. Okay, definitely I’m staring. But I don’t look away. Not even when he glances at me like he feels it—my gaze, my grin.

He licks juice from his thumb. My heart stutters. Casual violence.

“Better than soggy ham,” I say, because I’m one bad line away from turning into a puddle and I need to speak or I’ll combust. “Your taste in sandwiches is tragic, by the way.”

Harry shrugs, still chewing, like he’s accepting the roast as fair. “I didn’t pick it,” he mumbles through the bite.

That makes something in me go still. Not in a dramatic way—just… quieter. Like a radio dialed a notch down. I don’t ask who did pick it. I don’t want to shatter this soft little bubble we’re floating in.
“Next time,” I say instead, voice low so it’s just for him, “tell me what you do want. I’ll make sure you get it.”

He glances at me again, something unreadable flickering behind his lashes, and for a second I think maybe I’ve said too much. That maybe I’ve cracked the glass.

But then—
He nods. Just once. Small and certain. Like a promise.

And I swear something in me sings.

“Louis!”

My name cuts through the warm haze like a stone skipping across water, rippling my focus until it breaks. I don’t know how many times Zayn’s called me before I finally blink back into the space of the table—the noise, the smell of fries, the scrape of trays.

I turn, still half-caught in the thread of Harry’s citrus-bright world, and find both Zayn an. Liam looking at me. Lovely.

“What?” I say, a little too flat, like the word is wearing someone else’s mouth.

“Don’t ‘what’ me, shithead,” Zayn gruffs, though there’s no real bite to it. He waves a hand lazily, like he’s shooing the whole sentence away into the air, letting it dissolve like steam. “What time are we heading to yours?”

It takes me a second to dig through the fog of oranges and green eyes and the way Harry’s shoulder is still barely touching mine. My brain catches up slowly—Niall had mentioned it earlier. I shrug, leaning back as if that will help me remember.

“If you come to the game,” I say finally, voice still softer than it should be, “I’ll just drive us back to mine after.”

The answer seems to satisfy him, but I can feel Liam’s gaze lingering, steady and deliberate, like he’s measuring just how much of me is still here at the table—and how much is over in Harry’s quiet orbit.

My gaze slid to Harry, who was already starting to pack up his tray. His movements were slow, almost hesitant, as if he was unsure of when the spell we’d been under was officially broken. The thought of him leaving made my chest ache with a sudden, sharp pang of loss. I wanted to tell him to wait, to stay a little longer, but the words felt too needy, too demanding.

I glanced back at Liam, and he gave me a look that was part pity, part frustration.

Zayn, oblivious to the silent conversation happening across the table. “I’m not watching a bunch of men chase a ball, Lou. Besides, I have an important date with my art room.”

“You’re coming,” I said, not even bothering to argue. “Liam and Niall will be there. We can get pizza.”

Zayn’s eyes lit up at the mention of pizza. “Okay, fine. But only because of the pizza. And I’m not wearing team colors.”

“No one expects you to, you weirdo,” Liam said, rolling his eyes but a small smile played on his lips. He finally looked at me, a more genuine warmth in his eyes now. “I’ll wait for you at the school gate, alright? We can head over to the fields together.”

“Sounds good,” I said, but my attention was already drifting back to Harry. He was standing now, his tray in his hand, a look of quiet resignation on his face. He was getting ready to disappear again.

“Harry,” I said, my voice a little louder than before, trying to catch him before he could escape.

He paused, turning to face me. He looked surprised that I had called his name again.

“You, uh… you watch football?” I asked, and the words felt clumsy and awkward, but I had to say something. Anything.

He blinked, and a slow, cautious smile spread across his face. “Sometimes. Why?”

“We’re having a movie night after my football game tonight,” I said, trying to sound casual, like it was a normal thing to invite someone you just shared an orange with to hang out with your friends. “If you want to come. We’re getting pizza.”

The smile on his face faltered, replaced by a look of disbelief, almost fear. His gaze flickered to Liam and Zayn, then back to me, as if he was waiting for one of them to jump in and tell him it was a joke.

“I… I don’t know,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I have…I’ll try.”

“Alright,” I say, keeping my tone easy, like I didn’t just lace the invite with my entire afternoon. “No pressure. But if you show up, I’ll save you a slice before Niall inhales them all.”

Harry almost smiles at that—almost—but it’s enough to keep my chest feeling stupidly light. He nods once, quick, and then slips away into the noise.
I watch him go longer than I should. The back of his shirt vanishes in the tide of bodies, and I’m left with the soft sting of missing something that technically isn’t even mine.

“Lou,” Liam says quietly, just for me.
I tear my gaze away. “What?”

His eyes flick toward where Harry disappeared, then back. There’s no lecture in his look this time, just… understanding. And maybe that’s worse, because it makes me feel seen in a way I’m not ready for.

I grab one of Zayn’s chips and pop it in my mouth like a shield. “What? I’m making friends. It’s legal.”
Zayn smirks. “Sure, mate. Friends. That’s what we’re calling it now.”

Liam groans. “God help us all.”

But their voices fade, just a little, because I can still smell orange on my hands. And somewhere in my head, I’m already picturing Harry under the dim gold of my living room lamp, cross-legged on the floor, a plate of pizza in his lap.

Chapter Text

The afternoon crosses into evening, a slow, tense wait. The air outside the school gates is thick with the scent of wet asphalt and impending fall. Liam and I walk to the field together, our conversation a familiar rhythm of easy silence and sporadic, half-finished sentences. He doesn't mention Harry, and I'm grateful. The topic feels too fragile, too precious to be poked at.

The field rises into view, a slick, almost glowing green beneath the surgical-white glare of the floodlights. The air hums with a thousand tiny sounds—the barked orders of the coach, the slap of cleats against turf, the dull, rhythmic thud of balls meeting feet. And under it all, the muffled roar of the stands—a sound that used to feel like wings at my back.

Once, this place had been freedom. No walls, no rules, no ceiling. Just the kind of rush you couldn’t bottle, the kind that made you think nothing could touch you here. But that was before the injury. Before I learned that a football pitch could be a coffin in green clothes.

When the nightmares came, it wasn’t car crashes or faceless monsters—it was this field. Lit up like now, only I was flat on my back, staring at the blur of the lights until they swallowed the edges of me. No victory in the grass, no glory in the cheers—just the suffocating weight of my own body, too stunned to move.

“Still okay?” Liam’s voice cuts through, his palm landing between my shoulder blades. The sudden touch makes me flinch before I can help it.

“We can see how you feel after practice,” he says, watching my face like he’s trying to read more than I’m showing. “If it’s too much too soon, you can sit this one out.”

I force a smile, the kind that’s all teeth and no roots, and nod like his words don’t dig under my skin.

Sitting out would be easy—too easy. It would mean I wouldn’t have to face the way my body remembers falling, the way my chest tightens at the sound of cleats pounding toward me.

But it would also mean admitting something broke in me that never got fixed. And I can’t. Not here.

Not in front of the lights, the team, the ghosts that still live in the grass.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, even though “fine” tastes like chalk in my mouth.

Liam doesn’t call me out. He just gives me a long look, the kind that says he knows more than I wish he did, and claps my shoulder before peeling off toward the locker rooms.

I linger a moment longer, letting my gaze sweep the field. My fingers flex against the strap of my bag. The lights glare down, unblinking, as if daring me to step under them again. Somewhere in the crowd, I imagine Harry—whether he’s really there or not—quietly watching. That thought, for reasons I can’t explain, steadies me.

So I walk forward. Into the noise, into the memory, into the mouth of the thing that once almost swallowed me whole.

The locker room was just how I remembered it—loud, sweaty, a chaos of bodies and voices that somehow felt like home and foreign all at once. I’d been in here for practices, sure, grabbed a shower after the hotter training days, leaned against these dented metal doors when we were all too tired to stand straight. But practice locker rooms were calm in comparison. This—this was a storm.

Liam walked just ahead of me, steering me like I was some visitor instead of someone who’d bled on this turf. I could call him out, remind him I know my way around every inch of this place, but I don’t. I can feel his worry radiating off him, see it in the way he glances over his shoulder like I might vanish if he blinks too long. Maybe he’s not just worried about the game. Maybe he’s worried about me.

A few hands reach out as I pass—pats on my back, quick nods, murmured “good to have you back”s. I return the smiles, but keep my mouth shut. If I speak, I’m afraid it’ll come out wrong—too sharp, too soft, too much.

It’s all happened too fast. One month ago I was a ghost on the pitch, half-conscious with the grass swallowing the edges of my vision. The week after was hospitals, the tang of antiseptic, the doctor’s voice threading through my dreams until it blurred with nightmares. And always, always, people asking if I was okay every time I stood up too quickly, like they could see the crack running through me.

Now, I’m standing here with my boots in my locker, my head full of curls and bruises that don’t belong to me, just cleared for a match I’m still not sure my body is ready for. A risk, yes. But one I’m willing to take.

Because maybe—if I play, if I move like I used to—I can bring myself back to life.
Back to the boy they all remember.
Back to the boy I’m afraid I’ve already lost.

The noise swells around me, a tide I used to swim in without thinking. Now it presses at my ears, rattles in my ribs. The metallic slam of locker doors. The hiss and sputter of the showers kicking on in the far corner. The humid breath of fifty bodies moving in too small a space. My skin prickles with the heat and the smell—damp fabric, liniment, that faint copper tang of sweat and adrenaline.

I lace up my boots slowly, like there’s a ritual to it. Left, then right. Tug, knot, double-knot. The leather creaks under my fingers, familiar and foreign all at once. I keep my gaze low, tracing the scuffed floor tiles instead of the faces around me.

Liam’s voice cuts through the din—low enough that only I can hear.
“You good?”
It’s the third time he’s asked me that tonight. 
I look up, force another smile that feels like it belongs to someone else.

“Yeah.”

The lie settles heavy in my chest, but it’s steadier than the truth. The truth is my hands have been twitching since warm-up, that every shadow in my peripheral vision feels like a body coming in too fast, too hard. The truth is, part of me still thinks I might not walk off the pitch on my own.

But the whistle’s going to blow soon, and once it does, there won’t be space for truths or ghosts. There’ll just be the ball, the game, and the stubborn, aching need to prove—maybe to myself more than anyone—that I still belong here.

Somewhere beyond the door, the crowd roars at something I can’t see. My pulse answers, quick and sharp. I think about Harry again, like I have all night—his face somewhere in that faceless mass, eyes steady, watching. I don’t know why the thought of him feels like a hand at my back, but it does.

I stand. The laces bite into my ankles just enough to remind me I’m tied to this moment, for better or worse. The team begins to file out, voices bouncing against the walls, laughter sharp as glass. I follow them into the tunnel, the light spilling across the threshold like it’s daring me to step through.

The tunnel swallows us in shadow, the world beyond blinding in comparison. My studs scrape against the concrete, each step ringing in my ears like a countdown. The air shifts as we near the mouth of it—cooler, sharper, cut through with the scent of wet grass and the faint sweetness of turf paint.
And then the light hits.

The pitch opens up in front of me, green and endless under the glare of the floodlights. The crowd is a blur of sound—cheers, shouts, the staccato clapping that rises and falls like a living thing. Once, that noise used to pump through me like oxygen. Tonight it’s almost too big, pressing against my ribs until I can barely draw breath.

The warm-up drills start. Muscle memory takes over, but it’s a rusty kind of remembering—each stretch and sprint carrying the faint ache of something once broken. The air tastes like metal in my mouth. I keep my eyes forward, focusing on the blur of jerseys instead of the churning in my gut.

The whistle shrills, sharp enough to slice the night in two. We split into scrimmage teams, jerseys peeling away in opposite directions like oil from water. My legs feel heavier than they should, the turf clinging to my cleats as if it knows I don’t belong here anymore.

The ball comes fast—faster than I’m ready for—but instinct gets there first. Chest trap, drop, push forward. A clean pass. A small win. My breath hitches, not from exertion but from the ghost of surprise that I can still do this.

Across the pitch, laughter bursts from a knot of players. It’s the kind of sound that used to be mine—careless, breathless, alive. Now it feels like I’m listening from underwater. Every movement is threaded with a whisper: careful, careful, careful. A tackle comes in from my right—too close, too sudden. The world tilts for a heartbeat, my chest locking up, my muscles bracing for the crack that isn’t coming. I sidestep just in time, but the rush of it leaves my ears buzzing.

From the sideline, Liam’s voice cuts through the noise, steady and low. “Breathe, Lou.”
 And I do, though it’s jagged and too quick at first. Inhale, exhale. Feet moving. Hands open.

Somewhere past the fence, the crowd shifts, a ripple of movement I can’t see but feel. And just like before, I imagine him there—Harry—leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes following me like a lifeline I haven’t earned. It’s ridiculous. It’s also the only thing keeping my legs moving toward the ball again.

We line up for the kickoff, the referee’s whistle poised at his lips. I roll my shoulders, shift my weight from foot to foot, trying to remember how to be here without flinching at every sudden movement. The ball sits at the center spot, small and still, like it has no idea how much it’s about to take from me.

The whistle pierces the air.

We’re moving—boots thudding against the turf, bodies streaming forward in a wave. The first touch comes quick, a teammate’s pass skimming toward me. My knee bends, my foot meets leather, and for a heartbeat it’s like muscle memory takes the wheel. Pass. Pivot. Run.

The noise around me fades to a dull roar, replaced by the thud of my heartbeat in my ears. My legs feel strange—not weak exactly, but aware, too aware, of every flex and stretch. The ball comes back my way and I push it forward, slipping between two defenders before the fear can catch up.

My momentum carries me deep into the opponent’s half, the goalposts looming ahead like a silent judgment. The world shrinks to this—the ball, the space, the single path to victory. I can feel the ghost of the old me, the one who lived for this, and for a second, I almost believe he’s back.

But then, a player comes in hard from my left, and the world shatters.

Not with a crash or a scream, but with the sudden, sharp scent of his cologne. It’s an oddly specific detail that my mind latches onto, a piece of mundane reality in a moment of pure terror. My muscles lock. My chest seizes. The memory of a tackle, a crack, and the bright, brutal lights of the pitch comes flooding back, a suffocating wave that drowns out everything else.

I freeze. The ball rolls past me, a phantom in the corner of my vision. The player I was meant to beat brushes by, and his shadow, not his body, is enough to send a jolt of ice through my veins. The space I was running into, the space that had been mine for a heartbeat, is gone. It's filled with the ghosts of my own failure.

I’m standing still in the middle of a moving game, an anchor in a raging current. My teammates are yelling. The crowd is groaning. I can feel a hundred eyes on me, all of them asking the same question: What’s wrong with him?

The whistle blows again, a sharp, angry sound. The referee is calling a foul. I don’t know who on. I don’t care. My ears are ringing with the memory of a fall that isn’t happening. My heart is a frantic bird against my ribs, desperate to escape.

Through the haze, I see him. On the sideline. Liam. His face is a mask of concern, his mouth moving, but the words don’t reach me. I see the coach, his arms crossed, a look of disappointment etched onto his face. I see the other players, their angry, confused stares.

And in that moment, I know the truth. The pitch didn’t take just my body. It took my courage.
I try to move, to get back into the game, but my legs feel like lead. I’m rooted to the spot, a monument to everything I can’t do anymore. I’m not the boy they remember. I’m not even the boy I was an hour ago, lacing up my boots with a desperate hope.

I’m just the ghost of a player, haunting the place that broke him.

I move on, letting the game carry me with it, the rhythm settling into my bones like it used to—almost. The ball comes fast, my foot finding the perfect angle to send it across the box. Eric’s there, exactly where he should be, and his boot drives it home. The net ripples. The crowd roars. For a moment, the sound feels like it belongs to me again. Just before the second half ticks into its final quarter, the sub flag goes up. My number. I jog off without protest, lungs burning, legs heavy in that good, used way. Tired, but not broken. Not tonight. I drop onto the bench, the heat of the match still humming under my skin, and take a long pull from my water bottle. Liam’s beside me, eyebrows raised in that I told you so arch he thinks is subtle. I roll my eyes, not giving him the satisfaction of a reply. Because I’m already searching.

My gaze sweeps the stands, heart thudding with a quieter, stranger rhythm now. Not for the score, not for the coach’s notes—just for him. The one face I’d wanted to see more than any other. The one set of eyes I’d been carrying with me through every pass, every sprint, every time my chest clenched and I made myself push anyway.

I look for green, for the particular shade I know by heart. For the shape of him leaning forward, watching.

But he’s not there.

The crowd is a blur of strangers, their cheers washing over me in a way that feels hollow. My chest tightens—not from exhaustion this time, but from the way hope has a habit of slipping through your fingers before you even notice you’re holding it.

By the time the final whistle blows, I’m still scanning, still pretending maybe I’ve just missed him in the crush of bodies. But the truth is as clear as the scoreboard.

Harry wasn’t here.

The whistle fades, the crowd spilling its noise into the night, but none of it sticks to me. I trail the team back into the tunnel, boots heavy, jersey clinging damp to my skin. Inside, the locker room is the usual chaos—steam from the showers curling in the air, the slam of lockers, someone shouting over someone else about a missed call.

I strip off my jersey, the fabric dragging over sweat-slick skin, and step under the spray. The water is hot enough to sting, beating against my shoulders like it’s trying to drive the tension out. I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and let the roar of the shower fill my ears until it drowns out the echo of the stands.

In my mind, I still catch myself looking for him—Harry standing somewhere in the crowd, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on me. Stupid. The match is over. He wasn’t here. No amount of imagining will change that.

I soap the dirt from my shins, rinse the salt from my hair, and try to leave the disappointment in the drain with the suds. But it clings stubbornly, same as the bruises that will bloom tomorrow.

By the time I’m dressed, the room has thinned out—half the team already gone, the rest moving in lazy, post-match rhythm. I sling my bag over my shoulder and push open the door.

The night air is cooler now, tinged with the scent of damp grass and fried food from the concession stand. Outside, I spot Liam and head over to his direction where he’s by the bench.

I wipe the back of my hand across the water clinging to my face, and the motion sparks a rush of déjà vu—how many times I used to do this after a match, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt, surrounded by teammates who slapped my back until I felt drunk on victory. That was before. Before the concussion. Before the way the field changed shape in my head. Before Harry.

Now the ritual feels hollow—just muscle memory without the rush.

Liam is zipping up his bag beside me, the sound loud in the cooling night air. My gaze drifts toward the thinning crowd, scanning for faces without quite meaning to. It’s not long before I spot them—Zayn and Niall, their blonde-and-black-haired heads bent together in animated conversation.

There was a time when a win like this meant lingering—stretching the moment until the stadium emptied, basking in the afterglow. But that was pre-concussed Louis, and pre-Harry Louis. Now I’ve got other plans. And none of them involve hollering with the lads until my voice is gone.

“I see Zayn and Nialler,” I say, nudging Liam as he slings his bag over one shoulder.

He hums, scanning the stands and walkways. “Didn’t think Niall could make it… to the match, I mean.”

“You know how he is—he’ll push his way through a subway without a thought.” My grin comes easier this time, remembering.

Liam laughs, dropping his head, before stepping aside to let me go first through the gate. Zayn and Niall are heading toward us now, Niall spotting me and lifting a hand in a wide wave.

“Sorry Harry didn’t show, I knew you wanted him—” Liam starts, but he cuts off when my name comes from somewhere behind us.

“Tomlinson!”

The call is sharp, sure, like it knows it’ll land.
We both stop and turn.

There’s a man I don’t recognise striding toward us—dark brown hair, taller than me, maybe even taller than Liam. His grin is easy, too easy. Polished. The kind of smile that looks like it’s been worn into shape for years, until it’s more mask than expression.

I glance at Liam, but his faint frown tells me he doesn’t know him either.

Something in my chest goes taut.

I wave Liam on, feeling his hesitation before he obeys, and turn fully toward the stranger. The floodlights are still glaring down on us, bleaching the edges of his face until his eyes are shadowed.

For some reason, it makes him harder to read.

When I stop in front of him, the lad doesn’t waste a second before stepping into my space, his hand already outstretched.

“Chris,” he says, smooth as poured syrup, the kind of voice that knows it’ll stick to you whether you want it to or not.

I take his hand because not taking it would mean something, and I don’t want to give him that yet. My grip is polite, my smile hesitant. “Louis.”

We break apart. He wipes the same hand I just shook down the front of his shirt, quick and casual, like he’s brushing away sweat—or something else. My jaw clenches, but I chalk it up to him not liking the feel of a post-match palm.

“Good game,” he says, and it sounds almost generous until he keeps going. “You play like you haven’t in a minute, though. Spaced out in the second half, but brought it back with that assist.”

His smile doesn’t even twitch before the next blow lands. “Didn’t really see why Harry was so persistent to come, but I see why now. Watching you lot play is like watching babies fight.”

Every word is wrapped in silk and tipped with a thorn. But it’s not the dig at my game that sticks—it’s the name.

“Harry?” I hear myself choke, my voice thinner than I’d like. My cheeks warm before I can stop them, and the smallest, stupidest flash of him—his face in the crowd, the way his eyes might have been fixed on me—lights in my mind like a struck match.

Chris shifts his weight, tilts his head just enough that I have to look up at him. His grin widens, and I can smell the faint, clean sting of whatever aftershave he’s wearing. “Yeah, he’s in the bathroom.”

It clicks in a single, heavy beat. This is him. The boyfriend. The man behind the bruises Harry won’t explain. The smile is still there—charming, practiced—but now I can see the blade in it.

“You’re the one that gives him the pictures, yeah?” he asks, voice still honeyed, but his eyes scanning my face like he’s measuring something.

My fists curl in the fabric of my shorts, knuckles pulling the weave tight. There’s heat at the base of my skull, crawling down my neck, but I nod once, sharp.

“Figured,” he says, and I swear I can hear the satisfaction in it. “He really likes them, by the way. Fucking asked me to go to a museum.”

His laugh is light, effortless, and I can’t tell if it’s at Harry or at me—or maybe both. The words hang between us, souring the night air, and all I can think is that Harry is just a few dozen steps away, unaware of the way my pulse is thudding with hate.

My eyes narrow, heat threading through me like a fuse burning short. Every nerve is telling me to plant my fist in Chris’s smug face, to wipe that practiced smile clean off him. But then—over his shoulder—I catch sight of a familiar bounce of curls emerging from the bathroom corridor, and the tension in me shifts. It doesn’t disappear, not entirely. I still want to hit him. I just want to get to Harry more.

Or maybe it’s not just want. Maybe it’s something heavier. Need. The simple, selfish wish to see him untouched, unshaken. Safe.

Harry’s moving quickly, hands swiping down the thighs of his jeans like he couldn’t be bothered to dry them properly. There’s a rush in his step, an absent-minded urgency that makes me wonder if he even knows I’m here.

He brushes past a woman coming the other way—barely a shoulder against hers—but the small collision is enough for him to pause. He glances up, mouth shaping an apology, one that’s all sincerity even without sound.

And it’s such a tiny thing, such a quiet, human moment, but it floors me. Because if it had been anyone else—any other lad fresh out of a stadium bathroom—they wouldn’t have looked back. They wouldn’t have thought twice.

My mouth curves into a smile before I can stop it, something instinctive, helpless. There’s a warmth in my chest, rising like steam in the cold night air, and for a breath I forget the stench of the man still standing in front of me.

Almost.

Because the smell of him—the arrogance, the shadow he casts—lingers like smoke. And it makes me want to pull Harry close, closer than I’ve ever dared, just to see if I can block it out.

Harry stops a few feet away, scanning the faces in the small crowd around the concessions. His eyes pass over me, then double back, a slow, dawning look of surprise on his face. The shy, hesitant smile that follows—all teeth and dimples—is a flash of pure, unadulterated sunshine, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

Then he sees Chris.

The smile vanishes, a shutter closing on a sunlit room. His posture straightens, the nervous energy of a moment ago replaced by a familiar stillness, a studied blankness. It’s like watching him pull on an invisible coat of armor, one that he wears with an easy, practiced grace.

“Harry, there you are,” Chris says, his voice a little too loud, a little too jovial. He claps a hand on my shoulder, a possessive gesture that makes my skin crawl. “I was just having a chat with Louis here. He’s the one who does those little doodles you like so much.”

Harry’s eyes flicker to me, a flash of something unreadable—embarrassment? fear? regret?—before settling on Chris. “Oh. Right.” His voice is flat, devoid of any of the warmth it had with me earlier.

Chris’s hand drops from my shoulder, and he turns to Harry, a different kind of smile on his face now—a soft, proprietorial one. He leans toward him, like they’re sharing some private joke I’m not invited to.
“You ready to head out?” Chris asks, low and smooth, though the undertone is less invitation than instruction.

Harry’s nod is small, almost imperceptible, but his body answers for him—shoulders tipping forward, weight shifting in the direction Chris wants. I watch the change happen in real time, like someone dimming a light. Just minutes ago, Harry had been moving through the world in his own rhythm, wiping his hands on his jeans, smiling at strangers. Now he’s matching Chris’s pace before they’ve even taken a step.

Something in me twists hard, like a rope pulled too tight.

“I’ll see you around,” Chris says over his shoulder, and there’s a glint in his eye when it catches mine—a challenge, maybe, or a warning. I can’t tell which he’d rather I believe.

Harry lingers a half-second longer than he needs to. Just enough for me to catch the faint crease between his brows. It’s gone as quickly as it appears, smoothed into nothing.

“Wait,” I blurt, the word sharp enough to slice through the hum of the crowd. I’m not even sure what I mean to follow it with—only that I need Harry to stay here, under the lights, where I can see him. Just a little longer out of the dark.

Chris stops mid-step, a fractional hesitation that reads like he’s been caught with something in his pocket he shouldn’t have. The smile stays pinned to his face, but it’s tighter now, like a thread pulled too far.

Harry’s eyes flick to mine, quick and searching. For half a second, I think I see the tiniest plea there—a silent don’t. Not here. Not like this. It’s so faint I might’ve imagined it, but it lodges in my throat all the same.

I swallow, forcing something lighter onto my face, something that feels like a grin even though it tastes like grit. My finger hooks toward the stands where Niall is still lingering, gesturing wildly as he talks to Zayn. “Before you go, you want to meet Niall? He’s the one I tried to draw and… failed miserably.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches, like he’s fighting whether or not to give me that dimple. His gaze stays locked on mine, and for a heartbeat, Chris isn’t even there—it’s just me holding him, in this strange, quiet stalemate.

Chris shifts beside him, not saying a word, but I can feel the weight of his scrutiny, the way his presence stretches between us like barbed wire. Harry’s hands twitch at his sides before he shoves them into his pockets. He glances at Chris, then back to me, and the tiniest crack of warmth slips into his voice.

“Yeah.”

A wave of relief so intense it feels like a physical punch washes over me. He said yes. He chose me, chose us, over Chris’s silent command. It’s a tiny, almost insignificant rebellion, but to me, it feels like a victory.

“Great,” I manage, my voice catching with the weight of hope blooming like a fragile flame inside my ribs. I turn over my shoulder, cupping my hands around my mouth as if shouting could seal this stolen moment tighter.

“Oi! Niall! Get over here!”

Just like that, Niall’s grin breaks through the night, bright and easy, weaving through the crowd like sunlight spilling through clouds. He arrives with Liam and Zayn trailing behind, casual and careless as if the world hadn’t tipped on its axis in the last few minutes.

Niall throws an arm around my shoulders, the warmth a balm against the jittering edge of my nerves. “Nice being back, innit?” he says, voice teasing but genuine. My cheeks heat with a flush that’s part embarrassment, part gratitude—because even with the flashbacks and the tightness in my throat, it was nice.

I nod, trying to shake off the lingering ghosts and turn my attention toward Harry—and, begrudgingly, Chris. “Yeah, it was.”

Clearing my throat, I gesture between the two of them, my voice steady despite the flutter in my chest. “Niall, meet Harry. Harry, Niall.”

Niall's easy smile is a welcome change from the tension that has been hovering around us. He drops his arm from my shoulders and extends a hand to Harry, his movements open and friendly. "Hey, mate. I've heard about you. All good things, of course."

Harry’s hands are still tucked in his pockets, but he manages a small, shy smile in return. "Hi. You, too, I guess." The words are a little clumsy, a little awkward, but they're genuine.

Zayn, ever the silent observer, gives a curt nod, his dark eyes taking in Harry's nervous posture and guarded expression. Liam, on the other hand, steps forward and claps Harry on the shoulder, a gentle, reassuring gesture. "Good to see you, Harry. Louis was worried you weren't going to make it."

The comment is meant to be friendly, but the truth in it makes Harry flinch, and he glances at Chris, who is still leaning against the fence, a dark shadow in the periphery.

"I had to finish some homework," Harry says, his voice soft, a fragile excuse that feels like a lie to me.

"Right," Chris says, his voice cutting through the small moment of peace. He pushes off the fence and starts walking toward us, his easy smile back in place, but his eyes are cold and hard. "Well, homework's finished, and it's getting late. We should really be going."

The air around us grows thick with tension again, and the small bubble of warmth we had managed to create shatters. Harry’s shoulders slump, and he takes a step back, his gaze fixed on Chris's approaching form.

"See you guys later," Harry says, his voice a quiet whisper of apology. He doesn't make eye contact with any of us, a silent signal that the conversation is over.

He turns to go, but I can't let him. I can't let him walk away from us and back to Chris, not after he chose to stay. I can't just stand here and watch him disappear into the night again.

“Do something.” I whisper it low, the words rough and urgent against the quiet night—more breath than sound, almost a shout tangled inside a prayer. “Just don’t let him leave yet, please.”

Niall’s eyes flick to me, soft with something like pity but also determination. He doesn’t know Harry—not really. Doesn’t see the bruises hidden beneath tight sleeves or hear the silent screams Harry swallows whole. Doesn’t understand the way Harry carries pain like a secret prayer, wings folded tight but never quite folded away. All he knows is that I’m desperate, and that’s enough to make him act.

He shifts, glances at Liam, who nods quietly, the weight of this moment pressing down on all of us. Clearing his throat, Niall calls out with a warmth that breaks through the tension like sunlight through cracked glass.

“Hey! Harry! I know you two got shit to handle, but if you want, we’re doing a movie night tonight. Lou already told Mama Jay it’s the four of us!”

His voice carries across the space between us—friendly, inviting, a lifeline tossed over a wall I’m desperate for Harry to climb.

“We can get you home by midnight?”

I watch Harry’s face, the flicker of hesitation, the subtle pull between the chains Chris wraps around him and the fragile hope Niall offers. It’s a delicate balancing act—one wrong move and the moment could shatter, but still, here he is, caught between two worlds, and I hold my breath for him to choose.

The moment hangs, taut and silent, a fragile web woven between the four of us and the two figures on the other side of the stadium lights. Harry's gaze darts from Niall to Chris, then back again, and I can almost see the gears turning in his head. His eyes, so often a window to his gentle soul, are now shuttered, unreadable.

Chris’s polished grin is gone—shattered clean off his face—replaced by a tight, dangerous scowl that coils around the air like smoke before a fire. His control has been nicked, and he feels it. He steps into Harry’s space, his voice low enough to make the hair on my arms prickle. “Do you want to go?”

I glance toward Liam. He’s already watching me, eyes sharp with the kind of warning that says he’ll bring this up later. I can read the whole sentence in his gaze—If you were already toeing the line by talking to Harry, you’ve crossed it by trying to take him away. And maybe he’s right, but my ribs feel too tight, and the thought of letting Harry slip back into Chris’s shadow tastes like blood.

Harry’s “yes” is so soft I almost miss it, a word tucked inside a breath. He doesn’t look at me when he says it. He keeps his eyes locked on Chris, and I wish—God, I wish—he’d let them flick to me. Just once. Just enough for me to see the truth written there, to catch a whispered plea on his lips so I could grab him and not let go.
But he doesn’t.

Chris’s gaze drifts over the four of us like he’s counting threats, then hooks back to Harry. His smile blooms again, but it’s sharp at the edges, almost mocking, and he presses his hand to the back of Harry’s neck with a claim that makes my stomach lurch. “Alright, just be back by ten.”

Harry smiles for him, soft and careful, before leaning in for a kiss. It’s slow, unhurried, the kind of thing strangers would think was tender. My fists curl so tight my nails bite my thigh, a sting I cling to just to keep from moving. I know this isn’t what it looks like—not sweetness, not love. It’s a message. It’s possession disguised in something gentle.

Still, jealousy twists in my gut, ugly and stubborn, because I hate that anyone else could look at them and think it’s normal. Sweet, even. Niall probably sees nothing more than a boyfriend saying goodbye—an innocent brush of lips before parting ways. But I know the weight of that hand on Harry’s neck, the silent you’re mine hiding in that kiss. And I know that if Chris had said no, Harry would never have walked away from him tonight.

And that truth burns hotter than the jealousy ever could.

Harry pulls back first, the faintest curve still on his mouth, but I can see it now—how it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s a flicker there, quick as a blink, like the flare of a match before it’s snuffed out. Chris smooths his thumb over Harry’s jaw, a motion that would seem tender to anyone else, but the way Harry’s shoulders tighten tells me it’s not.

I want to step in. God, I want to wedge myself between them, to wipe that false softness off Chris’s face with my fist and walk Harry so far away he forgets this corner of the world exists. But the truth presses on me like a hand to the throat: one wrong move, and I’m the one who loses him entirely.

Niall’s still beside me, shifting his weight like he can feel the tension bleeding through the pavement. Liam’s watching Chris like he’s assessing a play he’s about to intercept. Zayn, quiet as stone, has his hands shoved in his pockets, but his gaze hasn’t left Harry. I think they’re all reading more than I told them—reading him.

Chris finally releases Harry, not in a way that looks like permission, but like he’s already decided there’s no real threat here. I see it in the small, dismissive tilt of his chin.

“Midnight,” Harry murmurs, correcting him softly. “That’s what Niall said.” His tone is light, almost playful, but I can hear the risk in it—hear the thread of defiance hidden under the silk.

Chris’s smile twitches, just for a second, before settling again. “Ten,” he repeats, a little quieter, like they’re the only two who matter in the world right now.

Harry just nods. And something in me aches at how easy it is for him to bend when I know he could break instead.

He turns toward me then, curls shifting over his forehead, eyes finding mine like I’m a handhold he can grab without anyone noticing. It’s nothing more than a look, but it steals the air from my lungs. He’s here. For now, he’s here. And I swear to God, I’m going to make every second count.

Chapter Text

The car ride back to my house feels like its own little world—one part relief, one part tension, the rest some strange fizz of hope I’m trying not to spill all over the seats.

As we walk out of the stadium, the floodlights fade into the dark, but I can still feel Chris’s presence like a pair of eyes on the back of my neck. He’s somewhere behind us, in another car, in another lane, but in my head he’s too close.

Beside me, Niall, in his usual oblivious sunshine, pats Harry on the back as though they’ve known each other for years. I catch Harry’s subtle flinch—small enough that Niall doesn’t notice, but I do—and I want to gently pry his hand off him. Liam and Zayn are talking about some horrendous smell near the changing rooms, their banter a low hum under everything else.

“Jesus, mate. You’re quite tall. You make Lou look four foot,” Niall laughs, his grin glued in place, all open warmth. He’s like that with everyone—every stranger a friend until proven otherwise.

Harry doesn’t answer. Not rudely, just… cautiously. His silence has weight, like he’s still trying to find the edges of this new space, still deciding if it’s safe to breathe here.

I bump Niall off his shoulder with a mock scowl. “Oi, shut it! I’m big!” I say, puffing my chest just enough to be ridiculous.

And then—quiet but real—I hear it. A small laugh from Harry. Not the brittle, polite one he gives Chris’s friends, but something unguarded, like he didn’t have time to hide it.

“You’re not big,” he says, and I can’t help grinning at him, even as I force my eyes into a squint.

“Whose side are you on, Styles?” I demand, but it’s already breaking into a laugh, the kind that catches in my ribs. Niall regains his balance and shoves me back, sending me stumbling into Liam, who groans but doesn’t push me away. My football bag slips off my shoulder and land on the pavement, but I don’t go to pick it up. I straight and brush myself off.

“Be careful with him—he’s just survived an injury, don’t give him another one,” Liam says, his voice half stern, half fond, as he hefts my bag and tosses it into the boot alongside his own.

I blink, realizing only now that we’re already at my car. Somewhere between Niall’s endless chatter and Harry’s quiet laugh, the walk here vanished. My chest does a strange thing—like the butterflies in it have decided to fly backwards, wings brushing against my ribs in a nervous, jittery beat. Every step closer to the car feels like a step closer to something rare and golden: Harry in our space, even for a moment, away from Chris’s shadow.

I lean in, close enough that the warmth of him makes the air feel smaller, and whisper, “Call shotgun.” My voice is low, conspiratorial, like we’re plotting something ridiculous and secret.

Harry blinks at me, his brows drawing together. “What?” His voice is soft, not sharp, but the confusion in it is real.

I grin, can’t help it. “Means you get the front seat,” I say, but what I don’t say is Means you’ll be next to me, not behind me. Means we’ll be able to talk without everyone listening. Means you’ll be close enough I won’t have to keep checking the mirror to make sure you’re okay.

For just a heartbeat, I think he might smile—but it’s fleeting, the way sunlight slips through moving clouds.

Liam slams the boot shut with a finality that echoes across the car park, the sound snapping Harry’s gaze away from mine. I unlock the doors, pretending my pulse isn’t doing somersaults in my throat.

“Front seat’s the warmest,” I add lightly, tilting my head toward the passenger side like it’s no big deal, like I’m not quietly begging him to take it.

Harry studies me for a second longer, like he’s trying to work out if there’s a catch, if accepting something this small will cost him later. Then, slowly—so slowly I almost miss it—he nods.

“Shotgun,” he murmurs.

And it’s nothing, really. Just a seat. Just a word. But my chest loosens like it’s everything.

His eyes flick toward the back where Niall’s already wrestling with Zayn over who gets the window, and for a moment, I swear I can see the weight of habit pulling him—pulling him to take the smallest space, the least visible spot.

But then, almost shyly, he rounds the bonnet and opens the front passenger door. My grin is instant, unstoppable, and I duck into the driver’s seat like it’s all perfectly casual.

Liam ends up wedged in the middle, knees bumped up awkwardly as Zayn and Niall claim the windows like smug cats. He leans forward, elbows balanced on his knees, his voice carrying easily through the low hum of the engine.

“So, Harry—what do you do?”

From the corner of my eye, I see Harry’s shoulders twitch, that tiny pause before he answers like he’s weighing his words for traps. He turns in his seat just enough to face Liam, the movement hesitant but polite.

“Oh, um… I’m not working at the moment. Chris says I need to focus on school.”

Something sour curls in my gut, but I keep my eyes on the road, my grip tightening on the wheel. The way he says it—like it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for someone else to dictate what he’s allowed to do with his own time—makes me want to put my fist through the dashboard.

I huff a small laugh, the sound soft but sharp enough to make him glance at me. “No, love,” I say, catching his gaze for just a second before flicking back to the headlights stretching out ahead. “He’s asking what you like to do. You know, for you. When you’ve actually got a bit of free time.” My tone warms at the end, coaxing, like I’m trying to tug the answer out of him without spooking him.

His lips part, and I see it—the quick flash of surprise that someone cares about that answer, not the one that’s safe, not the one Chris would approve of.
“Like reading,” I add gently, “yeah?”

It’s a question, but it’s also an offering—a reminder that he’s allowed to have his own answers, his own wants, his own quiet little joys.

And it works. Harry’s a little startled, a little flustered, but he seems to find something to cling to in my words. His eyes drift from me to the passenger window, and he twists his hands together in his lap, a familiar nervous habit.

“Yeah,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear it. “I like to read. And writing. And… gardening.” He says the last word like he’s confessing to something scandalous, a quick little burst of honesty before he can talk himself out of it.

I can feel the warmth of his words, a small flicker of a candle in a dark room. It’s so much more than what he’d offered before, and I can feel the corner of my mouth turn up in a genuine, happy smile.

“Gardening? Like, flowers and stuff?” Niall asks from the back, his voice full of an easy curiosity that doesn’t feel like a threat.

Harry nods, and a little more confidence seeps into his voice. “Yeah. I have a bunch of different herbs in pots on the windowsill. And… I just started growing some lavender.”

“That’s so cool,” Zayn says, and I can hear the sincerity in his voice, too. “My mum tried to grow a tomato plant once, and it just… died. Like, overnight. It was weird, man.”

The tension in the car eases another notch, and I feel a small wave of relief wash over me. The conversation has moved away from Chris and his control, and now it’s just us, talking about herbs and flowers and dead tomato plants.

“My mom’s a big gardener,” I add, looking at Harry as I pull up to a red light. “She’s got this massive garden in the back, and she’s always out there, digging in the dirt. I think it’s her happy place.”

Harry smiles at that, a small, genuine curve of his lips that reaches his eyes. “I think it’s my happy place, too.”

My heart does another strange little flutter. His happy place. Away from Chris. Away from the quiet insults and the possessive touches. I want to build a whole new world for him, full of dirt and flowers and quiet, happy spaces.

“So, when is pizza?” Niall asks, breaking the moment.

“How are you hungry when you ate concession nachos twenty minutes ago?” Zayn asks but it’s knowing to all of us, except Harry, that Niall’s belly is never full.

“Hey!” Niall protests, but he’s grinning. “I’m a growing boy!”

I snort, shaking my head as the light turns green and I ease us forward. “You’re not growing anymore, Niall. You’ve just hit the ‘permanent snack monster’ stage of life.”

Zayn chuckles, leaning his head back against the window. “What stage is that on the evolutionary chart? Right after Homo sapiens and right before extinction?”

“I’ll have you know,” Niall says, reaching forward to poke me in the shoulder, “that my eating habits are a finely tuned machine. A life style, even.”

Harry laughs again—quiet, almost shy—but it’s there. I glance sideways at him, and for a second, I catch it: the way his eyes crinkle, the curve of his mouth. It’s not the brittle mask of someone getting through the night. It’s real.

The road hums beneath us, streetlights flicking past like slow blinks. The conversation bounces easily from food to Zayn’s disastrous attempt at baking cookies last week, to Liam insisting it wasn’t that bad even though we all know it tasted like burnt drywall.

Harry doesn’t say much, but every so often, he leans just a little closer to the sound of it, like warmth radiates from the words themselves. And I can feel it—his edges softening, the heavy guard he carries loosening, even if just for this drive.

At one point, Niall starts rambling about how pineapple on pizza is the culinary hill he’s prepared to die on, and Harry, of all people, murmurs, “I like it, too.”

The car erupts. Niall lets out a triumphant yell, Zayn groans like he’s been personally betrayed, Liam’s trying to mediate like this is an actual United Nations summit.

I don’t join the chaos right away. I just glance at Harry again. He’s smiling—really smiling—and there’s this faint flush in his cheeks, like maybe the noise doesn’t scare him right now. Like maybe, for a little while, he’s allowed to take up space in the sound of our laughter.

The rest of the drive passes in a comfortable blur. We pull up to my house, the familiar sight of the porch light a welcoming beacon in the dark. Liam and Zayn are the first ones out, their banter about pizza carrying them straight to the front door. Niall, of course, was already halfway out of his seat before the car is fully parked.

I laugh, shaking my head as I turn off the engine. The sudden silence is a little jarring after the noise, but it’s not an empty one. Harry is still beside me, his breathing a soft, steady rhythm in the dark.
I turn to him, my hand resting on the gear shift. “You okay?” I ask, my voice low. It’s a stupid question, really. He’s here, he’s laughing, he’s safe. But I need to hear the answer anyway.

He looks at me, and I can see the outline of his face in the faint glow of the streetlights outside. His eyes are wide, a little shy, but not afraid. He nods slowly.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m okay.”

The words feel like a small gift, something fragile and precious that he’s entrusted to me. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to be, not with us. That he can be whatever he needs to be. But the words don’t come. Instead, I just offer him a small smile.

“Good.” I grab my keys, the metal cold against my palm. “Come on,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt. “Let’s get you some pizza.”

We walk up the driveway together, the space between us a little smaller than it was before. As we reach the front door, Liam’s already trying to pick the lock with a credit card, while Zayn and Niall are giving him “helpful” advice.

“Lou, tell him that’s not how it works,” Zayn says, gesturing at Liam’s failed attempts.

“Yeah, I know how it works,” Liam protests, fumbling with the plastic. “I saw it in a movie once.”
I just laugh, fishing my own keys out of my pocket. “The movie was probably called ‘How to Lose Your Credit Card While Committing a Felony,’ mate.”

I unlock the door and push it open, a wave of warmth and the faint smell of my the laundry detergent washing over us. We all pile in, kicking off our shoes and tossing our jackets on the couch.

“Pizza’s on me, boys,” I announce, grabbing my phone off the kitchen counter. “What are we thinking? The usual order? Or do we want to get creative?”

“Creative!” Niall shouts, already plunking himself down on the floor in front of the TV. “Let’s get a few different ones. Pineapple on one, obviously.”

Zayn groans. “You can’t be serious.”

As they launch into their usual debate, I glance over at Harry. He’s standing by the front door, a small, unsure smile on his face. He’s still got his shoes on, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to stay.

I walk over to him, leaning against the wall beside him. “Take your shoes off,” I say softly. “You’re in my house now. You’re good.”

He looks down at his feet, then back up at me. There’s a question in his eyes, a flicker of that old caution.

“Really?” he whispers.

“Really,” I confirm, my voice gentle. “Unless you’ve got a better offer. Are you gonna let them have a pizza war without you?”

He smiles, a real, genuine, full-of-light smile that makes my chest ache with something warm and good. He bends down, untying his laces, and I can feel the tension in the room ease even more.

“Fine,” he says, as he finally kicks off his shoes and pads over to the living room, leaving them by the door, a silent testament to his decision to stay. “But I’m on Niall’s side.”

A victorious whoop from Niall, a groan from Zayn, and Liam sighing about the state of the world. I watch Harry as he settles onto the floor, a little bit away from everyone but close enough to be a part of it. He’s watching them, a small, amused smile on his face. The rigid shoulders I’d seen earlier are gone, replaced by a soft, relaxed curve.

He turns and catches me looking. Our eyes meet, and for a moment, the world outside this room disappears. He gives me a small, shy shrug, and I feel a little bit of my own world tilt on its axis. My own happy place, it seems, has just expanded.

I slip down beside him on the carpet, ignoring the couch entirely. The boys are still arguing—now Zayn’s threatening to order an anchovy pizza just to spite Niall, and Liam is trying to broker peace like he’s the UN.

Harry glances at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Is it always like this?” he asks under his breath, his voice almost lost beneath the chaos.

I lean closer so he can hear me, my shoulder brushing his. “Always. They’ve never agreed on toppings in their lives, but somehow, the pizza still tastes good.”

He huffs out a laugh, soft but real, and it makes me want to keep talking just to hear it again. But instead I just sit with him, letting the warmth from the room soak into us both.

When the order is finally placed, we end up with two pizzas: a classic pepperoni for Liam and Zayn, and a bizarre but strangely perfect half-pineapple, half-just-cheese for Niall and Harry. I don’t even bother trying to slip in a barbecue chicken for myself—that’s a battle I’ve lost enough times to know better.

While we wait, Niall suggests turning the living room into a fortress of blankets and pillows for the movie. We still haven’t decided on which film—that argument will come later, loud and full of absurd logic, the kind only friends can get away with.

“How do I help?” Harry whispers, close enough that his breath brushes the side of my neck. His voice is so soft, it feels like it doesn’t want to compete with the others. I lead the way to the small cupboard at the end of the hall, the one that smells faintly of cedar and laundry powder. Behind us, Liam and Zayn are stripping my bed of its covers, laughing about something I can’t quite catch, while Niall’s already raiding my pantry like the popcorn and pizza won’t be enough.

I smile, not just at the domestic chaos around us, but at the fact that Harry is here with me. He could’ve joined Liam and Zayn in their noisy bed-sheet theft or followed Niall into snack territory, but he didn’t. He stayed. I let myself be selfish about that.

I pull out a blue blanket, the soft, worn kind that isn’t big enough to cover more than my legs but still feels like safety. “Here,” I say, brushing my fingers deliberately against his as I hand it over, “take this back to the couch before Niall spreads himself out like he owns the place.”

He nods, but doesn’t move. Instead, he lingers, watching me from under the sweep of his lashes as I turn back into the cupboard and pull out a matching pink one. There’s a pause—a breath that feels heavier than it should—before I glance over my shoulder. His gaze flickers from the blue blanket in his hands to the pink one in mine.

“Can I have that one?” he asks, voice quiet but certain.

I blink at him, the request catching somewhere deep in my chest. “Yeah,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I meant it to. “Yeah, you can.”

When I hand it over, he doesn’t just take it. His fingers curl around the edge, slow, like he’s aware of the trade—like he knows he’s holding something that’s lived on my skin. His gaze dips for a moment, unreadable, before he hugs it to his chest and finally heads for the couch.

And that's how we end up. Me with the small, faded blue blanket I've had since I was a kid, Harry with my soft pink one, and Niall and the boys wrapped up in my duvet, arguing about which horror movie to watch. I'm on the floor, propped up against the couch, and Harry is a few feet away, curled into a comfortable ball, his knees tucked to his chest.

“No, no, no,” Zayn says, waving his hands in a frantic ‘no.’ “We are not watching Annabelle again. That doll is terrifying.”

“That’s the point, mate!” Liam argues. “It’s a horror movie!”

“But it’s a doll, Liam,” Zayn groans. “A doll. I have to sleep with the light on for a week every time we watch that.”

“Fine,” Liam says, sighing dramatically. “How about The Conjuring? It’s not about a doll.”

Zayn nods in agreement, but Niall is still holding out. “I still don’t want to be scared!”

“It’s not that bad, Niall,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “It’s more spooky than scary.”

Niall’s eyes flick from me to Harry, as if he’s looking for an ally. “What do you think, Harry?”

Harry shrugs, a small, tentative movement. “I don’t mind. I’ve seen it before.”

Niall’s face falls. “You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, his voice so quiet I can barely hear it. “Chris likes horror movies.”

The air in the room stills. The lively chaos of the argument fades into a heavy, uncomfortable silence. The name, dropped so casually, lands with the weight of a stone. I feel my stomach tighten, my muscles tense.

“Right,” Liam says, his voice low and a little hard. “Well, you’ve seen it, so it’s not scary for you. We can watch something else.”

“No,” Harry says, so softly that everyone turns to him. “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind. We can watch it.”

There’s a small, sad plea in his voice that makes my chest hurt. He’s seen it before, so it’s not scary. But the way he said it, the way his shoulders are starting to hunch again, tells me that it’s not that he’s not scared, it’s that he’s learned to deal with it.

I feel a fire light in my belly. The boys are quiet, respectful of Harry’s choice, but I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the way he’s shrinking in on himself. I can’t stand the thought of him enduring something just to be agreeable. Not here. Not in my house.

I get up, grabbing the remote and walking over to the TV. I find the movie, and then, before the boys can say anything, I quickly scroll to another one.

“What are you doing, Lou?” Liam asks, confused.

“We’re not watching The Conjuring,” I say, my voice firm. “We’re watching How to Train Your Dragon.”

A beat of silence. Then, Niall lets out a whoop of pure joy. Zayn’s mouth hangs open in surprise, but then a slow grin spreads across his face.

“Seriously?” Liam asks, but he’s already smiling.

“Seriously,” I confirm, glancing back at Harry. He’s looking at me, his eyes wide, a question in them that I hope my own can answer.

I find a spot on the floor again, this time right next to him. I throw my blanket over both of us, and Harry stiffens for a second before relaxing into the warmth.

“It’s a great movie,” I whisper to him. “Trust me.”
He nods, and I see a flicker of a smile on his face, one that’s not for anyone else in the room. Just for me.

As the movie starts, the familiar music filling the room, I can feel Harry’s tension slowly melt away. He’s not flinching anymore. He’s laughing at the jokes, his quiet giggles a balm to my soul.

We don’t even make it through the first sweep of the opening credits when the doorbell rings. The sound slices through the warmth of the room, the laughter, the popcorn-salted air.

Niall is up before anyone else moves, springing to his feet like a man with a sacred mission. He’s halfway to the door by the time the rest of us register what’s happening, snatching the folded bills I’d left on the table without even asking.

“Delivery hero reporting for duty,” he announces, voice booming with a pride usually reserved for sports victories and all-you-can-eat buffets.

From my spot on the floor, I watch him swing the door open, the night air slipping in like a cool hand against the heat of the room. The delivery guy—tall, bored, wearing a jacket that’s seen better days—hands over the stacked cardboard boxes. The smell hits immediately: melted cheese, sweet pineapple, that faint smoky tang of pepperoni.

“Cheers, mate,” Niall says, pressing the cash into the guy’s hand with a grin so wide it borders on indecent.

Harry’s eyes lift from the blanket in his lap, drawn by the scent and the sound. His gaze catches on the doorway, on the steam curling from the top box, and there’s this flicker in his expression—soft, almost shy—like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to feel excited about something so simple.

I notice it. God, I notice it.

And it makes me want to put the pizza in his lap and tell him he can eat the whole thing if he wants. That in this house, there are no rationed slices, no quiet reprimands about “too much” or “not now.”

Niall kicks the door shut behind him, triumphant, the boxes balanced in his arms like holy relics. “Dinner is served!” he crows, already heading toward the coffee table.

The room shifts with a kind of unspoken anticipation. The movie can wait. The dragons will keep. Right now, there’s food, there’s warmth, and there’s this easy, domestic chaos wrapping all of us in the same bright thread.

Harry’s fingers tighten in the blanket just once, and then he looks at me. I give him the smallest nod—permission, if he needs it, though he never should.
His mouth tilts, just barely, into something that feels like the beginning of a smile.

As we open the boxes, the promised pizza smell fills the room, and I watch Harry's eyes light up. We pass slices around, the quiet conversation starting up again, this time with the added sounds of chewing and contented sighs.

Niall, of course, is the first to finish his, and then he's eyeing the other boxes with a predatory glint in his eye.

“Don’t even think about it, Horan,” Zayn says, swatting his hand away from the pepperoni box.

“What? I’m just looking!” Niall protests, but he’s already reaching for another slice.

I just shake my head, a small smile on my face as I watch them. Harry is still on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, carefully eating his slice of pineapple pizza. He takes small, slow bites, like he’s savoring every taste, and I can't help but feel a pang of something tender in my chest. He looks so...peaceful.

When he’s finally done, he wipes his hands on a napkin and glances at me.

“It was good,” he says, his voice still soft, but with a new confidence I haven’t heard before.

“I told you pineapple on pizza is the best,” Niall says, from his spot on the couch, already reaching for the remote.

Harry just laughs, a quiet, bell-like sound that makes everyone in the room smile. It’s a sound that seems to fill the space, pushing back the lingering shadows of Chris and his control.

The movie starts again, and we settle back into our comfortable positions. This time, I move a little closer to Harry, our shoulders and knees touching. He doesn’t flinch. He just leans into me, a small, subtle movement that feels like a silent thank you.

I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I just watch the movie, the warmth of Harry’s body next to mine a comfort I didn’t know I needed. The dragons fly across the screen, the music swells, and I feel a sense of overwhelming peace.

I knew I loved Harry—but loving him here, in my own space, wrapped in the walls I’d built and the air that smelled like my laundry detergent, felt different. Easier, somehow. Like the love didn’t have to dodge shadows or keep its voice down.

Chapter Text

When the sun gave way to stars, the night stretched itself wide and velvet-black through my windows, freckled with the soft glow of streetlamps. At some point—earlier than midnight, later than nine—I stirred from a hazy half-sleep.

The room was steeped in quiet. The lads were sprawled in varying stages of unconsciousness, the TV frozen on the movie’s end credits like it, too, had fallen asleep. The lights were dim, not off, casting everything in a muted gold.

And Harry was still beside me.

His warmth pressed into my side in a way that felt both grounding and intoxicating. I wanted to turn, to take in the full sight of him, but I didn’t dare twist too far and risk breaking the moment. The quiet between us wasn’t just silence—it was fragile glass, and my smallest movement could shatter it.

I should have woken him. God, I should have. I knew the time Chris expected him home. I knew the fallout that might come if he didn’t walk through that door when he was meant to. But there was this war in me—his safety without me, or his warmth against me—and in that moment, I was selfish enough to choose the latter.

Because how do you wake someone when their head is resting on your shoulder like it’s the one place in the world that doesn’t ask for anything? When the weight of it feels less like comfort and more like trust—rare, hard-earned, precious?

It was Harry letting me in, not cautiously, not in pieces, but all at once. His lashes brushed against his cheeks, his breath a slow, steady tide, his lips parted the smallest fraction as if mid-dream. There was no armor here. No practiced smile. Just the boy I’d been aching to know, peaceful in a way I didn’t think he even knew how to be.

And I—fool that I am—wanted this every time I woke up. The quiet proof of him, the way my shoulder fit beneath his head, the fragile miracle of being trusted enough to hold him in the soft hours.

He shifted once in his sleep, just enough for the tip of his nose to brush my collarbone. It wasn’t intentional—just the unconscious nudge of someone finding the warmest place in the bed—but it nearly undid me. My breath caught, and I had to force myself to exhale slowly, like any sudden movement might startle him back into the guarded version of himself he wore like a second skin.

I fell back asleep that night with a smile tugging at my lips, my head tipped just enough to rest against Harry’s. The contact was feather-light, but it felt like leaning into a sunrise—quiet, unhurried, impossibly warm.

I wanted more. God, I wanted more. I wanted to gather him into my arms, to pull him onto my lap and keep him pressed against my chest until the rest of the world gave up trying to reach him. I wanted his legs hooked around me, our shapes fitting together like they’d been carved from the same thought.

But I didn’t have that yet. Maybe I never would.
So I let the wanting settle in my chest like an ache I didn’t mind carrying. I let the nearness we did have root itself deep, telling myself that this—his weight against my shoulder, the soft brush of his hair against my jaw, the faint sound of his breathing—was enough.

And maybe it was.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a clock was still ticking. I knew Chris’s anger wasn’t the kind you could reason with. I knew every minute Harry stayed here was a thread being pulled from the fabric of his safety. But in the softer, selfish part of me, that clock didn’t matter. The world outside these four walls could burn for all I cared—right now, Harry was mine to keep still.

I woke again, pulled from the soft edge of sleep by a shift—subtle but unmistakable. This time, I knew I wouldn’t drift back into that quiet dreamscape. It was still night, deep and close to midnight, the kind of darkness that presses in like it knows your secrets.

Harry’s body was what stirred me—his warmth, once tethered to mine like a lifeline, slipping away like a whisper. My head moved with the rhythm of his shift, an instinct I barely caught before his heat vanished altogether.

I kept my eyes closed, willing the moment to be nothing more than a settling—him finding a cozier spot, maybe, or settling deeper into sleep. But the sudden absence left a hollow chill.

And then I heard it—the frantic shuffle, a hurried, uneven stumble that tore through the silence like a small, scared animal caught in a trap.

Eyes still shut, I felt the weight of the night press heavier, a cold knot tightening in my gut. The room felt suddenly larger, emptier, as if all the warmth and quiet had been sucked out with Harry’s retreat.

I opened my eyes slowly, the darkness framing the edges of the room like a silent witness. The shape of him, barely there now, made my heart twist in ways I wasn’t ready to name.

Harry was on his feet, stumbling toward the doorway. His movements were jerky, uncoordinated, a frantic dance of someone trying to escape without a fight.

“Harry?” I whispered, my voice rough with sleep and a sudden, sharp fear.

He froze. His back was to me, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. The sound of my voice seemed to splinter the fragile spell he was under, and I watched as his body stiffened, every muscle tensing.

“I have to go,” he said, his voice small and tight, like he was trying to swallow the words.

“It’s the middle of the night, mate,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, to not spook him more than he already was. “You can’t just leave.”

“I have to,” he insisted, his voice rising a little. “He’ll be mad. He’ll… he’ll be waiting.”

The words were a punch to the gut. He’ll be waiting. The simple phrase held a universe of unspoken threats, of cold silences and sharp words and a fear so deep it felt like it had taken root in his bones.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of panic and rage. I wanted to tell him that no one was waiting for him, that he was safe, that he could stay. But the look on his face—the raw, naked terror in his eyes when he finally turned to face me—told me that my words wouldn’t be enough. He was already gone, lost in a world where Chris was the only thing that mattered.

He started to walk toward the front door, his feet bare on the cold floor. I wanted to jump up, to grab him, to pull him back to the warmth and safety of the living room. But a part of me, a small, terrified part, knew that if I did, I would only be making things worse.

“Harry,” I said again, my voice barely a whisper.
He didn’t stop. He just kept walking, a ghost in my own house, a phantom of the boy who had laughed at Niall’s jokes and told me about his lavender plant. The door clicked open, and the cold night air rushed in, a sharp contrast to the warmth we had shared just moments before.

He was gone.

I was alone, sprawled on the floor with my old blue blanket, the ghost of his warmth still on my shoulder, the faint scent of his hair still in the air. The silence of the room was no longer peaceful. It was a gaping wound, a void where a boy with a quiet laugh and a nervous habit of twisting his hands used to be.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second a hammer blow against my heart. I knew what I had to do. I had to go after him. I had to bring him back.

But as I stumbled to my feet, my legs still heavy with sleep, I knew he was gone. Walking down a street with nothing but a fear of where he’s going. I hated that I let him go, but I also hated that I didn’t let him go sooner.

The weekend unfolded like a slow burn—two days where Niall was back, filling the space between us with his usual chatter, loud and untamed, and Liam tried, as he always did, to be the uneasy mediator—half grown-up, half still a teenager juggling his own awkwardness. Zayn drifted through the conversations like a shadow with sharp edges, joining the talks he liked and cutting away the rest with a practiced ease that kept everyone guessing.

They didn’t ask where Harry was on Saturday morning. They didn’t have to. The silence spoke volumes, louder than any words could. Chris’s grip wasn’t subtle—it was a cage, visible to all of us who watched Harry shrink behind it. The way Chris had made it clear, not just to Harry but to us, that Harry would obey, was a kind of cruel warning, a cold declaration of ownership.

And even though my blood boiled with every thought of it, even though every part of me screamed to tear that spell apart right then and there, I knew the truth. Healing wouldn’t come overnight. It would take time. Patience. A thousand quiet moments that could chip away at the darkness Chris had cast.

But I believed.

Because Harry had given me something precious—a thread of trust, fragile but real, spun from just one week of connection. And that thread was enough to hold onto, enough to believe that I could help him find his way back, that maybe, with time, I could watch the pieces grow whole again.

While the boys did what they did best—laughing, bickering, filling the room with their noise—I sat back, phone screen turned away so no one caught the flicker of worry in my eyes. It felt ridiculous, like a small, helpless thing to do, but it was the only thing I could think of. The only place to start.

So I dove into the endless sea of information, searching for answers in words that felt too heavy for a Saturday afternoon. I read about abusive relationships—the kinds I hadn’t known existed until they were spelled out in sharp, clear lines. Emotional abuse, control, manipulation, isolation—each one a shard of the darkness Harry had been dragged through.

I swiped through stories that broke my heart, stories that whispered truths I hadn’t wanted to face but couldn’t turn away from. I watched TED Talks where voices I didn’t know explained what love wasn’t—the warning signs, the subtle chains.

It was overwhelming.

But necessary.

Because if I was going to fight for Harry, if I was going to be the person he needed me to be, I had to understand. Every twisted corner, every hidden pain, every quiet cry that didn’t reach his lips.

And even in that sea of knowledge, the truth that pulsed strongest was this: he was not alone anymore.

And even with my best intentions to keep everything tucked away—hidden behind careful glances and half-hearted smiles—Liam saw through the cracks of my plan like a hawk spotting a mouse.

He didn’t say anything at first, just peeled himself away from the noise of the room, drifting over with that quiet, steady presence that always caught me off guard. His eyes weren’t accusing or prying—they were just… there, gentle but insistent, like he knew there was something tangled inside me waiting to unravel.

“You thinking about the game?” he asked, voice casual but laced with something softer, a thread of concern I wasn’t ready to untangle.

I startled, the phone slipping from my fingers and landing with a muted thump against my chest, breaking the fragile bubble I’d wrapped around myself. For a heartbeat, I felt exposed—like I’d been caught not just in the act of distraction, but in the middle of a secret I wasn’t ready to share.

“Oh, eh. No.” The words stumbled out, uneven and hollow, as if by saying them aloud I could shove the worries back into their dark corner.

But Liam didn’t push. He just nodded, like he’d folded my silence into something safe and unshakable. For a moment, that quiet understanding between us felt heavier than any words I could have scraped together—a steady anchor in the chaos swirling inside me.

Then, softer, almost careful, he asked, “Harry then?”
I flinch, the name sharp and raw in the air between us.

“Liam…” I start, voice low and worn. I didn’t need this right now. Not the gentle scolding wrapped in concern. Not the reminder that I’m stepping into a fight I don’t always know how to win. I don’t need Liam telling me I’ll get hurt when it’s Harry’s bruises that already haunt the hallways of our school.

But Liam just shakes his head, slow and steady, like he’s carrying a weight of his own. “I’m not going to get mad at you for trying to help him, Lou.” His eyes catch mine, holding Harry’s name with a tenderness that catches me off guard, but then they slide away, maybe because even the strongest have moments they don’t want to face.

“But you know,” he says, voice quieter now, “you can’t help him if he doesn’t think he needs it.”

The words settle between us, heavy as rain on a tin roof—truth wrapped in heartbreak.

It stings. But I swallow the ache, the desperate urgency curling tight in my chest, and nod.

When Monday stretched its pale fingers over the horizon, it carried more than just morning light—it marked the third Monday I’d known Harry. Three weeks. It didn’t sound like much in the grand scale of things, but to me, it felt like a quiet victory.

That morning, I got to class first, nerves humming low in my chest, not knowing what to expect when Harry finally slipped in a few minutes later.

I caught my breath when he walked in—there was something different this time, something I couldn’t quite place until he settled into the seat beside me.

“Morning, sunshine,” I said, offering the smile I’d been saving, the one that tried to hold all the hope and warmth I was too scared to speak aloud.

He flinched. Just a tiny, involuntary twitch of his shoulders, a ghost of the guarded boy I’d met three weeks ago. But he settled into the seat beside me with a quiet, deliberate ease.

"Morning," he murmured back, his voice a little raspy, like he hadn't used it much over the weekend. He didn't meet my eyes, instead focusing on the notebook he was pulling out of his bag.

I wanted to ask him a million things—every question clawing at the edges of my mind, desperate to break free—but I held them back, swallowed the urge whole. Instead, I watched him.

There was something safer about the silence between us, quieter than words, more honest than anything he might say.

His jumper sleeve hung loose, pulled low over his hand like a shield, but it didn’t quite stretch far enough to hide the raw red line along the side of his hand—a fierce, angry streak that looked like a burn. Carpet burn.

My throat tightened, a knot of helplessness squeezing tight around my ribs. How many nights had he been desperate enough to scrape himself raw against cold, unforgiving floors? How deep did the hurt go, hidden beneath the fabric and the guarded looks?

I knew I wanted Chris dead—an instinct so raw and fierce it snarled in the back of my mind before I’d even met the man. It was a fire that burned quietly beneath everything, a dark shadow that clung to both Harry and me, refusing to be ignored.

But hatred, I realized, was a poison with no antidote. It wouldn’t fix the fractures in Harry’s silent suffering. It wouldn’t undo the nights soaked in quiet pain, the bruises no one else saw, the weight of loneliness he carried all alone.

So I stayed silent.

I didn’t speak the words that threatened to tear the room apart. Instead, I moved—small, deliberate gestures that said what I couldn’t.

My fingers brushed lightly over the top of Harry’s hand, careful not to touch the red, angry burn itself but resting on the skin just beyond it, where the pain was beginning to soften, fading into a tender pink.

His breath hitched—a sharp, quiet sound that no one else in the room could have heard. His entire body stiffened for a second, and I braced for him to pull away, to yank his hand from beneath mine and hide it away again. But he didn’t.

Instead, slowly, almost as if it was a conversation all its own, he turned his hand over. His palm faced up, the angry red line now fully exposed, a testament to a night I hadn’t been there for. My thumb traced a slow, feather-light circle on the back of his knuckles, a deliberate pressure.

His eyes, when they finally lifted from his hand, were raw and clouded with a weary sadness that made my heart clench. “He wasn’t always like this.”
His words fell into the quiet space between us like stones, heavy and certain. My thumb paused its circles on his knuckles, the contact now a solid, anchoring presence.

"He was... different. At first," Harry continues, his voice barely a whisper, a thread of memory pulled taut and trembling. His gaze was distant, looking past me and out the window, a world away.

I didn't press. I didn't need to. The simple admission felt like the most honest thing he'd ever said to me. It was a key to a door I hadn't known how to open, a crucial piece of the puzzle I was trying so desperately to solve. It wasn't just a burn on his hand; it was a mark left by a ghost of the past, the ghost of a person Chris once pretended to be.

"He used to laugh a lot," Harry says, his voice so soft it was almost lost to the shuffling of papers around us. "And he'd bring me flowers. He said they reminded him of me." A small, bitter smile touched his lips, a flash of something so fragile it broke my heart to see. "Now he just says I'm a mess."

My jaw tightened, a hard knot of silent fury forming in my gut. I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, that he was more than a mess, that he deserved every flower in the world. But I knew that wasn't what he needed. Not right now. He needed to be heard.

So I squeezed his hand, the message clear and wordless.

Harry’s eyes finally found mine, and I saw the raw emotion he'd been holding back all weekend. A silent plea, a shared understanding. The weight of his words settled between us, a new and permanent foundation to the quiet trust we were building.

“I think he wanted us to move here because I would be away from my family.” Harry’s words, a quiet confession of isolation, hit me with a cold, hard clarity. My gut twisted, a knot of pure, unadulterated fury hardening into a solid, cold certainty. The anger I’d felt before was a roaring flame; this was a chilling, quiet resolve. This wasn't just a partner who'd changed—this was a predator.

The bell for class had just finished ringing, its echo still humming in the air, but I didn't care. I didn't let go of his hand. My thumb moved to the palm of his hand now, pressing a little deeper, a silent promise to make up for all the distance Chris had put between him and his family.

“I think you’re right,” I said, my voice low and steady, not leaving any room for doubt.

Harry's shoulders relaxed a fraction, the tension bleeding out of him with a soft exhale. He finally turned his head to look at me, his eyes wide and vulnerable.

“My sister, Gemma,” he murmured, the name sounding like a balm on his lips. “She always knew something was off. She told me to be careful, even before we moved here.” He looked down at our hands, his fingers lightly gripping mine. “He hated that. Hated her calling and checking in on me.”

I didn’t know what to say—what words could possibly stitch together the tangled mess of fear and hope knotted inside me?

If I told him to leave, to run back to the safety of family waiting somewhere far away, to escape the shadows that hunted him here… maybe that would save him. Maybe that would pull him from the storm and set him free.

But it would also mean him leaving me behind—leaving us behind.

And the thought of that was a hollow ache gnawing at my ribs, a cruel twist of fate that made safety feel like a bitter trade-off.

Because yes, Harry would be safe without me. But I wouldn’t be safe without him.

Not really.

And so the silence stretched, heavy and impossible, between the desperate wish to protect him and the selfish need to keep him close.

The classroom around us hummed with the clatter of chairs and murmurs of half-remembered lessons, but all I could hear was the steady rhythm of my own heartbeat, pounding like a drum in the quiet between us.

I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the choice pressing down—a crossroad where every path felt tangled with pain.

“Harry,” I breathed, voice raw with a mixture of fear and something fiercely protective, “I don’t want to lose you. Not to him. Not to anything.”

His gaze flickered to mine, uncertain but searching for something—hope, maybe, or just the truth in my words.

“I’m not saying you have to fix it alone,” I added, fingers tightening around his, “but I’m here. I want to be. If you want me.”

His breath caught, fragile like a candle’s flame trembling in the dark, and for a moment, the whole world seemed to hold its breath with us.

Then, slowly, he nodded—small, almost imperceptible—but enough to set something inside me aflame.

And on that third Monday, beneath the buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant murmur of a life waiting outside, I decided I would fight. For him.
No matter how long it took.

Chapter Text

September bled quietly into October, the days slipping past like water through my fingers. The air had turned sharper, colder, biting at the tips of my ears and fingers, and winter was no longer a distant idea—it was a presence, a shadow you could feel pressing against your spine. Trees that once only hinted at dying now stood stripped and skeletal, their leaves scattered like old confessions on the pavement.

Somewhere in that quiet crossing of months, Harry and I had drawn closer. I could call him a mate now—a proper one—and mean it. He spoke to me more freely, the steel wall he always carried softening at the edges. Sometimes, he would even talk about the things he endured, his voice low and steady, whenever a new bruise or mark bloomed across his skin like a dark flower. He never said the words I knew were there, but he didn’t have to. I heard them anyway.

He came over more often, though never alone. One of the lads was always orbiting nearby, like a guard dog, and it didn’t take a genius to know why. Chris. He couldn’t risk Harry being alone with me, couldn’t risk giving him even a whisper of freedom. If Harry ever slipped from his grip, if he ran toward someone else’s arms, Chris’s whole rotten world might crumble into prison bars.

But I didn’t let that stop me. Chris might pretend to own Harry, but Harry was still his own person. He had wants, needs, dreams—and I saw them even if Chris didn’t. I invited him to everything I could: my matches, our tiny movie nights, even once to the park to kick a ball around like we were kids. Each time, Harry lit up from the inside out. It wasn’t just that he wanted to come; he needed to. Every laugh, every moment he leaned back into the light, felt like giving him a piece of the world he’d forgotten he deserved.

Teaching him to drive was my favorite secret rebellion. Niall rode in the back, naturally, because Harry wasn’t allowed to be alone with me. We drove to an abandoned church parking lot—the same one where my mum had once taught me to drive—and I didn’t tell Harry our plan. All I said was that Niall and I were going out and asked if he wanted to join. He said he had to check first, but his smile gave him away. He’d always watched me behind the wheel with that quiet fascination, eyes tracking the mirrors, the turn of the wheel, the rhythm of my foot on the pedals. He’d ask about road signs sometimes, pretending it was nothing. I knew he wanted this.

When I pulled into the empty lot and parked, I didn’t explain. Harry just sat there, watching the grey sky through the windshield, some soft song from his CD choice curling out of the speakers. He turned to me, frowning slightly, curls bouncing with the movement.

“Why’d we stop?” His green eyes scanned the cracked asphalt, the old church with its broken bell tower, before settling on me.

I only smiled and popped my door open. I could feel his gaze following me as I circled the car, the wind tugging at my jacket. When I opened his door, he gave a small, confused laugh that wrapped itself around my ribs.

“Get out,” I grinned, leaning on the frame.
He blinked. “What?”

“You’re driving.”

For a second, he just stared, like the words were too good to be real. Then his eyes lit up, green and gold and alive, and I thought—not for the first time—that I’d do anything to keep putting that light in him.

Harry hesitated, his hand hovering over the seatbelt latch like if he moved too fast, the moment would vanish. Niall was grinning like an idiot in the back, already leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Go on,” I nudged, voice soft but teasing. “You’ve been watching me for weeks. Time to put those big green eyes to use.”

He rolled them, but his cheeks flushed pink as he unbuckled and slid out of the passenger seat. The autumn wind nipped at us, carrying the faint smell of wet leaves and chimney smoke from somewhere far off. I could see him take it in, that breath of open space, like he was tasting freedom and asphalt all at once.

When he finally slipped behind the wheel, he ran his hand over it slowly, reverently, as if the car was some rare animal he was trying not to spook. His foot hovered above the pedal, unsure.

“Okay,” I said, climbing into the passenger seat. “First rule: don’t panic. Second rule: don’t kill us. Third rule: don’t listen to Niall.”

Niall made a dramatic gasp. “Oi! I’m the best instructor here. Passed my test first try.”

“Barely,” I muttered, and Harry’s nervous laugh fluttered into the air like a bird testing its wings.
He placed both hands on the wheel, ten and two, knuckles white. I could feel the nerves radiating off him, the way his chest rose and fell faster than usual. He wanted this so bad, and he was terrified of wanting it.

“Alright,” I murmured, gentler now. “Foot on the brake. Now slide it into drive… nice and slow.”

The car inched forward, and he let out the tiniest, incredulous laugh, like he didn’t believe it was happening. Wind pressed against the windows, a leaf skittered across the cracked lot, and for a heartbeat, the world belonged to Harry. No Chris. No bruises. Just his hands on the wheel and the road stretching out empty and forgiving.

“Good,” I said, my voice low, like I didn’t want to scare the moment off. “That’s it. You’ve got it.”

He drove in awkward, lurching circles, his tongue peeking out in concentration. Every time he managed a smooth turn, he’d glance at me for approval, and every time I gave it. His smile started to grow, blooming like it hadn’t in weeks, and I felt something tighten and loosen in my chest all at once.
It wasn’t just driving. It was proof. Proof he could leave one day. Proof that freedom existed, even if it was just a cracked church parking lot and Niall cheering from the backseat like a lunatic.

Wind whispered through the cracked windows, carrying the sound of Niall’s running commentary and the faint hiss of tires against old asphalt. With every lap, Harry seemed to shed another invisible weight. His shoulders dropped, his laugh came easier.

“Faster,” Niall egged him on. “Let’s see what this baby can do!”

Harry bit his lip, glancing at me for backup. I shrugged. “Little faster. But no donuts. We’re not getting arrested at a church.”

His laugh, when it came, was a pure, unfiltered sound, a breath of fresh air in the enclosed space of the car. He pushed the pedal down just a little more, and the car picked up speed, the wind now a louder rush against the windows. He was doing it. He was driving. The focus on his face was a portrait of concentration, a beautiful, intense study of a boy finding his footing, one small victory at a time.

I watch him, feeling an almost dizzying sense of pride. “Alright, now I’m teaching you how to park.”
Harry flicked a wide-eyed glance at me, like I’d just suggested he land a plane.

“Park?” he repeated, voice pitching high with disbelief. “I just learned to move!”

“Exactly,” I said, grinning. “And now you’ll learn to stop without giving us whiplash. Important life skill.”

Niall cackled from the backseat. “He’s gonna crash straight into the church, I can feel it.”

“Shut up,” Harry muttered, biting his lip as he eased off the gas. His hands tightened on the wheel again, a little tremor running through his fingers. I reached over, just brushing his knuckles, a wordless you’ve got this.

“Okay,” I coached, soft and steady. “Foot on the brake… slow. Turn the wheel toward that line there—good, now straighten out.”

The car wobbled into position, a jerky half-stop that made Niall grunt dramatically, clutching his stomach like he’d been injured.

Harry’s eyes flew to mine, horrified. “Was that—did I—?”

“That,” I said solemnly, “was a disaster.” Then I let the grin break. “But a successful one. We’re alive, the car’s alive, the church is still standing. You win.”

The tension in his shoulders snapped into laughter, loud and bright. He tossed his curls back and let it roll out of him, the kind of laugh that comes from deep in the chest and leaves the air sweeter when it’s gone.

“Again,” he said suddenly, voice full of a determination that surprised even him. “I wanna do it again.”

“Atta boy,” Niall cheered, kicking the back of my seat.

So we did. Lap after lap, start and stop, stumble and recover. The sun sank lower behind the broken bell tower, staining the sky with soft pinks and oranges, and each pass Harry got smoother, braver. By the end, he was parking without my hand hovering over the gear shift, without my heart leaping into my throat.

When I finally said, “Alright, last one,” he pouted like a kid, and I thought I might never get over how beautiful that was—how he could want something for himself, and reach for it, and have it.

I didn’t know how long this small rebellion would last before Chris sniffed it out, before the world pressed its weight back onto Harry’s shoulders. But in that empty church lot, with wind in his curls and joy in his laugh, he was free.

And God help me, I wanted to keep him that way.

Even when Chris forbade Harry from being alone with me—like I was the danger, like I was the one leaving fingerprints shaped like fear—we still found our ways around it.

We became experts in the unspoken loopholes.
Crafted our own little map of maybes. Threaded the needle between what was allowed and what we could get away with.

Nights when I had a football match, Harry would come. Sometimes alone. Slipping in like a shadow through the side gate. No Chris hovering behind him, no hand on his shoulder, no eyes watching his every breath.

And in those hours, in that space, Harry was just mine.

No one else’s.

Just mine.

It was a strange kind of power, that feeling. Sharp and warm and humming under my skin. Not the kind you use to control someone—but the kind you ache to protect with.

Because I could touch him then.

I could hold him.

And the hands that hurt him would never know.
He’d melt into my side during cooldown, lean into the places I offered like gravity owed him something soft for once. His body always felt too light beside mine, like he'd carved himself smaller to fit inside the spaces where no one could reach him.

But I reached him. At least here, at least now.

And when the crowd would finally shuffle out, footsteps echoing down the bleachers and the last boys lingered in the showers, me and Harry would stay. Just the two of us.

Lying flat on our backs in the middle of the pitch, the grass still warm from the storm of feet that had raced over it.

The world would stretch out, open and enormous above us, and for a little while it wouldn’t press down so hard.

“It looks like a squirrel,” Harry whispered once, breath thick with amusement and something softer, something almost like peace. His arm pointed skyward, tracing the thick charcoal smear of clouds that blurred out the stars.

I squinted up into the grey, where the night hung low and heavy. I didn’t see the squirrel. Not really. But I saw the shape of him, grinning faintly in the dark.

“In an upside-down way,” he added, voice quieter now, letting his arm fall back to earth.

His hand landed beside mine.

Not on mine. Not quite.

But close enough.

Close enough that I knew he’d chosen that spot.
I shivered—just a little—watching his fingers twitch and relax, digging into the turf like he needed something to hold onto. Something real. Something that wouldn’t flinch when he reached for it.

I looked back up, let the sky blur in my eyes until the clouds became whatever he needed them to be.
And in the dark, I whispered, “Yeah.”

I said it like I believed in squirrels and upside-down things. I said it like the truth was too big to name but small enough to wrap around our hands.

Then, slow as breath, I let my fingers curl into his.
And he didn’t pull away.
He never pulled away.

Our hands stayed there, hidden in the grass like something holy. Like a secret we built with skin and silence.

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t have to.

I just held his hand and watched the sky, and in that still, wordless moment, I prayed—if I could have nothing else, not a confession or a kiss or a clean way out—I could at least have this.

Just this.

A hand in mine.

And even if I wanted to say something, I didn’t. Not yet. Because if he gave you quiet, it meant he trusted you not to fill it with noise.

So I let the silence live.

Instead, I closed my eyes and let myself feel—the way his pinkie grazed mine, how warm his palm was even in the cool air, the way he always smelled faintly like rain and the inside of a school library.

I wanted to tell him everything.

That I knew.

That I hated the way he flinched at sudden sounds. That I dreamed of folding him into my chest and shielding him from everything.

That I loved him.

God, that I loved him.

But love was a heavy word. Too loud for a moment
as fragile as this.

So instead I whispered, “I think I see it now. The squirrel.”

Harry turned his head just slightly, cheek brushing against the grass. I didn’t look over. I just knew.

“Yeah?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” I said. “Looks like it’s doing taxes.”

That earned me a soft huff. A not-quite-laugh that puffed out against the quiet like a dandelion’s last breath.

“Poor guy,” he said. “Hope he’s got a good accountant.”

I grinned, heart stuttering in my chest like it didn’t quite know how to hold all this softness.

“Do squirrels have jobs?”

“I think they do,” he said seriously. “I think they run a tiny bakery. That’s why they’re always in such a rush. Gotta open early.”

“Oh,” I said, pretending to ponder. “That tracks. They’ve got strong work ethics. Very into acorn-based pastries.”

“Acorn scones,” Harry agreed.

“And espresso shots made out of… mud.”
Another puff of laughter. Softer now. Sleepy.

And then—

He turned his hand, just a bit. Just enough to let his palm press fully into mine. Fingers slotted between mine like they were meant to.

My eyes drifted down—helpless, hungry, reverent. I hadn’t meant to look, hadn’t planned to let myself, but God, how could I not?

He looked… soft.

Too soft for this world, maybe.
Too soft for what waited for him outside these stolen minutes.

His curls spilled out around his head like they were blooming from the grass itself, haloed against the earth like some kind of fallen angel who didn’t yet know he could fly. The shadows moved gently across his face, drawn there by moonlight—pale and stubborn, slipping through the clouds like it was showing up just for him.

And he didn’t even know.

Didn’t see it.

Didn’t feel the way the light kissed his cheekbones, lingered on the slope of his arm, painted his lashes silver when he blinked up at the sky.
And I—God—I wanted to tell him.

Wanted to say look, look at you, look at how you shine.

I wanted to bottle this exact moment, bury it somewhere safe, carry it in my chest forever. He looked like a scene from a film no one had written yet. Like if I blinked too long, he’d fade into celluloid and float away on the breeze.

And in that split-second, in that stupid, impossible heartbeat—

I wished I could give him the moon.

Not the idea of it. Not the tired metaphors or the textbook phases or the awkward poems written in margins. I mean the real moon. The whole thing.

I wanted to fly to every planet, to Saturn’s rings and Neptune’s storms, to scoop up light with my bare hands and carry it back to him. To lay it out at his feet like an offering and say, Here. This is yours. You deserve to see it clearly. You deserve to see how beautiful the world can be when it isn’t hurting you.

Because the moonlight barely reached him here. Too many clouds. Too much distance. Too many things trying to dim him.

And still, still, he glowed.

Still, he looked up at that sky like it might forgive him one day.

Then I looked up, squinted at the clouds, and smiled.

The squirrel was gone.

But the sky? The sky was still ours.

And it wasn’t just me pulling Harry into the light. The lads had taken to him like ducks to a bread crumb trail—gentle at first, curious maybe, but steady. Familiar. Like he belonged before he even realized it himself.

It surprised me how easy it came, especially with Niall.

Harry still felt comfortable with the others, he felt their absence when they weren’t around.

“Liam’s got work,” I’d say, and watch something flicker behind his eyes. Or, “Zayn’s buried in a painting,” and he’d nod, polite and tight-lipped, like he understood—but didn’t like it.

And I realized then, he missed them. All of them. Not just my hand reaching for his, but the whole net we’d made for him.

But Niall?

Niall was just always there. Even when he wasn’t physically around, you knew he would be, eventually. He was loyal in a way that didn’t announce itself—it just was. Like the kettle in my mum’s kitchen. Like laughter on a good day. Like oxygen.

That night, it was just the three of us.

Mum was picking up a shift at the hospital, and the girls were off to a sleepover that involved glitter and high-pitched screams I was deeply thankful to avoid.

The house felt a little too quiet, so I figured—why not fill it with us?

No Liam with his checklist of “sanitary cooking practices,” no Zayn critiquing plating like we were about to be judged on Master chef.
Just me, Harry, and Niall.

And, apparently, onions.

“That’s not how you cut onions, Niall,” Harry groaned, hands on his hips, watching the massacre unfold.

For once, the bruised boy was gone.
This Harry—the one with furrowed brows and dry sarcasm—was alive, lit from the inside, full of opinions about soup.

Niall, eyes already rimmed pink from the assault of raw onion fumes, didn’t even look up. “I’m cutting them into strips! That’s what you said!”

“No! No, I said diced! Diced is cubes, Niall—not weird onion linguini!”

Harry’s voice rose in that half-laughing way people do when they care more than they mean to.

And I couldn’t help but grin at them both. I leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, heart full.

“I’d help,” I said, trying to sound regretful, “but I’m a certified menace in the kitchen. I once set a bin on fire. Twice.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but there was no edge to it. Only warmth.

Only the kind of fondness that settles into the seams of your day without you realizing.

Niall let out a heroic sniffle just as a tear threatened to drop from his reddened eyes.
“God, these onions are brutal.”

He raised a hand—

“No—! Niall, onion fingers!” Harry yelped, lunging half a step forward like he could stop it in time. But it was too late.

Niall rubbed his eyes with the delicacy of a toddler with ketchup on his hands, and immediately let out a strangled yowl.

Harry groaned, jaw clenched, but I caught the glint of a smile fighting its way to the surface. He grabbed a clean towel from the oven handle and wet the corner under the tap.

“Idiot,” he muttered—not unkindly—as he stepped close and wiped at Niall’s burning eyes with the gentle precision of someone who'd done this before.
Someone who knew how to soothe stings. Someone who, once upon a time, might’ve wished someone had done the same for him.

I watched him—watched his careful hands, his focused expression—and I felt it. That ache again.
That quiet, blooming truth: Harry belonged in this kitchen. He belonged here, where his voice could rise without fear. Where teasing didn’t end in bruises.Where people burned onions instead of each other. Where someone could cry from laughter, or from onions, and still be safe.

I would’ve stood there forever just to see him like that.

Cooking a dinner that would probably be awful, laughing with people who loved him in that soft, everyday way that didn’t demand anything in return.

“Oi,” I said, “Can we agree no one’s eating the onions now?”

“Seconded,” Harry said, lips twitching.

Niall groaned. “Y’know what? I’m never helping again.”

“Good,” Harry smirked, flipping a dish towel at him. “We’ll live longer.”

As the weeks with Harry slipped by, a rhythm formed—one that carved itself into my chest like a cruel pattern. I would send him home wrapped in hope, in laughter, in little stolen pieces of freedom, and Chris would send him back to me crushed. Like he’d wrung Harry out and left only the damp remains of whatever joy we’d stitched together.

I saw the bruise before I saw him properly. A flash of angry red high on his cheekbone, a bloom that would turn deep purple by morning. And I knew. I didn’t need a confession. I knew the shape of the hands that had put it there. Knew the kind of temper that left marks in places that couldn’t always be hidden. Chris had always been careful before, leaving his ugliness where only sleeves or collars could keep it secret. But this one… this one was a statement. A warning, even to me.

I didn’t bring it up right away. I waited for the world to shrink down to just the two of us. We’d planned a movie night at Zayn’s the week before—half for fun, half because we’d learned that giving Chris a reason days in advance made it easier for Harry to get out without a fight.

By the time the movie ended, Zayn, Liam, and Niall had all passed out in a clumsy pile on the couch. Niall was draped across the others like a cat, snoring softly, while the TV cast its ghostly light over the room.

Harry and I lay on the floor, cocooned in a mess of blankets, our shoulders almost touching. I turned to face him, but I didn’t reach for him yet. My hand ached to. My chest ached worse.

“Why?” I whispered, and it felt like striking a match in the stillness. My voice was soft, but it carried heat, the start of a fire I wasn’t sure I could put out.

Moonlight spilled through the gap in the curtains, silvering Harry’s curls, sketching the lines of his face in quiet beauty. He looked like something sacred and breakable, like the night had chosen him to be its softest secret. His cheek—unmarked on one side—was squished against his folded hands, his lashes fluttering slightly with sleepiness.

But the bruise ruined it. Not his beauty, no—he was beautiful in a way that made my chest hurt—but it ruined the peace of him. A blot of violence where there should’ve been only light.

His eyes opened fully, finding mine in the dark. Green, deep and searching, like he was looking for a place to rest all his unspoken words. For a moment, I thought he might say nothing at all. Then, quietly, he did.

“I dropped a plate,” he murmured, his voice fragile, the lie barely dressed in anything at all. “A glass one.”

Something twisted hard in me. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. And in his steady gaze, I could see all the things he wasn’t saying: It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have. He gets angry. I don’t want you to fight him. I don’t want to make this worse.

I just whispered, low and breaking, “You don’t deserve that.”

He swallowed, the smallest motion, like he was trying to hide the way my words shook something loose inside him.

Harry didn’t answer. Didn’t nod or shake his head or say I know.

He just blinked, slow and heavy, like my words were too soft to hold onto and too sharp to look at directly.

The silence folded around us again, thick and fragile. The only sounds were the gentle static hum of the television and Niall snoring through someone’s elbow. The air was cold, the kind that lingered in your bones. I could see Harry shiver once, barely a tremble, like a leaf catching wind.

I reached for him.

Not quickly. Not all at once. My hand crept forward, moving like I was approaching a startled deer in the woods, like any sudden movement might scare him away. I curled my fingers around the back of his head and pulled him in softly.

His breath hitched, sharp and quiet, the kind of sound that felt like it cut through the dark. For a second, I thought he might pull away, but he didn’t. He let his forehead rest against my shoulder, warm and trembling, curls brushing against my jaw.

I stayed still, barely breathing, holding him like he was spun glass. My thumb traced soft circles against the back of his neck, a rhythm to remind him he was here, he was safe, at least in this fragile slice of night we’d carved out.

He didn’t cry. Not out loud. But I felt the shiver that ran through him, the tight hitch in his chest against mine. His hands—slow, hesitant—curled into my sweatshirt like he needed to tether himself to something real.

“I hate him,” I whispered into his hair before I could stop myself. The words fell like a confession into the dark. “I hate what he does to you.”

Harry shook his head faintly against me, a silent plea, maybe, or a warning not to say it out loud. I felt him swallow, then heard the softest murmur, muffled into my shoulder:

“Please don’t be disappointed with me.”

The word its self took me back.

When I went in for my driving test, I was scared in the way all teens are—sick with nerves, certain that the weight of my future rested in the hands of a clipboard-holding stranger. But underneath that was something sharper, quieter. I was scared of disappointing my mum. Not in a grounded, logical way—but in the way kids are scared of falling short in front of the people who see them as more than they are.

As we sat in the parking lot, engine off, windows cracked to let in the morning air, I turned to her and asked her to promise me something. I made her swear she wouldn’t think less of me if I failed.

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t tell me I was being ridiculous.

Instead, she cupped my cheeks with both hands and looked right into me—right past the nerves and the bravado and the fear I didn’t know I was wearing.

She said, “There is no test that could make me love you less. You could fail every exam they throw at you, and I’d still be proud to call you mine.”

I didn’t fail that day. And part of me has always believed I passed because of those words. Because she saw me fully and told me I was still enough. No matter what.

Now, years later, I find myself holding someone else’s fear in my hands. I pull back to look at him in his eyes.

He doesn’t look at me. His green eyes stay fixed on some faraway spot, like he’s afraid of what he’ll find if he turns his gaze toward mine.

But I look anyway.

I look at him like he’s something holy. Like if I keep staring, I’ll learn the shape of every wound no one else has bothered to notice.

He’ll meet my eyes someday. I believe that.
And I won’t just be waiting for his eyes.
I’ll be waiting for his laughter, his rage, his softness, his scars.

All of him.

Because somewhere between my mother’s hands and Harry’s silence, I learned how to love someone the way they should have been loved all along.

I wish I could scoop him up and tuck him behind my ribs, right where I keep everything fragile. But he’s not mine to hold. Not yet. So I give him what I can.
“Why would I be disappointed, love?”

My voice barely carried, more breath than sound, but it made him flinch like it was louder than the room could bear.

His fingers curled tighter in my sweatshirt, bunching the fabric as if the answer might slip through otherwise. His lashes trembled, and finally, finally, his eyes darted up to meet mine.

“Because I stayed,” he whispered.

The words were so soft I almost missed them. Four syllables that held every jagged edge of the life he was trapped in. A confession, an apology, a self-inflicted wound all in one.

I shook my head, slow and steady. My hand slid to his jaw, the pad of my thumb hovering just shy of the bruise. I didn’t touch it, didn’t need to—I already felt it thrumming under my skin like it was mine to carry, too.

“You can stay,” I murmured, pressing my forehead to his, letting the words settle warm between us. “You can run. You can fall apart. You can do anything, and I’ll never be disappointed in you. Not once. Not ever.”

The room held its breath with us. The TV flickered faint shadows against the walls, and somewhere behind us, Niall snorted in his sleep. None of it touched us.

Harry let out a shaky exhale that ghosted across my lips, his eyes closing as he leaned into the space I gave him. A small, fragile surrender.

I didn’t kiss him. God, I wanted to—but this wasn’t that. This was quieter, deeper. This was trust settling into my bones like a weight I’d carry for the rest of my life if he let me.

And I thought, Someday, he’ll believe me. Someday, he’ll know he’s enough.

“Can you hold me until I fall asleep?” Harry asks, he moves his head just enough to bump out noses together.

I tighten my hold in its own response, “I’ll hold you ‘til death does us part.”

A sound left him—half a laugh, half a choked breath—that I felt more than heard. It shivered through my chest where he was pressed to me, warm and trembling and impossibly breakable.

“’Til death, huh?” he mumbled, the words slurred with exhaustion, but a spark of wonder flickered beneath them. Like he couldn’t quite believe someone would make a promise like that to him.

“Longer, if I can manage it,” I whispered, my lips brushing the curls at his temple. My thumb traced the curve of his jaw again, careful, reverent, stopping just short of the bruise that seemed to pulse in the quiet.

Harry made a small hum, a sound of agreement or disbelief—I couldn’t tell which—but his body softened against mine all the same. His breathing slowed, falling into that uneven rhythm of someone surrendering to sleep, to trust.

I felt the world narrow to this single moment: his weight against me, the faint static of the TV, the moonlight sketching fragile silver across his face. Everything outside this blanket cocoon could burn, and I’d have stayed right here.

Somewhere in the soft quiet, I thought about how unfair it all was. That he had to ask for this—to be held—like it was a favor, like it wasn’t the most basic right of being alive. That someone had convinced him he had to earn tenderness.

And when I got soft Harry, I also got stubborn Harry. He was a quiet sort of rebel, but when he let it out, it was delicious. A slow-blooming thing. He’d groan under his breath and mutter “shut up” at something dumb Niall said, or he’d sass me for a joke I thought was clever but was, admittedly, very stupid. That defiance, that little flicker of fire he was willing to show, even if it sparked in my direction—it meant he was thawing.

Coming back to himself.

There’s something sacred in seeing someone heal in real time. Watching him uncurl from the shell Chris had shoved him into, learning he could tease, roll his eyes, be annoying like any other sixteen-year-old boy—it made my chest ache in the best way.

One afternoon, we sat outside in the brittle kind of autumn that Doncaster called “pleasant.” The air had teeth, but the sky wasn’t spitting rain, so we declared it a victory. Coats zipped to our throats, beanies tugged down low, breath ghosting in the chill—peak British optimism.

We’d dragged ourselves out for lunch, and somehow Liam had gotten his hands on one of my sketchbooks. Harry sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him, curls peeking from beneath his hat, both of them flipping through the pages. I sat next to Zayn, already regretting every artistic choice I’d ever made.

They were merciless.

Liam would point out a drawing I’d done in a mood—some brooding shadow of a man, a pair of eyes half-hidden—and Harry would make this tiny sound of amusement, almost a giggle, while Zayn elbowed me with a grin. I groaned, flopping my head back against the chair dramatically.

Then Harry stopped flipping. His hand hovered on a page, his grin curling up like he’d just uncovered gold. He glanced up at me, green eyes sparkling with mischief I wanted to bottle.

“I’m stealing that one,” he said.

I laughed, suspicious. “Which one?”

He just pointed.

Liam leaned over, took one look, and barked a laugh so loud it startled a few pigeons from the tree above us. He twisted the sketchbook around to show Zayn and me, his grin devilish.

And there it was.

I’d forgotten that drawing—left it tucked between heavier, safer sketches. It wasn’t obscene, not really. Just… intimate. A man’s hand, shaded in careful strokes, tendons and veins lovingly rendered. Fingers outstretched, curling ever so slightly, like they were reaching, waiting.

It wasn’t the hand that made my face flush scarlet.
It was what the hand was holding—or rather, doing. The pads of the fingers just brushing the edge of another’s jaw, thumb poised against a mouth, parting the two halves of lips. It was hunger disguised as gentleness. Want without context, inked right there for anyone to read.

Zayn howled with laughter. “Bruv… you horny with a pencil?”

I groaned and dragged my beanie over my eyes, like maybe I could disappear under it. “It’s art, you heathens.”

Harry giggled—actually giggled—and that was somehow the worst and best part of it.

His nose scrunched, his shoulders bumped Liam’s like he couldn’t hold all the delight inside him, and he said, “Art? Looks like a bloody romance novel cover.”

“Romance novels wish they had this kind of passion,” Zayn said, smirking, which only made them laugh harder.

“Oh my God,” I groaned, still hiding under my hat. “I hate you all.”

But the truth? I didn’t.

I loved them in that moment more than I knew how to say. I loved that we could sit in the cold and laugh like this. That Harry could tease me without checking over his shoulder. That his eyes, when they landed on mine again, still glittered—not from mockery, but from joy.

“I’m serious, though,” he said after a beat, tapping the page with one mittened finger. “I am stealing this. Or you could give it to me. As a gift. A friendship keepsake. For blackmail.”

I peeked out from under my hat. “That’s not how gifts work.”

He grinned, wide and unstoppable. “That’s not how friendship works.”

And damn it, he had me. How could I say no to that face? That fire?

The boy who was learning, day by day, that he could want things and have them.

By the time October bled out its last days, I should’ve known Chris’s patience for me—his fuse—had frayed to nothing too.

The month ended with plastic skeletons rattling in shop windows, pumpkins sagging on porches, and the cold bite of early nights creeping under your coat. But under all the decorations and candy wrappers, there was this other kind of chill, the kind that sits in your bones.

Halloween night, I split myself into pieces.
I spent my time with the girls—helping Lottie fix her crooked tiara, holding up her phone so she could take blurry pictures of every third jack-o’-lantern we passed. Liam and Zayn tagged along with their own siblings, trading sarcastic comments about the quality of store-bought spiderwebs, while Niall stayed home, wrapped in the warmth of family and dinner that smelled like cinnamon.

And Harry—
God, I wanted him there.

I’d offered, of course. I’d begged, almost. Told him Chris could even come along. I imagined him walking down my street, curls bouncing as he pointed out the scariest decorations, giggling with Lottie when someone’s motion-sensor ghost screamed from a bush.
 I could picture his green eyes reflecting the flicker of pumpkin candles, his hands buried in his jacket pockets against the cold, safe in a crowd that would never know the things he carried.

But he’d only shaken his head, soft and small.
“Chris already has plans for us. He… wants me home.”
The words settled heavy in my chest.
Home.

What a cruel word when it meant a place you couldn’t breathe.

I’d smiled anyway, told him to be careful, said I’d see him soon. But as the sun bled out behind the rooftops and the streets filled with laughter, a knot of fear twisted tight in me.

Halloween is a night where screams are part of the costume.

Where running feet and shouts for help blur into the sound of play.

Where a boy could cry out, No, stop, and someone might clap, or laugh, or assume it’s a performance.
Where a monster can roam free wearing the face of a man and no one will see the difference.

And Harry—

Harry was alone with his monster.

Every porch light, every rattling skeleton, every passing group of kids in ghost sheets felt like it existed in another world. I walked with my sisters, smiling where I should, nodding where I had to, but my mind stayed with him.

I pictured him sitting at Chris’s table, hands folded tight in his lap, waiting for the fuse to spark. I pictured the way he’d flinch when the door slammed too hard or a voice got sharp.
I hated—hated—that I was out here with sugar on my tongue and laughter in my ears while he was somewhere counting the minutes until the night chewed him up and spat him out.

And worst of all—

I hated that if Chris went too far tonight… If Harry tried to run…

The world would think it was just another act, another costume. Another scream swallowed by the holiday.

When school called us back from the fragile night’s shadows, I didn’t hesitate—I practically ran into first hour, heart thudding with hope like a desperate drumbeat trying to outpace dread.
And there he was.

Harry looked up as I entered, lips curving into a smile that, at first glance, almost fooled me. But the light didn’t reach his eyes—not in the way I’d come to crave. There was no spark, no soft gleam of mischief or warmth. Just a tired flicker behind green glass.

“Hi,” he murmured, voice softer than usual. Like the wind had taken something from him on its way through.

I let myself breathe, just a little. I didn’t see any new marks—not yet—but that meant nothing. There were always places to hide bruises, skin beneath shirts, ribs under layers, shadows that didn’t bloom until later.

“Hey,” I said as I slid into the seat beside him, trying to sound easy. “You alright?”

He nodded, too fast. “Yeah. You?”

“Good.” It came out automatic, hollow, and suddenly I hated how untrue it sounded.

Silence settled between us, the kind that didn’t feel comfortable anymore. I busied my hands with my backpack, pulling out notebooks and pens like they could calm me, like normalcy would settle the quake in my chest.

When I glanced back up, Harry was already facing forward, eyes fixed on the front of the classroom, posture neat, hands folded like a student in a school photo. It was strange, unsettling—this absence of him. No whispered jokes, no flitting hand gestures, no secret glances from the corner of his lashes. Just stillness. Just quiet.

It felt wrong.

I kept stealing looks—searching. I scanned his wrists where his sleeves had ridden up slightly. His neck, just above the collar. Nothing. But I didn’t relax. I knew too well now how wounds could live under the skin, how pain could hide in the way someone doesn’t speak.

Mr. Charlie was droning about the latest math catastrophe, something about logarithms or graphs or god knows what. I couldn’t listen. My mind kept circling back to Harry, looping like a skipping record.
Say something. Please.

Just when I was about to try again, to whisper some nothing just to hear his voice, I shifted in my chair—and felt it. A brush. Barely there. The smallest press against my pinky where it rested along the edge of the desk.

I went still.

The warmth of it spread slow, like the first sip of tea after a long cry. His hand hadn’t moved fully, hadn’t reached for mine, but his pinky was touching mine now, light and trembling.

It was nothing. It was everything.

I didn’t turn to look at him—I was afraid if I did, he might pull away. Instead, I let my finger stay there, steady. Let it be an answer, a promise: I’m here.

The numbers on the board blurred. Mr. Charlie’s voice dissolved. And in that quiet contact, in that fragile flame between us, I felt more truth than any words could carry.

Harry wasn’t okay. But he was reaching.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. That single point of contact felt like it could shatter if I breathed too hard.

His pinky stayed against mine, trembling once, then holding steady.

Every second stretched wide. I could feel the warmth of him travel through the thin wood of the desk, the pulse in his finger like a secret only I was allowed to hear.

I let my pinky curl, just slightly, brushing his.
A response.

His shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly. If I hadn’t been staring at him out of the corner of my eye, I might have missed it—the way a little tension bled out of him, like the smallest sigh. He didn’t look at me, didn’t smile. He kept his gaze on the front of the room, face as blank and obedient as ever. But the pinky didn’t move.

Mr. Charlie’s chalk squeaked across the board, droning on about slopes and intercepts. Kids whispered behind us, a pen rolled off a desk and clattered to the floor, the ordinary sounds of life carrying on. And we sat there, tethered by a thread of skin and heat, building a tiny world no one could see.

I wanted to say his name.

I wanted to tell him I was here for him. That even if he couldn’t speak it, couldn’t give it air, I knew. I always knew.

But I didn’t risk it. Words would break the spell.
Instead, I let the silence be enough.
I let my hand stay still, pinky hooked to his like a secret handshake for ghosts.

No one else in the room would ever know that, in the middle of first hour, between equations and sleepy classmates, we’d built a bridge out of nothing but bone and skin. A quiet rebellion.

When the bell finally rang, the room flooded with noise and motion. Harry pulled his hand back immediately, retreating into his sleeves like a tide going out. He didn’t look at me, didn’t speak. But as he stood, I caught the faintest ghost of a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth. Not happiness, not yet—but something softer.

The day stumbled forward in that in-between way—like a record skipping over the same scratch—normal on the surface, but I felt every second drag across my nerves. Harry stayed quiet, orbiting me but never quite touching my gravity. It wasn’t until after lunch that he spoke to me.

“Purple?” I said, half to Liam, half to myself as we shuffled toward the cafeteria.

Liam groaned, already regretting starting this conversation. “You’re only saying that because it’s your favorite color.”

We slowed near my locker, and I fiddled with the dial, pretending like I wasn’t hyperaware of Harry somewhere in this hallway, like a low hum I couldn’t shake. I needed something to keep my brain from spiraling, so the Great Dress Shirt Debate of 11:45 a.m. continued.

“It’s not,” I argued, shoving my book inside and leaning back against the locker door. “I mean, yeah, purple is my favorite—but that’s not why. Purple looks dramatic. You’d look like someone who owns a mansion.”

“I don’t own a mansion,” he muttered into his hands, like he was praying for patience.
“Exactly. It’s aspirational.”

Liam gave me that long-suffering look that screamed Why do I talk to you, and I grinned, maybe a little too wide. Humor was the only thing keeping me from unraveling completely—because behind my words, behind the lazy argument about colors, was the memory of Harry’s pinky curled around mine, and how it had felt like a tiny sculpture of trust in my palm.
I was stalling.

Stalling because the next step was lunch, and lunch meant sitting across from Harry, pretending my chest wasn’t aching to reach for him again. Pretending I could just… eat, laugh, exist like I hadn’t felt him tremble through one finger in a silent first-hour conversation that said everything he wouldn’t.

“God, this is hopeless,” Liam sighed, dropping his head to the metal locker beside mine in mock despair.

I snorted, bumping my shoulder against his. “Hopeless is thinking you could pull off yellow.”
He groaned again, and Harry drifted up to us like he always did—quiet, careful, like a shadow joining the edges of our little group—but today, he didn’t quite meet my eyes. His hands were stuffed deep in his hoodie pocket, shoulders hunched just enough that I wanted to take them in my hands and smooth out every knot.

“Hey,” he murmured to Liam, voice soft like it might break if he used it too loudly.

“Hey, mate,” Liam replied, straightening. His easy warmth was effortless, and I envied that—envied how he could talk to Harry without a tight string of worry tugging behind every word.

Harry’s gaze flicked up to me for a second, a brief green flash, before he nodded toward the cafeteria doors. “You guys coming?”

“Yeah,” Liam said, and we fell into step, Harry close enough that his sleeve brushed mine now and then, sending tiny sparks of awareness through me. I could feel my own breathing change just from being near him, like every inhale had to be careful, quiet.

The hallway buzzed with the pre-lunch chaos—shoes squeaking, laughter bouncing off the lockers, the sharp clang of a locker door slamming somewhere down the line. But in my head, the world narrowed to Harry’s presence beside me. He didn’t speak, but I noticed everything—the way he kept his head slightly down, the way his hair fell over his eyes, the way his mouth pinched like he was holding something in.

When we reached the cafeteria, the smell of pizza and bleach hit us, and Liam veered off toward the food line. Harry hesitated for half a heartbeat before following him, and I stayed glued to his side like gravity demanded it.

We found Zayn at an empty table near the back, a little island away from the loudest kids. Liam set his tray down and launched into some story about a customer at the parlor who thought he was famous because he’d been in a charity calendar once. I laughed where I was supposed to, but my eyes kept tracking Harry.

He sat across from me, picking at his sandwich like it was an assignment he hadn’t studied for. Every so often, he glanced up at Liam and Zayn, smiled faintly at the right beats, but it never reached his eyes. His gaze slid right past me like I wasn’t there, though I felt him everywhere—in my chest, in the small of my back, in my fingers itching for his.

I pushed a fry around my tray, my appetite gone. The words I wanted to say throbbed like a bruise behind my teeth: Talk to me. Please, just let me in.

Liam's voice cut through the silence in my head, pulling me back to the table. "Right, Zayn? Tell him purple is a terrible color for a dress shirt."

Zayn looked up from his phone, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Nah, I think he's got a point. Purple is aspirational."

Liam and Zayn talk a little bit more on the subject, but all I can do is glance at Harry. He was still picking at his food, his expression unreadable.

"Hey, H," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

He didn't look up. "Yeah?"

"Can I talk to you later?”

Harry’s fingers froze on the edge of his sandwich. His lashes flickered once, twice, and then he nodded—barely. A movement so small that if I hadn’t been watching him like he was the only person in the world, I might’ve missed it.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

The single word was soft, fragile, but it held weight. Like a pebble dropped in still water, I felt the ripples spread across my chest.

I wanted to ask when, where, if he was okay, if he needed me now—but the cafeteria wasn’t a safe place for soft things. The hum of voices, the slam of trays, the too-bright lights—it all felt wrong for the kind of conversation I knew we needed to have.

So I let it sit. I forced myself to eat a chip I couldn’t taste, to nod along as Liam reenacted a story about a cat getting stuck in the storeroom at work. Harry stayed quiet, just orbiting, his eyes somewhere far away.

When lunch ended, the wave of students swallowed us, and we drifted into the noisy stream of bodies in the hallway. I walked close enough that my arm brushed his hoodie sleeve, wanting—aching—to reach for him, to lace my fingers through his and anchor him here. But I knew better than to risk it in the daylight of crowded halls.

When the halls started to thin, Harry didn’t look to see if I was following. He just… moved. Quiet, determined in the softest way. I trailed after him, caught in the gravity of his silence. It didn’t feel like distance anymore. It felt like a thread, invisible but unbreakable, pulling me along behind him.

His steps were slow, careful. His shoulders hunched like he was trying to make himself smaller, to fold into a shape the world wouldn’t notice. We passed the stairwell where someone’s laughter rang sharp, past the locked art room that smelled faintly of clay and wet paint, until he led us to the far end of the corridor—where the school seemed to forget itself.

The old lockers ended. The brick wall was cool and bare. And the fire exit no one ever used let in a dim wash of gray light, soft and tired. Through the glass, the football field stretched out, an empty patchwork of yellowed grass clinging to the season. Rain whispered against the door, painting the world outside in moving silver.

Harry leaned back against the wall like he needed it to hold him up. Hands buried in his hoodie, head down. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t have to. The weight of him pressed into the air, and I felt it settle in my chest. The heaviness, the almost-words. The way his silence felt like a held breath.

I hesitated, then took a step closer, soft enough that even the floor seemed to listen. “Hey,” I whispered. “It’s just us now.”

He nodded, a tiny dip of his chin. His jaw worked once, twice, his throat moving like he was trying to swallow a stone.

“Harry…” My fingers twitched, aching to touch him, to bridge that last inch of space. “You don’t have to say it all at once.”

For a heartbeat, there was nothing—just the hum of distant classrooms, the low patter of rain against glass, the soft electric buzz of the lights.

Then his shoulders shook, a single tremor. He ducked his head further, curls sliding forward to hide his face. And in that tiny flinch, I saw everything he was carrying—fear and longing and exhaustion piled like stones on his back.

“I—” His voice cracked, a dry, breaking thing. “You know he hates you, right? He keeps… he keeps telling me to stop hanging out with you.”

I stepped closer, careful, slow. “I know,” I said. And God, I did. The feeling was mutual.

He let out a shaky laugh that broke halfway through, fraying at the edges. “He’s going away for work this weekend. He made me promise I wouldn’t see you while he’s gone, but…” He shook his head, breath catching. “That’s all I want to do.”

The words hit me like thunder low in my chest—soft, rolling, unavoidable. All I want to do. They filled me with something wild and tender all at once, a pulse that was part ache, part hope.

I wanted to grab his hand, to press it against my heart and say, Then come here. Choose this. Choose us. But I held still, because this moment was delicate as glass, and one wrong move could make it splinter.

Harry’s jaw tightened, and he turned his face just enough that I could see his eyes shine wet in the gray light. “I lied to him, Louis. I never… I never lied to him before. I said I’d stay away, and the second the words left my mouth I knew—I can’t keep myself away from you.”

I swear, the world tilted. Those words were a door flung open in the middle of a storm, rain rushing in, air electric with risk. I swallowed hard, my chest tight. “You lied… for me?”

His nod was small, almost ashamed. “I didn’t even hesitate. He said it and all I could think about was finding a way to see you anyway.”

Something fragile in me cracked and spilled light. My heart wanted everything—wanted to laugh and cry and pull him into the safest place I could make with my arms. But I stayed steady, because this was for him, not me. Harry,” I breathed, his name the softest prayer. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

“I do,” he whispered, and I could see his hands tremble where they hid in his sleeves. “I do, because… you’re the only place I can breathe.”

I moved closer, step by slow step, until I could feel the warmth of him in the inches between us. “Then let’s make this weekend ours,” I said. My voice shook but didn’t break. “He’ll be gone. And you deserve one day—just one—where you’re free. Where it’s just us. No promises to anyone but each other.”

Harry’s breath wavered. His face twisted, almost breaking with want and fear. “What if he finds out?”
“He won’t,” I said, and the words burned with something fierce and certain. “Just us. He won’t find out.”

The rain streaked the glass behind him. Somewhere far away, a bell rang—indifferent to the small revolution happening here in the shadow of the fire door.

“I want to stay with you this weekend,” he whispered. And then, softer, fragile as a candle flame: “I want to fall asleep somewhere that doesn’t feel like a trap.”

My throat closed. My chest ached. But I gave him my voice, steady and sure. “Good. I’ll make popcorn. You can borrow my hoodie and sleep with your head on my shoulder if you want. Or not.
Whatever you need. Just… be there.”

He let out a broken laugh, biting his lip like he was holding himself together with his teeth.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”

The word was a key, and the air unlocked around us.
I reached out, slow and asking, and let my fingers brush his. No pinky promises this time. Just palm to palm, skin to skin, breath to breath—quiet proof that he wasn’t alone.

He didn’t pull away.

And in that still, secret corner of the school, the world finally felt soft enough to hold him.

When I got home that evening, my head was already spinning with plans, rehearsals of sentences that all sounded weak the second I said them in my mind.

I needed to ask Mum if Harry could come over.

The thought alone made my stomach twist. Mum didn’t like having guests over when the girls were around—her rule, unwritten but ironclad. If they had a sleepover or a party, she softened, more relaxed, but that would mean Harry coming over on a Friday night, right into the middle of squealing and nail polish fumes and the clatter of giggles through the walls.

I hated how scared I was of her answer. If she said no, Harry would be left alone, and I couldn’t tell him that. Not after the way he’d trusted me, not after the things he’d let slip—like tiny birds flying straight out of his ribcage into my hands. The thought of sending him back into that house, that silence, was unbearable.

So instead of asking right away, I disappeared into my room, using the excuse of homework as my shield. My room felt smaller than usual, like the walls had moved in, listening to the little tremor of my heartbeat. I felt ridiculous—still scared to ask my mum for something as simple as a friend to come over, like I was ten again and wanted to stay up past bedtime.

But it wasn’t simple. Not with Harry.

I thought about how easy it was with Niall. He was practically furniture by now—Mum knew him, knew his laugh, knew he wouldn’t stir trouble or knock over a lamp. He’d earned a sort of invisible key to the house, and even when he wasn’t here, it felt like he could’ve been. Liam and Zayn were different; Mum said yes most of the time, but there was still a watchfulness in her eyes, a silent reminder that they hadn’t yet passed whatever unspoken test she set for boys in her house.

Harry hadn’t been tested at all. Not really.
And the truth was, I wasn’t sure if Mum would see him the way I saw him—fragile and quiet in all the places that hurt—or if she’d just see a stranger I was suddenly desperate to shelter.

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the carpet like it might give me courage, rehearsing the words in my head.

Can Harry come over?

He really needs somewhere to be tonight. Please, Mum. Please say yes.

My throat felt tight already, and I hadn’t even opened my door.

I sat there so long the light in my room started to change, slipping from gold to a muted gray, the kind that makes everything feel softer and more serious. Downstairs, I could hear the familiar soundtrack of home—the kettle hissing, the girls’ laughter spilling like marbles across the floor, Mum calling someone to put their shoes away.

I clenched and unclenched my fists, counting my breaths like they might turn into courage if I stacked enough of them together. Every second I waited, the weight in my chest grew heavier, pressing like a hand I couldn’t shake off.

Finally, I stood. My legs felt shaky, like I’d just been dared to jump into cold water.

Lottie was perched at the kitchen counter, shoulders hunched, thumbs flicking across her phone screen with that particular focus only teenage girls and surgeons seemed to have. Beside her, Fizzy had a homework sheet spread out like a treasure map, pencil tapping against the paper.

“Lottieee,” she whined, “what’s eight times seven again?”

Lottie didn’t look up. “Fifty-six.”

Fizzy blinked at the paper, mouthing the number, then scribbled it down. Multiplication facts. My old nemesis. I’d hated them too, the way they seemed like a secret language everyone else already knew. Apparently that particular curse had been passed down.

The kitchen smelled faintly of laundry soap and tomato sauce, the air warm with the hum of normal life. The twins were sprawled on the couch in the next room, the TV washing soft cartoon colors over their small faces. Daisy was asleep already, her cheek pressed to a stuffed rabbit, her hair fanned over the cushion like a spill of sunlight.

I leaned against the counter, letting the edge dig into my hip, soaking in the quiet rhythm of the house. It all felt so still, so safe—and for a heartbeat, I wondered if Harry even remembered what this kind of safety sounded like.

“Where’s Mum?” I asked, voice low like I didn’t want to disturb the spell.

Both girls glanced up, Lottie with her habitual raised brow, Fizzy with her wide, curious eyes. Then, true to form, Fizzy lost interest in me entirely, bending back over her math sheet, lips moving as she multiplied in whispers.

“I think she’s doing a load of laundry,” Lottie said, casual, scrolling again.

I nodded, my throat tightening in a way that didn’t match the calm scene. Laundry meant Mum was upstairs, in her world of folded towels and humming machines. It meant I had a few minutes to gather the scraps of courage rattling around inside me before I went up there to ask the question that had been pressing against my ribs all evening.

I lingered there a moment longer, letting the sounds of home wash over me, pretending I could absorb some of its warmth, some of its courage. The kettle clicked off with a soft sigh. Fizzy muttered, “Nine times six… ugh,” under her breath. The twins giggled at something on the TV.

I breathed in the scent of clean laundry and tomato sauce and floor cleaner, and for a second I let myself picture Harry standing right here in this kitchen. Leaning against the counter like me. Shoulders unclenched. A mug of hot chocolate in his hand, steam curling against his soft curls. I wanted that so badly my chest ached with it.

The floor creaked upstairs. I froze, heart leaping into my throat. Mum was moving between rooms, maybe heading for the stairs. If she came down here, I’d lose the chance to catch her alone.

“Alright,” I whispered to myself, and pushed off the counter. My knees felt wobbly, like I was walking into a storm I couldn’t see.

The stairs groaned under my weight as I climbed, every step echoing a little too loud in my ears. At the top, the landing was warm and damp with the scent of laundry—fabric softener and steam curling out from the cracked laundry-room door. I peeked in.

Mum was there, crouched by the dryer, her hair falling into her face as she pulled warm towels into a basket. A faint tune drifted from her lips, a half-hummed song I remembered from childhood car rides. For a second, she was just Mum, the safe, ordinary center of the world. And then I remembered why I was here, and my courage wavered.

“Mum?” My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat. “Can I talk to you?”

She glanced over her shoulder, strands of hair stuck to her cheek, and smiled that tired but always-present smile. “Of course, love. Hand me those socks, will you?”

I crossed the warm room, the dryer’s hum filling the pause, and passed her the socks. My heart thudded so hard I worried she’d hear it.

“There’s, um…” I hesitated, shifting the weight from one foot to the other. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

She straightened, basket under her arm, and raised one brow—the kind that said I can see right through you. “Go on.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. All the words I’d practiced scattered like startled birds. For a second, I thought I might choke on them. Then Harry’s face flickered in my mind—the way his voice cracked in the hallway, the way he whispered, you’re the only place I can breathe.

“Could Harry come over this weekend?” The words tumbled out in a rush, wobbly and fragile. “I… I think he really needs somewhere to be. Just for a bit.”

Mum’s eyes softened, but there was a flicker of that usual caution, the weighing of unspoken rules. “Harry,” she repeated slowly. “He’s the one with the curls, yeah?”

I nodded, gripping my sleeve. “Yeah. He’s… he’s having a hard time. And I just… I don’t want him to be alone.” My voice cracked on the last word, small and desperate despite my best effort.

For a moment, the only sound was the dryer ticking down, the soft hiss of warm air. Then Mum sighed, low and thoughtful.

“Alright,” she said finally. “He can come.”

Relief hit me like I’d stepped into sunlight. My chest loosened, my whole body buzzing with the need to run and tell him, to make it real.

“Thank you,” I breathed. My voice shook, but I didn’t care.

Mum reached out and brushed my hair off my forehead in that absent, gentle way she always had. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

I knew then that my stupid, stinging eyes gave me away, my heart already racing ahead to the moment I could tell Harry: Come home to me.

The lump in my throat swelled. I blinked up at her, eyes too hot, too full. Her question hung there in the soft laundry-warm air, quiet and open like a door I wasn’t sure I had the courage to walk through.

Is there anything else you want to tell me?

I could’ve said no. Could’ve laughed it off, shrugged, made some joke about not finishing my math homework or stealing the last biscuit. That would’ve been easier. Safer.

But I didn’t want safe. Not now. Not when Harry was trusting me with the fragile pieces of himself. Not when Mum had just given me yes.

So I swallowed hard, and nodded. “Yeah,” I said, my voice barely more than a breath. “Yeah. There is.”

Mum didn’t push. She just waited, folding a towel with practiced grace, like she had all the time in the world. Like whatever I said next wouldn’t make her love me less. That—more than anything—was what let me speak.

“It’s not just… not just that Harry’s having a rough time.” I stared at the floor, watching my socks curl against the tile. “It’s that he… he feels safe here. With me. And I—”

I stopped, tried again. “I feel safe with him too. I care about him, Mum. A lot.”

The words echoed in the room like a secret finally let loose from its hiding place.

When I looked up, Mum didn’t look shocked. Or angry. Or even surprised, really. She just looked at me the way she always had—like I was hers, entirely, even the parts of me I didn’t know how to name yet.

“Alright,” she said softly, stepping forward, basket on her hip. “Thank you for telling me.”

And just like that, something in me cracked wide open.

I blinked fast, lips pressing into a thin line, and she reached out, warm palm cupping the side of my face like she used to when I was little and couldn’t sleep after a nightmare.

“He’s welcome here,” she said, and her voice was steady, no fanfare, no drama. Just truth. “If he’s someone who makes you feel safe, then we’ll make sure he feels that too.”

That was it. That was all I needed.

Chapter Text

Like most weeks when something good waited at the end, it dragged its feet. Every class felt twice as long, every tick of the clock stretching like warm taffy. But it was easier to bear because Harry was back to himself—or at least, the self he let me see.

He was touchier than usual. Not in a loud, grabby way—just… magnetic. His hand would brush mine in the lunch line, his knee would bump mine under the table, his shoulder would linger against my arm like he was testing gravity. I didn’t mind. God, I didn’t mind. It felt like he was saying I trust you with every soft nudge of his fingers, every quiet lean into my space.

I’d always thought I knew him, but this week taught me something new: physical touch was his language. His laugh could be quiet, his words guarded, but the brush of his hand on my sleeve or the way his curls fell against my shoulder said things he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—put in words. And maybe I didn’t know that for sure until he gave it to me, until I felt it happen to me.

He never said he was excited for the weekend, not outright, but I could read it in him the way I could read the sky before rain. The way his teeth flashed in sudden smiles when I teased about popcorn flavors, or when I asked if he’d finally let Lottie paint his nails. Those green eyes would spark like someone lit a candle behind them.

Painting, though—that’s what brought out the brightest flicker in him. Whether it was the thought of colors smeared across his nails or a brush in his hand in front of a blank page, it pulled something alive out of him. He’d tilt his head, curls sliding, and I could see him imagining the weekend already—imagining us, tucked into a quiet corner of safety that belonged only to him.

We didn’t tell the others about our plan. Not Niall, not Liam, not Zayn. They knew Chris was leaving for the weekend, but they didn’t know Harry would be too. It felt like a secret bubble we’d built around ourselves—small, fragile, and sparkling. Ours.

And every time I thought about him stepping through my front door, shoulders loosening like a bird settling into its nest, I felt that same bubble glow warm in my chest.

Friday crawled into existence like it had to be dragged by the collar. By the time the final bell rang, my whole body felt like a coiled spring, tight with the effort of holding still through the day.

Harry waited by the bike racks where the sunlight slipped low, warming the edges of his curls. He didn’t say anything when I reached him—just fell into step beside me, hands tucked into his hoodie pocket, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. The quiet between us wasn’t heavy. It was humming.

We didn’t talk much on the walk. I could feel the words in him, though, fluttering like birds that didn’t know if they wanted to fly. Every now and then, he’d glance at me, a flicker of green under his lashes, and the corner of his mouth would twitch like he was trying to hold in a smile.

When we turned onto my street, he hesitated for half a step, eyes tracing the rows of familiar houses.
My house—yellow curtains, small garden, the faint smell of whatever Mum had cooking—looked ordinary as ever, but to him, I wondered if it felt like crossing into another world.

I pushed open the front door, and the warm smell of dinner and laundry spilled out to meet us. The twins were in the living room, one singing to a stuffed animal, the other loudly narrating a cartoon. Fizzy was at the table hairbrush in her mouth, and Lottie’s voice floated from beside her yelling about split ends.

Harry froze in the doorway, just for a second. His hands stayed deep in his sleeves like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, brushing his arm with mine. “Come in.”

He did, carefully, like he was afraid to track mud across something sacred. I took his backpack and hung it on the hook like it belonged there. Like he belonged there.

Mum appeared in the hallway just then, towel slung over her shoulder, eyes squinting at the commotion. I watched her take him in, head to toe. Harry stood straighter, but not too straight. Like he didn’t want to seem scared. Like he was trying not to flinch.

“Harry, right?” Mum said, voice kind. “You’re taller than I expected.”

Harry blinked. “Oh. Um. Sorry?”

“No need to be, love.” Mum said, gesturing with her free hand. “Well, you two must had a day. I’ll make some hot chocolate, or tea whatever you prefer.”

And just like that, the promise I’d made in my head—the one I’d pictured for so long—came true. Harry looked up, his green eyes wide with a sort of stunned gratitude, and for a fleeting second, I saw him as he truly was: a boy who was used to being on the outside, suddenly finding himself on the inside.

“I’ll help,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “With the hot chocolate, I mean. I know how to make it.”

Mum’s smile softened further. “Well, then, you’re in the right place. The kitchen’s all yours. Louis, why don’t you take his bag upstairs?”

I nodded, grabbing his backpack off the hook. As I headed up the stairs.

Upstairs, I set Harry’s backpack on my bed and paused, hands braced on the edge of the mattress. My room felt different now, almost like it had been waiting for him. The scattered sketches on my desk, the hoodie tossed over my chair, the faint smell of pencil shavings and laundry soap—all of it felt like pieces of a nest I didn’t realize I’d been building for him.

The kettle whistled downstairs, followed by a muffled laugh—Harry’s, soft and uncertain, but real. I smiled into the empty room, my chest warm and tight.

When I went back down, the kitchen was a picture I wanted to frame in my mind forever: Harry standing at the counter, curls haloed in the evening light, carefully stirring cocoa into a mug like it was something holy. Mum leaned against the sink, watching him with that patient, assessing softness she always had when she was deciding if someone was family.

“Careful,” she said, nodding toward the mug. “Fizzy likes extra marshmallows, or she’ll stage a protest.”

Harry startled, then grinned—small and shy, but brighter than I’d seen all week. “Noted.” He reached for the bag of marshmallows and dropped in three like he’d just been handed a secret family recipe.

Fizzy cheered from the table, hairbrush clutched in her fist. “I like you, Harry!”

He froze mid-drop, like he didn’t know what to do with the praise, then looked up at me. His smile wobbled, and something in my chest twisted sweet and sharp.

We carried our mugs into the living room. The girls were a tangle of blankets and stuffed animals on the couch, the twins arguing softly about which cartoon character was faster. Harry sank into the corner of the couch like he was trying to take up as little space as possible, his mug cradled in both hands.

Daisy, half-asleep, opened her eyes and blinked at him. “You’re new,” she said simply, then tucked her face back into her stuffed rabbit and drifted off again.

Harry let out a soft breath, a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a sigh. He glanced at me, his expression unreadable but full of something tender, something I recognized because I felt it too: that dizzy, aching relief of belonging.

I flopped onto the other end of the couch, close enough that our knees brushed under the blanket Lottie tossed at us. Harry didn’t pull away. He sipped his hot chocolate and leaned back, shoulders finally sinking into the cushions.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The house hummed around us—the clink of mugs, the faint buzz of the TV, the distant rhythm of the dryer upstairs. I felt it settle over us like a blanket: safety, quiet, home.

I caught Harry looking at the room, eyes moving over the chaos of shoes by the door, the pile of homework on the table, the stray sock peeking from under the couch. His gaze softened, his fingers tightening around the mug.

Eventually, Mum corralled the girls upstairs, leaving just the two of us in the living room. The cartoon credits rolled in blue and gold across the TV, the room lit only by its glow and the faint lamp in the corner. The quiet that settled after the last giggle and footstep faded was different from the heavy silences Harry carried from his own house. This one was gentle. Inviting.

Harry stretched his legs out carefully, like he was testing how much space he was allowed to take. His socked foot brushed mine, and he didn’t pull away.

“Do you want to—” I started, then hesitated, suddenly shy.

He turned his head toward me, eyes curious. “Want to what?”

I bit my lip, “Do you want to see my room?”

For a moment, he just stared—and then that candle-flame smile lit up his face, small but so bright it made my chest ache.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’d like that.”

We padded up the stairs in the soft glow of the hall light, our footsteps muffled by the familiar carpet that always creaked in the third spot from the top. Harry’s hand brushed the railing like he was touching something fragile, his other hand still half-buried in his hoodie pocket.

When I opened the door, and he stepped in like it was a new world.

The lamplight made everything soft: the penciled drawings scattered across my desk, the crumpled blanket on the bed, the little constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars I’d never taken down from the ceiling. Harry turned slowly in the middle of the room, curls sliding against his forehead, eyes landing on each detail like he was memorizing it.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked. His gaze lingered on the framed movie posters, the haphazardly stacked books by my bed, the faded flannel shirt hanging from my doorknob. He finally stopped, his eyes fixed on the small, wooden box I kept on my dresser. It was a simple thing, a souvenir from a family vacation, and inside, I kept a collection of polished river stones I’d found over the years.

“What’s in there?” he asked, his voice a low murmur that seemed to fill the quiet space between us.

I walked over and opened the box. The stones, smooth and grey and white, lay nestled together. I picked one up, a flat, oval stone with a perfect white stripe running across its center.

“I find them on the riverbank,” I explained, turning it over in my palm. “This one, my dad says it’s a wishing stone.”

Harry reached out, his finger gently tracing the line on the stone. His touch was light, almost electric. He looked from the stone to me, his dark eyes searching.

“Do you make wishes?” he asked.

I shrugged, a small smile playing on my lips. “Sometimes. I think it’s just about believing something good can happen.”

He nodded slowly, a thoughtful look on his face. He put the stone back in the box, and his hand lingered over mine for a moment before he pulled away. He turned back to the room, and I saw his eyes catch on something else—a small, slightly beat-up teddy bear sitting on my pillow.

“I had one of those,” he said softly, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Named him Barnaby. He had a missing eye and a perpetually sad expression.”

My own smile widened. “This is Bartholomew. He lost an ear in a terrible-yet-undisclosed incident involving Niall and a rogue tennis ball.”

Harry laughed, a genuine, warm sound that made my chest feel lighter. It was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh, and it was better than I could have imagined. He took another step forward, his gaze sweeping over the room one last time before settling on me.

“It’s a good room,” he said, and the way he said it made my heart thump against my ribs. “It feels like you.”

That felt like the biggest compliment he could have given me. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. He was still looking at me, a soft, unreadable expression in his eyes. The silence stretched between us, but it wasn't awkward. It was comfortable, filled with the unspoken words and the quiet understanding that had grown between us over the past few weeks.

I moved to lay down on my bed, pressing my back to the wall and using my hand as a headrest. I left space for him, I didn’t ask for him to join me. I didn’t want his tight smile and forced sure. I wanted him to want this. Safety.

Harry lingered in the middle of the room, his weight shifting from one socked foot to the other. I could see him debating with himself, glancing at the bed, then at me, then down at his hands like they might give him advice.

Finally, he let out a tiny breath, like he’d made a decision with his whole body.

He crept closer, each step deliberate, his socks barely whispering against the carpet. When he reached the edge of the bed, he crouched down for a second like he was inspecting it—like it might bite him, or maybe like he needed to be sure it would hold him. Then, with the carefulness of someone handling something breakable, he climbed up and sat cross-legged beside me.

The mattress dipped, and I felt the heat of him immediately, even though he wasn’t leaning yet. He ran a hand along the blanket, like he was memorizing the texture, then tucked his fingers into the hem of his hoodie again.

“This is… weird,” he said quietly, eyes on the blanket. “Good weird. I just—” He hesitated, his curls falling into his face. “I don’t… do this. Sit on someone’s bed. Be in their space.”

I wanted to say you can, though. You can with me. Instead, I just nudged my foot against his knee under the blanket.

“Then it’s a first,” I said softly. “I like firsts.”

His lips twitched, a ghost of a smile, and he let himself lean back a little, shoulder brushing the wall beside mine. Slowly, like a cat testing if it’s allowed, he stretched his legs out along the bed, lying on his side to face me.

The space between us felt tinder, I wanted to keep it that way. “I came out to my mum,” I whisper the words falling out. “Kind of.”

Harry’s eyes flicked up to mine, sharp with surprise but soft around the edges, like he was afraid to spook me by looking too hard. His head tipped a little, curls spilling onto my blanket.

“Kind of?” he echoed, voice just above a whisper.

I fiddled with the hem of my sleeve, suddenly aware of the warmth of his leg along mine. “I didn’t… say the words. Not all of them. But she asked if I had anything else to say…” My throat went dry. “And I thought it was right to tell her.”

I felt him hold his breath, a stillness that was so complete it felt like the whole room was waiting with him. His eyes, those intense green eyes, held mine, full of a quiet, desperate hope I hadn’t even realized he was capable of.

"What did you tell her?" he asked, his voice barely audible.

"I told her I care about you a lot," I said, the words a little steadier this time. "And that you make me feel safe. And she said… she said if you're someone who makes me feel safe, then she'll make sure you feel that too."

A shiver ran through him, a quick, involuntary tremor. He looked away, staring at the constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling as if he could see them even in the lamplight. I could see his chest rising and falling a little faster, a silent testament to the hurricane of emotions swirling inside him.

"You told her that?" he whispered, his voice thick with disbelief.

"Yeah," I said, my own voice soft. "I did."

He didn't say anything for a long moment, just kept staring at the ceiling. I watched the lamplight play across his face, highlighting the delicate curve of his jaw, the perfect sweep of his lashes. I wanted to reach out, to touch his face, to tell him that it was okay, that he was safe, that he was wanted. But I didn't. I just waited.

Finally, he turned his head back to me, his green eyes shimmering with unshed tears. The sight of them undid me. He wasn't crying, but he was so close. The vulnerability in his gaze was a physical thing, a raw wound I wanted to protect with my entire being.

"No one's ever...said that about me before," he said, his voice cracking on the last word.

I reached out then, my hand trembling slightly, and brushed a curl away from his forehead. His skin was warm and soft under my fingertips. He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into my touch, and a single tear escaped and traced a silver path down his cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb, my heart aching with a tenderness so profound it felt like a brand.

"Well," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I have. And I'll do it again. And again."

He opened his eyes, and the look he gave me was so full of gratitude and affection and something else—something fierce and possessive and new—that it took my breath away. He reached up and covered my hand with his, holding it against his cheek, his thumb gently stroking the back of my hand. The weight of his hand, the warmth of his skin, was a promise. A promise that he was here. That he was mine.

His thumb moved in slow, absent circles against my skin, and I thought, wildly, that I could live in that motion forever. The room was quiet except for our breathing, the hum of the radiator, and the faint clatter of the dryer down the hall. My whole world had narrowed to the press of his cheek under my palm and the way his lashes fluttered like he was trying to keep all the feeling from spilling out.

He exhaled, a shaky, uneven sound, and whispered, “I don’t deserve this.”

“You do,” I said, soft and sure. “Harry, you deserve more than this.”

His eyes met mine again, and I saw the turmoil swirling within them. The gratitude was still there, but now it was mixed with a deep-seated fear, the kind that comes from being given something you've never had and worrying you might break it.

"We can do whatever," I promised, my voice a steady anchor in the storm. "We can just sit here, or we can look at the stars on the ceiling, or we can go downstairs and steal some marshmallows. Whatever you want."

A small, hesitant smile touched his lips. "Marshmallows," he said, the word a small, fragile sound.

I smiled back, a genuine, unburdened smile. "Marshmallows it is."

He sat up slowly, carefully, like he was afraid to break the moment. I watched him, memorizing the way his curls fell across his forehead, the way his shoulders looked a little less tense than they had just an hour ago. He was still guarded, still a little fragile, but he was here. In my room. In my space. And for the first time in a long time, he was safe.

We walked downstairs together, the quiet hum of the house a welcome soundtrack. The kitchen was still warm, the lingering scent of hot chocolate and dinner a comfort. He took the marshmallow bag and, with a mischievous grin, poured a generous handful into a mug. I watched him, feeling a warmth spread through me that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

He popped one in his mouth before I could even tease him, his cheeks puffing slightly as he chewed. His grin was soft and lopsided, sugar dusting his lower lip.

“You’re supposed to put those in cocoa,” I said, leaning against the counter like I wasn’t hopelessly gone for him.

“They’re in my cocoa now,” he mumbled around the marshmallow, holding up his mug triumphantly. “Cocoa… adjacent.”

I laughed, the sound spilling out without permission. It bounced off the kitchen tiles, warm and easy, and I caught the ghost of it mirrored in his face. Harry leaned against the counter beside me, shoulders brushing mine, and for the first time all night, he didn’t look like he was bracing for impact.

“After sugar theft, you want to try and paint something?” I grin.

Harry’s head tilted, curls swaying like they were considering it, too. He squinted at me with playful suspicion. “Paint? At—” he glanced at the oven clock, “—whatever-o’-clock it is now?”

“Art never sleeps,” I said solemnly, then ruined it by snickering. “Also, it might be funny if we’re sugar-high and sleep-deprived. You might accidentally create a masterpiece.”

He chewed the last of his marshmallow and licked a bit of sugar from his thumb, thinking. “You mean I might ruin your paintbrushes and insult your craft.”

“I mean,” I said, leaning closer, “you might paint the next Mona Lisa, and she’ll have five eyes and fangs, and we’ll sell it for millions.”

That earned me a grin—a real one, full and slightly crooked. “Alright. Where’s your studio, Picasso?”

I held up a finger. “First of all, rude. Second of all, kitchen table.”

We raided the hall cupboard for the old, battered watercolor set I’d had since I was twelve and a stack of slightly-wrinkled sketch paper. The table was still scattered with the girls’ crayons, a half-finished maze puzzle, and a forgotten hair clip shaped like a star. Harry hesitated before sitting, glancing at the clutter like it was a sacred site. I swept an arm across the table dramatically.

“Behold: the atelier.”

He snorted. “Very prestigious. I like the… uh… cereal-box centerpiece.”

“Thank you. It’s postmodern.”

We spread out the paints, a glass of water between us, and I handed him a brush. He held it like it might explode.

“What do I… paint?”

“Whatever you want,” I said, shrugging. “No wrong answers.”

He stared at the paper like it had personally offended him. “I don’t… do this. I mean—I’ve never—”

“That’s the fun part,” I said, dipping my brush in blue. “It’s supposed to be messy.”

Harry watched me drag a lazy stripe of sky across my page, then slowly dipped his brush into the water. His hand hovered over the green paint, paused, then darted to red like he was stealing it. He made a single, tentative streak.

“There,” he said flatly. “Art.”

I tilted my head. “Looks like a—um—passionate earthworm?”

His mouth twitched. “It’s… abstract.”

“Ah. Yes. I feel the emotion. The inner turmoil of the worm.”

And then he laughed. Really laughed. Head back, shoulders shaking, the sound bright and bubbling in the sleepy kitchen. It hit me like sunlight through a window I hadn’t opened in years.

“Stop,” he said, swiping at his eyes like laughter was too indulgent. “You’re—god, you’re stupid.”

“Thank you,” I said, faux-serious, “I take that as the highest compliment.”

He rolled his eyes and dipped his brush again, but his hand was steadier now. He started adding little lines, curves, a circle that looked suspiciously like a sun. I watched his face while he painted—soft and focused, the tension in his jaw melting with each stroke.

After a while, he glanced at me shyly. “Yours is… actually good.”

“Eh,” I said, swirling my brush. “Yours is better. It’s got… personality.”

“You’re just saying that because it looks like a potato with a crown.”

I leaned closer, pretending to study it. “A royal potato. I respect her.”

He snorted again, hiding his smile behind his sleeve. The room felt lighter than air. The marshmallows were gone, the water cup was murky brown, and there was a smear of yellow on Harry’s wrist like a secret sun.

“You’re gonna have paint on your hoodie,” I said, nudging him. “Consider it your artist initiation.”

He looked at the yellow smudge, then at me. “Worth it.”

And maybe it was the sugar, or the late hour, or the way he said it so quietly, like the whole night had been worth it—but I felt my chest ache in that familiar, warm way again.

Outside, the wind pressed against the windows. Inside, Harry leaned over his page, tongue caught between his teeth, safe enough to make a mess in my kitchen.

The night stretched soft and elastic around us, like the house itself was holding its breath so we could stay in this little bubble of watercolor and sugar. Harry’s potato-with-a-crown had evolved into a small kingdom—he’d added a lopsided blue castle and what he swore were “noble birds,” though they looked like tiny, ecstatic boomerangs.

“You’re mocking me in your head,” he said without looking up.

“Absolutely not,” I said, smirking as I flicked a little dot of gold onto my paper. “I’m admiring the… avant-garde approach to architecture.”

He grinned, dipping his brush back into the murky water, and a drop of green landed on the table. His hand froze.

“Shit,” He whispered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

“Don’t worry,” I said, reaching for a napkin. “This table’s seen worse. Lottie once tried to paint her toenails on it. With ketchup.”

Harry’s laugh cracked out of him before he could hold it in. “Ketchup?”

“She was three,” I said, mopping up the paint. “She thought it would make them ‘fancy.’”

The laugh tapered into a quiet smile. He shook his head, looking around the warm kitchen like he was cataloging every corner, every ghost of life in it. Then his gaze slid to me, lingering a moment longer than usual. I felt it in my chest.

Eventually, the brush stilled in his hand. He blinked, slower now, the sugar high melting into something softer. “I’m… kind of tired,” he murmured.

“Yeah?”

He nodded, gaze dropping to the little kingdom he’d made. “But… like… good tired. Not the kind that eats you.”

I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. “That’s the best kind.”

We cleaned up in slow motion—rinsed brushes, stacked damp papers along the counter to dry. I caught him yawning into his sleeve, curls flopping in his face. It made something protective spark in me.

“C’mon,” I said, jerking my head toward the stairs. “We can crash before the marshmallows stage a revolt.”

He followed, steps dragging but easy. Upstairs, my room was just as we’d left it: lamp still on, the blanket crumpled, the soft hum of the radiator filling the space. Harry hovered in the doorway for half a second, then padded in without prompting.

“Do you want me to draw you a bath?” I ask, placing a folded set of my pajamas beside Harry on my bed.

They’re a matching set Lottie bought me last Christmas, soft cotton with tiny white stripes. She accidentally bought a size too big, and they’d always hung loose on me, sliding off my shoulders in a way that made me feel like I was playing dress-up in someone else’s skin. I didn’t know, until now, that maybe they weren’t meant for me at all. That maybe they’d been waiting for him.

Harry hesitates, his long fingers brushing the fabric like it’s something fragile. He looks so out of place and yet… so painfully right here, like the air has bent itself around him to make room.

“I think that would be nice,” Harry says finally, his voice low, almost careful.

I want to kiss him then. To cup his face in my hands and press my mouth to his until he melts into me, until he knows without words that he’s safe here, wanted here. That I’d never hurt him. But I don’t.

I just nodded, the want heavy in my throat, and slipped out into the hallway.

I knocked gently on the bathroom door—more a habit than anything—and it creaked open under the weight of my fist. I clicked the light on and stepped inside, shutting the door behind me with a quiet thud.

The bathroom was small, barely enough room to turn around in without knocking your elbow into something. The sink was tucked to the left, its chipped edge holding an old toothbrush cup and a cracked mirror that fogged if the water ran too hot. The toilet lid was covered in tampons and hair clips, the kind of clutter that used to embarrass me until it didn’t. Until I learned what it meant to live with people who trusted you enough to leave traces of themselves behind.

And then the tub—stubby and deep, white porcelain dulled to a soft gray in spots where the glaze had worn off. Five feet, maybe. I never fit in it properly, and I was barely over five-seven on a good day. Harry wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d have to curl himself up, knees to chest like a kid hiding from a storm.
 But I ran the bath for him anyway.

I moved on instinct, pulling a towel from the cupboard—blue, the softest one we had—and laying it across the tub’s edge like a welcome mat. I peeled back the floral curtain and knelt down beside the faucet, I dropped the drain before curling my fingers around the knob.

The I changed the temperature a few times, the old pipes groaning as if the house itself was listening. I let the water run for a minute, then slipped my hand beneath the stream. Too hot—the heat bit at my skin, sharp enough to make it prickle. I twisted the tap toward cold, and the bite turned to a shiver, like fresh wind rushing over my fingers. I did this again and again, chasing a middle ground.

Finally, I found it—the warmth that sat between burn and chill, the one that whispered safe. I left my hand there for a moment, letting the heat seep into my bones, and realized how long it had been since I’d done this for myself. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d drawn a bath and just… sat. Let my body be held without urgency.

The water climbed higher, curling against the tub’s walls. It rose slowly, then settled, the surface smoothing as if even the bath knew it was meant to be gentle tonight. I watched it for a while, hypnotized by the soft swirls of steam, by the idea that this small space could hold quiet in a way the world rarely did.

My attention was drawn from the rising water by a gentle knock, so soft it sounded as if the person behind it feared bruising the wood.

The door eased open, and Harry slipped inside. He didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t need to. I wanted him to know he was welcome in any room I touched, that there was no corner of my life he couldn’t step into if he wanted.

He had the pajama set in his hands, folded neatly, his fingers brushing the fabric as if it were fragile. His smile was small, soft at the edges, and for a second I forgot to breathe. He shut the door gently behind him, his presence filling the room without a sound.

“I figured it would be ready by now,” he said, setting the pajamas on the toilet lid. His voice carried a calm I didn’t hear often, like all the tension he lived in had slipped off his shoulders for a moment. He looked… unguarded. Exposed, but not in a way that hurt. Like he’d finally decided, just for tonight, that he didn’t have to pretend to be fine.

I turned back to the tub, dragging my fingers through the water and flicking a small splash to the side before resting my damp palm on my thigh. “Yeah, it is,” I murmured, though part of me was talking about more than the bath.

I knew I should leave, give him space, but my feet didn’t move. My chest didn’t want to. Staying close to him felt like the only thing I knew how to do anymore.

“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, my voice barely above the soft hum of the pipes. “You can call for me if you need anything.”

I made the mistake of looking up, of meeting his eyes. God, his eyes. Green and heavy and so honest they stole the air from my lungs.

“You don’t have to,” he whispered.

The words were soft but heavy, the kind of quiet that filled a room instead of slipping through it. My chest tightened at the trust tucked inside them.

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even try. All I could think was that this—this—was what it felt like to be chosen, even in the smallest way. To be asked to stay, not because I had to, but because he wanted me here.

So I stayed.

I didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t even nod. I just stayed where I was, perched on the edge of the tub, hands damp and useless in my lap. The bath continued to fill beside me, steam curling up to kiss my cheeks, warming the skin I hadn’t realized had gone cold.

Harry didn’t say anything else, either. He didn’t need to.

He reached for the hem of his shirt slowly, like it was something sacred, something he didn’t want to rush. I didn’t look away. I should have—I told myself I should give him privacy, give him dignity—but something about the moment was so quiet, so intimate in a way that had nothing to do with bodies and everything to do with trust, that I couldn’t turn from it.

Something eased in his shoulders, as he peeled the shirt over his head. His curls fell forward with the motion, and my chest ached with the urge to reach out, to smooth them back, to touch him anywhere he’d let me. Bruises bloomed faintly along his ribs, half-hidden in the low bathroom light. They were old, fading from violet to yellow, but they still felt like fresh cuts across my chest.

I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.

He moved to undo the button on his jeans, slow and deliberate, and my breath snagged in my throat like it was caught on barbed wire. Each small motion felt weighted, hesitant, like he was asking me a question he wasn’t speaking aloud.

His long fingers curved around the zipper, easing it down with a faint rasp of metal. The denim slipped over his hips, revealing the soft line of his waist, the flush of pale skin that had been hidden under layers all day. My eyes betrayed me, selfish in their hunger, sliding down the length of him—memorizing the planes of his body like I was sketching them in my mind.

His boxers hid what he wasn’t ready to give, a quiet boundary I didn’t dare cross. But still, I couldn’t help it—I devoured the sight of him with my gaze, taking in the stark contrast of his long, strong legs against the dim light of the bathroom. They were steady, holding up a boy who had spent far too long holding up the weight of his own world.

He was beautiful. God, he was beautiful. Not just in the way his body caught the light or the way his curls brushed his neck, damp from the steam curling off the bathwater. It was in the way he carried himself, even now, vulnerability stitched into every line of him. His chest was a map of bruises, faint and fading, shapes I knew he hadn’t deserved to earn. They were cruel fingerprints of a life that had asked too much of him and given too little in return.

And I ached. I ached to touch him, to smooth my hands over the slopes of his ribs and feel the warmth of his skin under my fingertips. I didn’t just want to see him breathe—I wanted to feel it, the rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm, the living proof that he was here, safe, mine to protect if only for this fragile moment.

The want lodged in my throat, hot and desperate. I stayed rooted to the tub, letting my eyes speak the things my hands couldn’t.

Harry steps closer to the rim of the tub, his movements slow, almost tentative. Steam rises in soft, curling ribbons, wrapping around his bare arms, catching in his curls. He studies the water for a moment, watching the tiny ripples settle into a perfect stillness now that I’ve turned off the faucet.

For a heartbeat, it feels like the room is holding its breath with him.

He glances at me, quick but searching, like he’s checking that I’m still here, still steady. I meet his gaze with the smallest smile I can manage, the one I hope tells him I’m not going anywhere. That I’ll keep this room safe for him. That he is safe.

His eyes linger for a fraction longer than I expect, and then he looks back to the tub. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, slow, deliberate, and pulls down the last layer between us. For a split second, my eyes catch on the new skin revealed, the soft pale curve of his hip, the faint line of muscle, the vulnerable truth of him. A greedy part of me wants to drink it in, to memorize every inch like it’s art meant only for me.

But before I can even fully trace him with my gaze, he’s stepping into the water, his body folding into the bath as though he’s been swallowed by the steam. The water rises around him in a hush, lapping at his ribs, his chest, until he’s sunk low, his knees bent to fit the too-small tub. His eyelashes flutter at the first touch of heat, and a breath shudders out of him—soft, barely there, but enough to make my chest ache.

There’s something almost holy in the way he settles in, like the water is cradling him in a way the world never has. His shoulders sink, his neck tilts back against the rim.

And God, the sight of it does something to me. This boy, who’s spent his life swallowing pain in silence, letting himself be held by something—by warmth, by safety, by the fragile promise of peace. I want to promise him more. I want to give him more.

“Can I draw you?”

Harry’s head tips slightly toward me, his curls damp with steam and his lashes heavy with the kind of tired that sinks deeper than bone. For a heartbeat, I think he hasn’t heard me—or maybe that I’ve crossed some invisible line, shattered the quiet sanctuary we’ve built here in porcelain and steam.

Then his lips twitch. Not quite a smile, but the echo of one, the ghost of light behind his eyes.

“You want to draw me?” His voice is soft, wrapped in that almost-laugh that’s more wonder than amusement. “I thought you didn’t draw people?”

I blink, startled that he remembers.

“I don’t,” I say, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “Not usually.”

Not because I can’t. Because I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong. Because drawing someone means seeing them—all of them—and putting that truth down in ink feels like a responsibility too big to take lightly. But with Harry, the fear feels smaller than the need.

He watches me, water curling around his chest, steam gathering at the corners of the mirror behind him.

“Then why me?”

The question hangs there, delicate and dangerous, like it already knows the answer but wants to be told anyway.

I shift slightly on the edge of the tub, not quite meeting his eyes. “Because… you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to get right.”

His breath stutters in his chest. I don’t look up, not yet. I’m not brave enough for that. I trace the rim of the tub with my fingers, gathering condensation in small, trembling beads.

I dare a glance at him after a second, just a flick of my gaze. He’s looking at me like I’ve handed him something he forgot he was allowed to want.

And then he nods. Barely. A movement so small it might not exist outside this room.

“Okay,” he says. “Draw me.”

It’s not permission—it’s an invitation.

I stand with a smile, “Good, I’ll be right back.”

I leave out the door, coming back with a pencil, and a sketchbook that’s never felt more like a heartbeat in my hands. I lock the door this time, knowing Harry hadn’t when he came in.

I balance back on the rim, and watch him for a brief moment.

I don’t ask him to pose. I don’t want to change anything. I want him exactly as he is: skin damp, curls soft, eyes open. His knees pulled up, arms loose on the rim, his body curved into a shape that feels equal parts fortress and surrender.

My pencil moves slowly at first, tracing the soft slope of his arm, the dip where his shoulder meets the faint ridge of his collarbone. I let the line curve down to his ribs, gentle arcs that rise and fall with every quiet breath he takes. My fingers know what to do, even when my chest feels like it’s caving in.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t fidget, just lets me look. Lets me see him. His eyes are half-lidded, green softened by steam, and his head tilts against the rim of the tub again.

I sketch the angle of his jaw, the curve of his ear, the damp curls that cling to his temple. Every shadow, every highlight feels like a confession I’ve been waiting to spill. He’s not posing—he’s existing, and I’ve never drawn something so alive.

My pencil keeps moving, catching the shape of his knuckles where they rest on the edge of the tub, long fingers loose, like they’re finally allowed to be. I darken my lines as the water line that comes up and submerges everything below his waist.

When I finish the outline, I pause, letting my thumb smear the faint shadow along his chest, following the dip between his ribs where old bruises fade into pale skin. I don’t need the color to remember. It’s all there already, written under my eyelids.

“Do you want to see?” I ask, lifting the sketchbook slightly Harry opens his eyes fully this time, slow and heavy, like it takes effort to come back from wherever the warmth has taken him. He blinks through the soft steam, his gaze finding mine before it drops to the sketchbook.

“Yeah,” he says, voice scratchy and low. “I want to see how you see me.”

My throat tightens at that, but I don’t comment—I just turn the sketchbook toward him. The pencil lines tremble slightly from my own hands, but the boy in the drawing is steady. Curled in a too-small tub, eyes soft, shoulders bare. Bruises rendered as faint shadows, not shame. He looks… safe.

Harry watched it for a second, then he moved. His body glided through water, his limbs somehow still fitting in the tub. He cleans his hands off on the blue towel, and looks between the page and me.

I hadn’t realized how close he was, not until he spoke.

His voice was barely above a breath. “You see me like that?” His fingertips hovered just above the page again, like if he touched it, it might vanish. Like he didn’t quite believe it belonged to him.

I nodded, my voice caught somewhere in the back of my throat. “I always have.”

Harry looked up at me then—really looked. And I swear, for a moment, everything else fell away. The peeling paint on the bathroom walls, the hum of old pipes, even the steam curling between us. It was just him. And me. And the quiet gravity of what had been said.

He didn’t smile. Not quite. But something flickered across his face—something soft and full of awe. Like he’d been walking through the world convinced he was made of shattered glass and had just discovered someone had been seeing stained glass the whole time.

He handed the sketchbook back, careful not to smudge the page. “Thank you,” he murmured.

I shook my head gently, still holding his gaze. “You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to.”

For a second, he looked like he might cry. His eyes shimmered at the edges—not with sadness, but something more delicate. Something like being seen. Like being chosen.

I set the sketchbook on the counter because suddenly I don’t know what to do with my hands. Not with him this close.

Harry Styles, all soft edges and quiet gravity, sitting so near that his warmth reaches me without a single touch. My hands ache to close the gap—to thread into his curls, to trace the line of his jaw, to anchor myself in the reality of him—but I don’t.

I don’t.

Because if I get this wrong, if I reach too soon, it could all unravel into another mistake I can’t take back.

“Louis—” he says, and my name leaves his lips like a tremor, a word balancing on the edge of breaking.

Then his fingers find me.

Slow, hesitant, curling around the back of my neck with a care that doesn’t match the way my chest erupts like fireworks. His hands are damp, his arm still dripping with water. But I don’t mind, not as long as he keeps touching me.

I forget how to breathe. My heart doesn’t beat this fast; it’s not built for this kind of sprint. It’s like something is loosening in my chest, like the rope I didn’t even know I was bound with is slipping free thread by thread.

I want to touch him back so badly it hurts. But my hands betray me—they only dig into the denim at my thighs, curling like they can anchor me to patience.

Harry’s eyes are green the way secrets are green—deep, unreachable, and untouchable unless he’s the one who hands you the key.

And in this moment, he does.

His other hand rises from the water, trembling slightly, leaving tiny droplets in its wake. He cups my jaw, thumb brushing just beneath my cheekbone, and the world narrows to that single, aching point of contact. His touch is tentative, like he’s still expecting me to flinch, to vanish, to tell him he’s asking for too much.

But I lean into it. God, I lean. I let my eyes flutter shut for a second, drinking in the warmth of his hand, the quiet plea in the way he’s holding me like I might break if he’s not careful.

When I open my eyes again, his are already there—steady, green and wet at the edges, looking at me like he’s been lost in a storm and just spotted land.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispers. It’s a confession, small and cracked and heavy with more than just this moment.

“You don’t have to,” I say, my voice breaking right down the middle. “You don’t have to know. I’m right here.”

A shudder rolls through him. His fingers slide into my hair, damp and shaking, and I swear I feel the moment he lets himself fall—just a little, just enough that I can catch him if he does.

I move my hand, finally, prying it off my thigh and up, up, until my fingertips ghost over the back of his knuckles. I give him the space to pull away if he needs to, but he doesn’t. He presses closer instead, like maybe touch is oxygen and he’s been holding his breath for years.

The bathroom is silent except for the faint drip of water from his arm onto the floor, the occasional ripple in the tub. Steam curls around us, softening the edges of everything, and all I can think is that I’ve never been trusted with something this fragile before.

He exhales shakily, his forehead tipping forward until it rests against mine. My breath stutters, caught between wanting and awe. His curls brush my temple, damp and heavy, and the heat from the bath clings to both of us like we’re wrapped in something private and unspoken.

I move slowly.

Every inch feels monumental, a decision I can’t undo, a vow I don’t even have to speak because it’s already written in my bones.

I press my lips to his, soft as a feather falling.
He inhales sharply, the sound catching between us, and for a heartbeat, I think he might pull away. But he doesn’t.

Instead, he melts—just barely, just enough that I feel the tremor of it in the way his lips part under mine, in the way his fingers tighten in my hair like he’s afraid the world will take this away from him if he lets go.

The kiss is soft, tentative, all question and no demand. I keep it that way. I don’t push, don’t deepen it, don’t ask for anything he’s not ready to give. I just let him know, with every careful brush of my mouth against his, that he’s safe. That he’s wanted.

When we pull apart, it’s only far enough for breath to slip between us. His lashes flutter against his cheeks as he opens his eyes, and the sight nearly undoes me.

His breath ghosts over my lips, shaky and sweet, and for a second neither of us moves. The world is balanced on a pin, and I’m terrified that if I even blink, it’ll all collapse and scatter like marbles across the floor.

Then he leans forward, just a fraction, his forehead brushing mine. The smallest touch, but it feels seismic—like my chest might split open with the sheer force of it. I close my eyes because I can’t take in that much green, that much trust, all at once.

I had thought for a second about now this meant Harry cheated. But then again, it hadn’t felt that way. It felt like choosing more than cheating.

And maybe that’s what this really was—not betrayal, but reclamation. Not a mistake, but a quiet, trembling kind of courage. A boy deciding, maybe for the first time, that he didn’t have to stay where it hurt just because it was familiar. That love wasn’t supposed to be something you flinched from.

Harry’s thumb swept gently along the curve of my cheek, a soft pass like he was memorizing the shape of me. I could feel the water still dripping from his wrist, trailing down my neck like another whispered yes. I let my hand settle more firmly against his, fingers sliding between his like they were meant to belong there. Like maybe they always had.

Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t crumble under the weight of it all. The moment had already stretched wider than language could reach. All I could do was breathe him in—his warmth, his nearness, the sharp, tender ache of wanting him to feel this safe forever.

Eventually, I felt his lips press to the corner of my mouth—barely a kiss, more a promise. He rested there for a moment, forehead still touching mine, and I swear I felt him exhale something that had been living in his chest far too long.

“Will you get in with me?” he murmured, eyes still closed.

I almost laughed. A breathless, half-sob, half-joy sound that died in my throat. Of course, I would. I would get in with him, I would drown with him, I would follow him into any warmth, any danger, if it meant being this close.

"Are you sure?" I managed.

He opened his eyes then, and the green was clearer now, less veiled by unspoken pain, more luminous with a fragile hope. He shifted, a slow, unhurried movement in the small tub, making just enough space for me. The water rippled, inviting, and the steam seemed to thicken around us, sealing us in our own hushed world.

I peeled off my jeans and shirt, my movements less graceful than his, but equally deliberate. Every button, every slide of fabric, felt charged with meaning. I kicked off my socks, my skin prickling with anticipation. The cool air on my bare skin was a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from the tub, from Harry.

When I was finally naked, I hesitated for a fraction of a second at the edge, a sudden wave of self-consciousness washing over me. Harry, seeing my pause, reached out a hand, his fingers parting the surface of the water. It was a silent invitation, a reassurance that I was seen, accepted, wanted.

I stepped over the rim, easing myself into the water, a soft sigh escaping my lips as the heat enveloped me. It was deeper than I expected, swirling up to my chest. I sank down, facing him, our knees knocking gently.

We shifted, a slow, intimate dance in the small space, until I was settled between his open legs, our chests rising and falling together. His face was impossibly close, clear in the steamy air. The water lapped gently at our shoulders, a soft, rhythmic lullaby.

One hand curls around the rim of the bath, the other slowly moves to cup Harry’s cheek. “Can I kiss you again?”

Harry’s breath hitched, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat before he nodded, barely audible. “Yeah… please.”

I leaned in slowly, giving him every moment to pull away, but he stayed still, waiting. My lips brushed his, soft, the same quiet question I’d asked before—but this time with a flicker of something more, a spark beneath the surface.

His fingers found the nape of my neck, gripping gently as if holding onto a lifeline. The warmth of his touch sent a ripple through me, deeper than the bathwater surrounding us. Our kiss deepened, slow and careful, each movement a conversation without words—an exploration of trust and fragile hope.

The steam swirled around us, blurring the edges of the world, until all I could feel was the steady rise and fall of his breath mingling with mine. His hands slid down from my neck to my shoulders, and I mirrored him, resting my palms lightly against the curve of his ribs, feeling the faint pulse beneath bruised skin.

He shivered, a soft sound pressed against my mouth as I pulled back just enough to let us breathe.

We didn’t stay apart for long. Harry’s lips found mine again, like a tide that couldn’t help but return to shore, and I let myself be carried with it. My own kiss answered his, a little desperate, a little shaking with the relief of finally being allowed to want this.
It was like a dam breaking—one crack, one inch of freedom, and then there was no stopping the flood.

What started as soft brushes of lips—sweet, tentative, testing—deepened into something that felt like hunger, like relief, like home. His mouth parted against mine, and our tongues found their own language in the heat between us. I felt him arch into me, every curve of his body asking for something wordless, and I gave it to him. Our hands slipped from under the bathwater to explore, to memorize, to leave trails of warmth over skin that had only ever learned to brace for hurt.

He made a sound—soft, unguarded—like water tipping from a glass, and my chest ached with how much I loved him for it.

I’d thought he was beautiful the first time I saw him.
But this—this was something else entirely. This was Harry letting me touch a body that had flinched more times than it had been held. This was him choosing to open the door and let me in. That was the kind of beautiful that wrecked me.

I pulled back just long enough to breathe, catching his bottom lip between my teeth as I went. He gasped, and I chased the sound with a kiss to his throat. My mouth followed the line of it down, tasting the soft thrum of his pulse. His body reacted instantly, shivering beneath my touch, his fingers sliding into my wet hair. Nails grazed my scalp in light, uncertain scratches, while his other hand clutched at my back like I was a life vest, and he’d been lost at sea.

I left my own mark that night, gentle but certain—a small bite against the curve of his neck. Not like the other marks on him, the ones that had come from fear, from anger, from hands that didn’t know the meaning of care. Mine came from want. From love.

When I pulled back, I saw it there on his skin, a bloom of pink where my teeth had been, and for the first time, I saw Harry smile at the thought of being marked.

He whispered, breath hitching as his hand cupped my jaw, “I wish… all of them could feel like that. Like yours.”

Something in me cracked wide open. I pressed my forehead to his and whispered against his mouth, “Then let me give you a thousand more.”

His voice was a soft, broken exhale.
And then he nodded. Just once. Just enough.

His hands stayed on me—one pressed against my jaw, the other splayed across my back, damp and trembling. His skin clung with warmth and steam, but his touch was still careful, like he hadn’t quite unlearned the need to flinch.

Harry buried his face in the curve of my neck, his lips brushing skin, not kissing—just breathing. I closed my eyes, my hand moving in slow circles along the dip of his spine, and something unspooled in my chest. Something quiet and reverent.

We stayed like that for a while. No rush. No words. Just the quiet weight of him against me, the way his breath stuttered every few moments like he was still testing the air.

Then he whispered, voice muffled by my skin, “I want you closer.”

The words trembled against my collarbone, carried on a breath that seemed to cost him everything. My heart lurched, heat blooming through my chest, not just from the bath but from the weight of being wanted like this—softly, carefully, desperately.

I shifted, careful, the water sloshing gently around us. His legs parted a little wider under the surface, and I slid fully against him, chest to chest, heart to heart. His shiver rippled through both of us, and he made a sound I don’t think he meant to—half relief, half something that cracked open inside him.

“Like this?” I asked, my lips brushing his temple.

“Yeah,” he breathed, curling his arms around my back, pulling me in until there was no space left, not even for the steam. “Like this.”

I held him tighter, my palm skimming the nape of his neck, damp curls soft against my fingers. He tilted his face up, eyes heavy and searching, and I kissed him again—deeper this time, because I knew he wanted it. Because I wanted to give it. His mouth opened under mine, and our bodies shifted in the water, a slow tangle of limbs and warmth.

His hips lift—and when the movement meets mine, his moan spills into my mouth, unguarded and aching. It stuns something inside me, makes my breath catch with the force of it. Not just because of the sound—raw and beautiful—but because I understand what it means.

I understand what he’s asking without words.
What it costs him to ask at all.

This isn’t just want. It’s trust—trembling and fragile and whole. Trust in me, a person who isn’t his boyfriend, who isn’t the boy he’s supposed to go home to, the one who leaves marks not made from love.

He’s offering me something sacred, something wounded and still willing. Not because he needs to feel wanted, but because—for a breath, for a heartbeat—he believes I won’t hurt him for it. That I’ll carry the weight of this moment like it deserves to be cradled, not crushed.

And I do.

I match his movement—not out of hunger, though I ache in ways I can’t name—but because I know exactly what I’m being handed. The shivering hush between his ribs. The permission to see him like this and not flinch. To touch him and not take. To give, without ever needing to be given back.

My hands anchor at his hips, steadying us both. Beneath the water, he’s all heat and vulnerability, tension strung tight along muscle and bone. And I swear, I feel his heart in all of it. Pounding against mine. Beating out the rhythm of some new kind of language we’re both still learning to speak.

I kiss him deeper, softer, like maybe I can speak it for both of us. Like maybe I can press into him all the things he’s never been told: you’re safe, you’re seen, you’re wanted without condition.

A part of me splits open because I know—God, I know—that if Chris finds out about this, Harry will be the one who pays. Not me. He always is. That’s what abuse does. It doesn’t just bruise—it rewrites fear into the bones of everything good.

The water rocked gently around us, little ripples tapping at the porcelain, as if the bath itself were holding its breath. Harry’s chest pressed to mine, our hearts caught in the same stuttering rhythm. Every part of him felt alive under my hands—warm, trembling, waiting.

He tipped his head just enough for his nose to brush mine, his breath catching like he was standing on the edge of something he’d never dared to look down into before. I could feel it in the way his fingers clutched at my back—not demanding, not desperate, but holding on as if letting go meant the world would snap shut on him again.

“You feel… good,” he whispered, the words broken and shaky, but heavier than anything I’d ever heard. Like saying them was a leap he wasn’t sure he’d survive. I kissed the words right off his lips, slow and careful, and felt the way his body softened against me in response. Each shift of his hips under the water was a quiet plea, and I met him with the same tenderness he’d offered me, never pushing, only answering.

Harry shifted in the water, the movement subtle, careful. His thighs pressed against mine under the surface, his breath soft at my temple. When he spoke again, it was barely more than a breath—spoken not to convince me, but maybe to steady himself.

“I want you.” The words trembled with truth, not lust. Not need, but choice.

I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t need to—not when he was already pressing closer, his body saying what words couldn't. My fingers slid along his ribs, reverent and slow, and I felt the way he shivered under my touch, not from cold, but from the sheer weight of being seen and not stopped.

“I’m yours,” I whispered, forehead resting against his. “However you want me, I’m yours.”

I let my hands wander, trailing over his chest, his sides, memorizing the soft hills and dips of him beneath the water. I traced the small scar by his hip, the faint line of a bruise half-faded near his ribs. He didn’t flinch when I touched it—just closed his eyes like he was letting me rewrite what it meant.

When he guided my hand lower, tentative but sure, I stilled. Not from hesitation—but to look at him. Really look. His eyes met mine, wide and vulnerable. No shame, no mask. Just Harry.

I swallowed, my throat tight with a mixture of awe and profound tenderness. This was a moment suspended, fragile and sacred. I leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, then to his nose, and finally, to his lips. Each touch was a promise, a reassurance that I understood the weight of his offering.

I let him lead, following the subtle shifts of his body, the unspoken direction of his hands. The water around us seemed to hum, a soft, warm embrace. His hips lifted again, a slow, deliberate movement, and I met him, not with force, but with a gentle reciprocity that spoke of reverence.

His breath hitched, a soft gasp that broke against my lips, and I felt the tremor run through him, a seismic shift in his guarded world. He arched into me, a silent, beautiful unfolding, and his fingers tightened, tangling in my wet hair, pulling me closer still.

The tub was too small, but we made room. We moved slowly, tangled limbs adjusting in the steamy hush, hips shifting, bodies curving into one another like they’d been shaped by the same mold.

When I finally entered him—careful, so careful—it was with both of us holding our breath. His fingers gripped the back of my neck, and I watched his face the entire time. Every twitch of his lips. Every crease of his brow. Every gasp that escaped from somewhere deep in his chest.

He didn’t look away. Neither did I.

I whispered his name like a tether, grounding us. My name slipped from his lips like something precious.

His breath mingled with the steam, a warm mist curling around us like a whispered spell. I moved slowly, reverently—each inch a promise traced in the delicate language of touch. The water swirled, a gentle tide carrying us both, buoying the fragile trust we’d dared to weave between trembling fingers and aching lips.

His eyes—those storm-washed green oceans—locked onto mine, holding me steady even as my heart galloped wild beneath ribs that suddenly felt too tight, too bare. I saw everything there: the scars that whispered of old battles, the quiet hopes flickering like fragile lanterns in the dark, the vulnerability made brave by the courage of choosing this moment, this surrender.

I kissed him again, soft and slow, a balm for wounds unseen. My hands explored his trembling form, memorizing curves and lines as if carving his story into my skin—each touch a verse, each sigh a stanza in the poem of us.

The bath became a sanctuary, a small universe where the past’s shadows held no dominion. His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me closer, and I felt the quiet explosion of relief and belonging bloom inside me—a wildflower cracking through concrete.

We moved together like a secret dance, hesitant but hungry for connection, for the warmth that comes from being truly seen and held. His moans, soft and unguarded, were music—raw and trembling, a melody only I could hear.

When I finally pressed deeper into him, it was with all the gentleness I could summon, a silent prayer that this fragile moment would not break but blossom. His face, a canvas of trust and awe, watched mine with wide eyes, his breath hitching in rhythms I tried desperately to match.

When he came, it was quiet—his eyes wide and wet, his mouth parted against my shoulder. A soft cry, muffled against my skin, like something too big to carry alone.

I followed soon after, a low groan pressed into his throat, our bodies shivering in unison under the fading heat of the bath.

We stayed like that for a long time—tangled, spent, quiet. The water had cooled, but I didn’t feel it. I only felt him.

His heartbeat against mine. His hand still in my hair. His breath steadying beside my cheek.

Eventually, he spoke. “Will you, hold me until the water drains?”

My eyes, which had been closed, fluttered open. I felt the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing against my neck and the gentle weight of his body on mine.

“You’ll get cold, love,” I murmured, my lips brushing the top of his damp curls.

Harry made a small noise in his throat, somewhere between a hum and a sigh. “Don’t care,” he whispered, words muffled against my skin. His fingers curled against my back, holding me like he thought I might dissolve if he let go.

The bathwater lapped gently at our sides, the softest applause for the quiet we’d made. Steam still ghosted in the air, turning the light from the hall into a golden haze. I shifted, just enough to tuck his head beneath my chin, and wrapped my arms around him tighter.

“Alright,” I said softly.

We didn’t speak for a long while. Time stretched, slow and syrupy, as if the world beyond the bathroom door had paused to give us this single, perfect hour. His breathing evened out against my chest, the frantic edges smoothing into something almost peaceful. I traced slow circles against his back, feeling each rise and fall of his lungs, the tiny tremors that came and went like the last ripples in the water.

At some point, the bath cooled enough that goosebumps rose along my arms, but I stayed. He was warm against me, heavy with trust, and I couldn’t bear to shift even an inch if it meant breaking the spell.

The water gurgled softly as it slipped down the drain, taking the steam with it, leaving just us in the dim light. By the time the porcelain was bare beneath us, Harry was half-asleep in my arms, his face soft, his lips parted in a way I’d never seen before.

His lashes fluttered, damp and dark against his cheeks, and his breath ghosted warm across my collarbone. I held still as stone, afraid even the beat of my heart might wake him. There was something holy about the moment—like I’d stumbled into a chapel made of steam and skin, and every breath was a prayer not to be lost.

I shifted just enough to press a kiss to his forehead. He made a tiny sound in response, a hitch of breath, but didn’t open his eyes. His fingers curled tighter, and for a moment, I thought he’d drifted off again completely.

Then he murmured, “Can we go to bed now?”

I nodded, forgetting for a second he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, angel,” I whispered, brushing the backs of my knuckles over his cheek. “Come on.”

He let me help him out of the tub. Let me wrap him in the soft blue towel. Let me guide him gently into the clothes I’d left folded on the toilet lid.

The air in the bathroom was growing cool, the steam dissipated. He looked up, his eyes a little heavy, a little shy. His damp curls clung to his forehead, and a faint flush remained on his cheeks and shoulders. I knelt in front of him and gently toweled the rest of the moisture from his hair. He leaned into the touch, a soft exhale escaping his lips.

We moved back into my bedroom, the warm glow of the lamplight a welcome sight. He sat on my bed, pulling the blanket around himself, and I grabbed my own clothes. The world felt quiet, hushed, as if it were holding its breath with us.

I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a clean shirt, and when I turned back, he was watching me, his expression unreadable. I sat beside him on the bed, and he immediately shifted, making room for me.

I push his curls back from his forehead, fingers combing through the soft, damp strands—but they’re stubborn, falling right back into place. A little rebellion against order. Against me.

I smile anyway, a stupid grin that sticks even though my chest feels fragile as glass. “You want the bed to yourself? Or want me with you?” My voice comes out softer than I expect, like I’m tiptoeing over something uncrossed.

Because I don’t want him to think tonight locked him into anything. I don’t want him to feel like my touch is a chain, like he owes me the weight of his body beside mine. I wanted him safe, wanted him warm, wanted him to believe that what we shared wasn’t another thing someone would take from him.

The truth is, I’d sleep on the couch, the floor, the damn porch if it meant he could breathe here. I’d curl up in some dark corner and let my heart ache in silence, if that’s what comfort looked like for him.

I think he can feel that in my question, because his lashes lift, and his green eyes catch the dim light like polished glass. He studies me for a beat—quiet, hesitant, like he’s still testing the air between us. Like he’s not used to someone asking him what he wants instead of telling him.

His lip trembles, just slightly. Then he swallows, his voice breaking in a whisper. “With me… if you want.”

And God, the way he says it—like he’s offering me the universe with shaking hands—splits me open all over again.

I let out a soft, shaky laugh, my chest too tight for anything steadier. “Of course I want to,” I murmur, and the words feel like they land somewhere deep in the room, like they’ll keep echoing long after I’ve stopped speaking.

He shifts under the blanket, lifting one corner in a quiet invitation. I slide in beside him, careful, like if I move too fast the whole moment will vanish, leaving me alone with the scent of lavender soap and the ghost of his warmth. The mattress dips under my weight, and he immediately presses closer, rolling over so his back is against my chest. When I wrap my arms around him, he intertwines our fingers and holds them over his heart.

The rhythm of his heartbeat is soft and uneven under my hand. I breathe into his curls, letting the quiet settle over us like a second blanket, heavier than the quilt but warmer too, because it’s filled with something I can’t name—maybe trust, maybe awe, maybe the fragile miracle of being chosen.

His thumb traces small circles over my knuckles. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. His breathing evens out, a soft cadence that lulls me toward sleep, but my mind refuses to still completely. The room is warm, lamplight golden on the walls, but somewhere beyond these walls the world waits with its teeth.

Even with Harry soft and safe in my arms, shadows creep in like smoke under a locked door.

If Chris ever found out—if he knew Harry had stepped foot in my house, had crawled into my bed, had let himself be mine even for a few trembling hours—I knew it would ignite something ugly. Chris wouldn’t just be angry; he’d be the kind of furious that leaves scars in places you can’t see.

And the worst part, the part that makes my stomach twist and my hands curl into fists under the blanket, is that I can see it. I can picture it too clearly: Chris’s voice a roar, his hands fast and merciless, Harry cornered like a wounded animal. I see Harry’s eyes go distant in that way they sometimes do, like his soul is already halfway out of his body, floating somewhere safer because his body isn’t safe anymore.

If Chris ever went too far—and God, I know he could—he wouldn’t panic. He wouldn’t call for help or whisper apologies into Harry’s hair. No. Chris would leave him there, crumpled in that quiet, awful house, like a broken thing he didn’t want anymore. He’d walk away without looking back, and my boy… my boy would be left with nothing but that lonely, flickering will to keep breathing.

The thought makes my chest ache like a bruise spreading around my heart. Rage and grief knot together in my throat, sour and heavy. I want to tear Chris out of Harry’s life with my bare hands. I want to protect him in ways I’m not sure I even can.

I hate how easy it is to imagine, because it makes the warmth of Harry’s body against mine feel both warm and fleeting, like I’m holding something the world is already trying to take away.

Chapter Text

Sleep crept in sometime in the night, soft and silent like fog slipping through a window crack. I don’t remember closing my eyes, only the warmth of Harry curled into me, the weight of his hand over mine, the hush of the world folding itself around us like a second blanket.

I only knew I’d drifted off when I was kicked gently, but firmly—in the foot.

I groaned, scrubbing my eyes with the heel of my palm before prying them open. Light filtered through the curtains in pale ribbons, catching in the curls of the boy leaning over me. My boy. His curls were a sleepy mess of gold-brown in the morning sun, his cheeks pink with sleep, his grin bright and shameless.

“Wake up, Lou,” Harry whined, a mix of groggy and bubbling energy that shouldn’t exist at this hour. “I’m hungry.”

I blinked at him, my brain slow to boot up, and the first thing out of my mouth was a hoarse, “Then go get food, you shithead.” A grin tugged at my lips despite the rasp in my voice, the affection bleeding through even in the insult. I couldn’t muster annoyance, not with him looking at me like that—alive, safe, unbroken.

Harry let out an exaggerated groan, the sound vibrating against my shoulder as he flopped down beside me, tucking his face into the curve of my neck like he belonged there. His skin was cool from the morning air, his curls tickling my jaw.

“I can’t go down there alone,” he mumbled, words muffled but laced with something softer than laziness. “Do you just walk around and steal Zayn’s food, when you’re at his house?”

I huffed a sleepy laugh, my chest vibrating against his cheek. “Obviously,” I muttered. “What’s the point of having friends if you can’t rob them blind in the night?”

Harry snorted, a little puff of air against my throat that made my skin prickle. “Then be my friend and rob your own kitchen for me.” He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, the grin curling at his mouth softer than the words. His lashes were still clumped from sleep, his voice warm and rough like gravel under honey.

“Wow,” I said, faking offense, though my thumb was already tracing lazy circles over his hip. “I see how it is. I’m just your food mule now?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation, but his eyes glimmered, and the corner of his lip caught in his teeth. It wasn’t just teasing—it was comfort. Familiarity. Like he was trying it on for size and finding that maybe, just maybe, it fit.

I sighed dramatically, pushing the covers back. The room was cool against my bare arms, and Harry immediately grabbed my wrist like he was afraid I’d vanish with the warmth.

“You’re so clingy in the mornings,” I teased, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, but you don’t say to get off,” he said, voice muffled against the pillow now that he’d claimed my spot. “So what does that say about you?”

It says I’m yours, I think. But I don’t say it.
Not yet.
Instead, I stand and stretch, letting my back pop, the kind of deep, satisfying crack that comes after a night of real sleep—the kind I never got before he started crawling into my orbit like a secret the moon keeps. Harry hums like a content cat, still face-down in my pillow, and for a second, I forget the weight waiting on my phone screen. For a second, it’s just this: my boy tangled in my sheets, sunlight spilling over his bare shoulder like a blessing, the faint scent of lavender clinging to his skin and my pillowcase.

I head toward the door, tossing over my shoulder, “I’ll bring you toast, your highness. Maybe a single orange slice if I’m feeling generous.”

“You love me,” he calls back, muffled and smug.

I don’t answer. Just grin to myself like an idiot and head down the stairs.

The hallway was cold under my bare feet, the kind of morning chill that made me wish I’d grabbed a hoodie. But Harry’s laugh still rang in my ears, warm enough to pull me forward.

The kitchen was quiet, all soft golden light spilling through the window over the sink, dust motes floating like lazy fireflies. For a second, it felt like a house that belonged to us—like the world outside couldn’t touch this little bubble we’d made.

The fridge door hummed and breathed out a cool sigh, and I peered in at the random collection of half-lived lives: leftover pasta in a stained Tupperware, a jar of pickles I swore had been there since last Christmas, two eggs looking like they were holding a secret. And oranges. Always oranges.

I grabbed the loaf of bread and an orange, humming under my breath, a song that wasn’t a song, just some sleepy melody that belonged to this house now. The toaster clicked, and the orange’s peel burst little suns into the air as I dug my thumb into its skin.

Behind me, the floor creaked again. I didn’t have to turn around to know.

“You were supposed to stay in bed,” I said, voice soft but carrying a smile.

“I got cold,” Harry mumbled, and I turned to find him standing in the doorway, wrapped in my blanket like a cape. His curls were backlit by the morning, a halo of wild gold, and he looked every bit like he’d just wandered out of a dream I wasn’t done having.

I shook my head, but my chest did that annoying squeeze thing, the one it always does when he exists too beautifully for me to handle. “You’re hopeless.”

He padded in, barefoot and quiet, and hopped up onto the counter like he’d lived here his whole life. His blanket puddled around him, and he looked at me with that same shameless grin from earlier, softer now, less sunlight, more candle flame.

“Smells good,” he said, nodding at the toast.
“It’s literally just bread,” I said, tossing an orange slice at him. He caught it clumsily and popped it in his mouth, his cheeks rounding like a chipmunk.

“Mm,” he said around the fruit. “Best bread I’ve ever smelled.”

I rolled my eyes, but warmth pooled in my stomach anyway. The toaster popped, a little explosion of normal life, and I buttered the slices, handing one to him. He leaned forward, brushing his knee against my hip as he took it.

For a while, we didn’t talk. Just chewed and breathed and let the morning stretch itself between us, long and lazy. Sunlight wandered over his face in slow strokes.

“Morning, Lou. Good morning, Harry.” Lottie calls softly to us, as she enters the room.

Harry freezes mid-chew, like a cartoon chipmunk caught raiding a bird feeder, cheeks puffed and eyes wide. The corner of his lip glistens with a dot of butter, and for a second, I forget to breathe because it’s too stupidly adorable.

“Uh,” he says around his toast, muffled and panicked, and I swear I see his soul leave his body for a second before he swallows. “M-morning, Lottie.”

“Wait, why does he get a good morning and I get just morning?” I complain.

Lottie grins, the kind of grin only a little sister can manage—mischief wrapped in fake innocence. “Because Harry’s polite,” she says sweetly, already tugging open the fridge like she owns the place. “And you’re just… you.”

I splutter, throwing my free hand in the air. “Unbelievable. I feed this family. I provide. I bring bread to the table—literally—and this is the thanks I get?”

Harry’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter, his blanket sliding off one side like a lazy waterfall. “She’s got a point,” he says around another bite, voice still thick with crumbs and amusement.
“Traitor,” I mutter, but there’s no heat in it. Especially not when he looks at me like that—grinning, soft-cheeked, eyes glowing with the kind of light that only comes from safety.

Lottie hops onto the counter opposite Harry, swinging her legs and sipping orange juice straight from the carton because she’s a menace. “So,” she says, in the exact tone of someone ready to start trouble, “did you two have a nice sleepover?”

Harry chokes on his toast. I thump his back a little harder than necessary, mostly to cover the way my face is definitely on fire.

“It wasn’t a sleepover,” I snap, which only makes her eyebrows shoot up to the ceiling.

“Oh no?” she asks, voice dripping with disbelief. “So he didn’t sleep over, in your bed, under your blanket, and now he’s here in the morning eating toast you made him?”

Harry groans into his hands. “Lottie…”

“Don’t worry,” she says, smirking like she just won a trophy for sibling chaos. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

I roll my eyes so hard it’s a miracle they come back down. “You’re impossible.”

“Love you too,” she chirps, sliding off the counter. “Anyway, Harry you should let me paint your nails. Louis doesn’t let me, or any of his annoying mates.”

“You say that like you don’t laugh your ass off because of them.” I whisper to myself.

She shoots me a look over her shoulder that says she's not falling for it. "That's beside the point," she says, turning her attention back to Harry, who is now nervously picking at the last corner of his toast. "So? Nail painting?"

Harry looks from Lottie to me, a silent plea in his eyes. I just shrug, a small smile on my face. This is his decision. He's safe here, and he gets to choose what he wants to do.

He takes a deep breath, his shoulders squaring a little. "Okay," he says, his voice soft but firm. "I've never had my nails painted before."

Lottie's face lights up, a genuine, joyful smile spreading across it. “Oh my god, yes! Thank you, it’ll look so good cause you have those long fingers. Like, model hands.”

Harry wiggles them for emphasis, and I have to look away because I do, in fact, know how nice his hands are.

“I’m living in a nightmare,” I mutter, shoving another piece of toast in my mouth.

Lottie walks away, already halfway to the stairs. “Don’t go anywhere, Harry! I’m bringing the good glitter polish!”

The sound of her footsteps thunders away, leaving the kitchen quiet again except for the faint hum of the fridge and the soft sound of Harry trying—and failing—not to laugh.

“You like the idea,” he says finally, voice warm, teasing, sure.

“I like the idea of my sister not turning my house into a clown show,” I grumble.

Harry leans closer, shoulder brushing mine, blanket tickling my arm. “She won’t tell anyone, right?” He murmurs, quietly like he’s scared Chris still might hear from where ever he is.

I glance at him, and my chest twists. He’s still smiling a little, but it’s small now, tentative. The blanket’s bunched in his fists like he’s trying to shrink inside it, like he can wrap himself up in the safety of this kitchen and my presence and keep the rest of the world out.

“No,” I say, firm but soft, my voice the steady ground I want him to stand on. “She won’t. Lottie loves chaos, but she’s not cruel. She likes you.”

Harry’s eyes flick to mine, quick and searching, like he’s trying to gauge if I mean it. He nods once, slow, but I can see the part of him that doesn’t fully believe anyone’s kindness comes without a catch.

I reach out without thinking, brushing my thumb along the back of his hand where it’s peeking out from the blanket. His skin is cool from the morning air, and he flinches just slightly—not away, just like the touch startled him—but then he exhales and lets his fingers unfurl.

“She won’t tell Chris,” I add, quieter now, like saying his name too loud might invite him in. “He doesn’t get to touch this. Any of it. Not this kitchen, not my bed, not your… your morning face with the crumbs all over it.”

Harry’s freezes and wipes a hand over his face. “Do I really?”

“No,” I say, smiling despite the knot in my chest. “I’m just fucking with you, love.”

He huffs out something between a scoff and a laugh, and I see the tension in his shoulders loosen, just a hair. “You’re an idiot.”

Then he hesitates. “If he… if he ever…” He trails off, voice snagging on something he doesn’t want to name. His hands twist in the blanket again. “He wouldn’t have to know I was here. He—he can’t know. Lou, he—“

“I know.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. I scoot closer, enough that our knees brush. “He won’t know. I promise you, Harry. This—” I gesture between us, the toast crumbs on the counter, the sunlight warming the tile, the stupid blanket slipping off his shoulder “—this is ours. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get you.”

Harry swallows, and his eyes glimmer in that watery way that makes me want to break something and hold him at the same time.

Before I can say anything else, Lottie barrels back into the kitchen, a fistful of tiny bottles clinking together like treasure. “Okay!” she crows, totally oblivious to the storm that just passed through the room. “Who’s ready for glitter magic?”

Harry startles, then laughs—a real laugh this time, shaking his head as he holds his hands out in surrender. “Guess I am.”

And as Lottie settles in with her polishes and Harry lets her take his hand, I watch his shoulders loosen even more. His smile comes easier, and the sunlight catches in his curls, and for a minute, the world outside doesn’t exist.

Lottie plops herself onto the stool like a queen claiming her throne, a rainbow of tiny glass bottles clattering onto the counter. She spreads them out with the flourish of a magician revealing her tricks.
“Okay,” she says, eyes gleaming like she’s about to crown a king. “We have Cosmic Silver, Dragon Scales, Mermaid Tears—”

“Those are just blue sparkles,” I interrupt, leaning against the counter with my arms crossed.

She ignores me. “—and Galaxy Explosion.”

Harry bites his lip, looking at the array of bottles like he’s being asked to make a life-altering decision. “Um… Mermaid Tears?” he says at last, the tiniest smile tugging at his mouth.

Lottie beams. “Excellent choice. Very daring.”

I mutter under my breath, “It’s literally just blue,” and immediately get a death glare from my sister.

Harry giggles—an actual, unguarded giggle—and it does something to my chest I can’t recover from. He rests his hand on the counter, and Lottie swoops in like a hawk, gently cradling it as she starts painting his nails with exaggerated precision.

I lean on my elbow, watching, and my stomach does that annoying swoop when he glances up at me through his curls. “Feels weird,” he says, voice soft. “Kinda cold.”

“Welcome to beauty,” Lottie says sagely. “Suffer for the art.”

Harry laughs again, and I can’t help smiling. It’s warm and quiet in the kitchen, the smell of toast and orange still lingering. His hand looks small in Lottie’s, even though it isn’t. There’s something so impossibly tender about it—him letting her hold him like that, letting her make something soft and silly on him.

She’s halfway through his left hand when she suddenly pauses, squinting at his wrist. “Whoa. Where’d this come from?”

My stomach drops.

Harry freezes, instinctively pulling his hand back, tucking it into the blanket like it might disappear. His laugh comes out wrong—thin, strained. “Just… banged it on a door, I think.”

Lottie blinks, clearly unconvinced, but she’s fourteen and doesn’t know how to press without pushing. “You’re clumsy like Lou, huh?” she says lightly, letting it go.

Harry nods mutely, staring down at the counter. My hands curl into fists at my sides, the protective anger bubbling up again.

I catch his eye, just for a second, and let my face soften. He’s safe here. He doesn’t have to explain. Not now.

Lottie starts painting again, chattering about school gossip, filling the room with the harmless noise of her world. Slowly, I see Harry’s shoulders loosen again. He wiggles his fingers when she finishes, admiring the glittery blue like it’s a small, quiet rebellion.

“Mermaid king,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

He grins, the corner of his mouth curling up. “I like them, a lot.”

I nod, letting the weight of his words settle between us like a second heartbeat. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “They’re beautiful on you.”

Lottie, oblivious to the tectonic shift happening in my ribcage, snickers and twirls the polish bottle between her fingers. “You two are so weird,” she declares. “But cute. Like… stray-cat cute. The kind you want to feed and keep, even if they hiss at you at first.”

Harry lets out a surprised laugh, covering his mouth with his newly painted hand, like he’s trying to trap the sound before it can escape. “Guess I am kinda a stray cat,” he mumbles, voice somewhere between joking and not.

“Yeah, but the kind that claws your face if you look at it wrong,” I tease, trying to pull him back into lighter air. “Don’t let the glitter fool you.”

He wiggles his fingers at me, nails catching the sunlight like tiny shards of ocean. “Dangerous and fabulous,” he says, smiling for real now, the kind of smile that starts in his mouth but ends up in his eyes, soft and green and alive.

I swear, I’d paint his nails every day for the rest of my life if it meant keeping that look on his face.

The front door creaks suddenly, and my head jerks toward the sound. Heavy footsteps thud across the entryway—familiar, adult, nothing like Lottie’s light skips. My stomach knots instantly, instinct clanging like a bell.

Harry goes still beside me, his hands freezing midair, glitter catching in the sun. The warmth of the kitchen falters for a beat, like someone opened a window to the winter outside.

I step closer to him automatically, the protective urge flaring hot and fast. “It’s just my mum,” I murmur, even though I’m not entirely sure yet. “You’re okay.”

He nods, but I feel the tremor in his arm under the blanket.

The footsteps pause in the hall, a rustle of keys and the soft thud of shoes being kicked off. Then, the familiar call floats in, warm and casual, like the house itself exhaling:

“Louis? You up?”

Harry stiffens, the blanket hitching higher around his shoulders like armor. His glittered nails curl into the fabric, catching the sunlight in flashes of blue. I angle myself in front of him instinctively, like my skinny frame could block the world.

“In the kitchen, Mum!” I shout back, trying for casual, but my voice cracks right through the middle like a teenager in a bad sitcom. Lottie snorts into her sleeve.

Mum appears a moment later, hair wind-tousled, grocery bag looped over one arm. She pauses in the doorway, taking in the scene: toast crumbs, orange peels, Lottie mid-glitter-chaos, Harry wrapped in my blanket on the counter like a shy, sparkling burrito.

“Oh,” she says, and her eyebrows lift—not in judgment, just quiet surprise. Then her face softens the way it always does when she’s assessing a fragile moment. “Morning, everyone.”

Harry gives a small, almost imperceptible nod, a quiet greeting that’s more of a reflex than a conscious act. He doesn’t say anything, just tightens his grip on the blanket, his eyes fixed on his newly painted nails. I can feel the tension radiating off him, a tangible, physical force.

Mum sets the grocery bag on the table with a soft thud and walks over to the counter. She doesn’t look at the chaos, or at the nail polish. Her eyes are on Harry.

“I hope you slept well,” she says, her voice as gentle as the morning light.

Harry’s head jerks up, his eyes wide and surprised. It’s a simple question, a common courtesy, but for him, it’s a reassurance. It’s a confirmation that he is seen, that he is acknowledged, that he is a part of this space.

“I did,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “Thank you.”

Mum smiles, a real, genuine smile that reaches her eyes. She reaches out and gently brushes a curl off his forehead, a gesture so familiar to me, so foreign to him. He doesn't flinch this time. He just leans into it, a small, grateful exhale escaping his lips.

“Good,” she says, her hand lingering for a moment before she pulls it away. “I’m glad.”

She turns to Lottie, her smile still in place. "Mermaid Tears? A bold choice."

Lottie beams. "I told you!"

Mum laughs, a warm, rich sound that fills the kitchen. She starts putting away groceries, the mundane normalcy of the task a soothing balm on Harry’s frayed nerves. He watches her, his shoulders slowly, imperceptibly, relaxing. He looks from her to me, a silent question in his eyes.

“Um, me and Haz are going to do some…school stuff in my room...we’ll be back for tea.”

Mum glances over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in that way that says she doesn’t buy my vague excuses but also doesn’t care enough to press. “School stuff, hmm?” she says, tucking a carton of eggs into the fridge. “As long as it’s not you two getting into trouble.”

I scoff. “I’m an angel.”

Lottie snorts so violently she almost inhales a bottle of Galaxy Explosion. “Yeah, Mum, he’s a saint. Saint Louis of Toast Crumbs.”

“Keep talking and I’ll hide your glitter,” I shoot back, but my voice is light. The air is lighter now.

Harry slides carefully off the counter, still wrapped in the blanket like he’s a king leaving his throne. He keeps his eyes low, but I notice the faintest smile clinging to the corner of his mouth. He’s holding himself differently now—like the kitchen, the house, this morning is slowly beginning to claim him as its own.

“You okay, love?” I murmur, dipping my head toward him.

He nods, small and quick. “Yeah. Just… yeah.” His voice is soft, and his glittered fingers twist the blanket edge like a charm, but the trembling from earlier is fading.

Mum doesn’t miss a thing. She glances at him as she shuts the fridge and says, so casually it’s like a gift, “You boys take your time. There’s leftover pasta if you’re hungry later.”

Harry blinks at her, and for a second, I see it—the flicker of disbelief that someone would offer him something without a price. He nods again, tighter this time, like he’s filing the moment away somewhere private.

I nudge his shoulder with mine, gently herding him toward the stairs. “Come on, stray cat,” I say under my breath. “Before Lottie decides she wants to add Galaxy Explosion to the other hand.”

He lets out a tiny laugh and follows me, blanket trailing, nails catching the light like tiny ocean waves. We walk up stairs, and I lead Harry into my bedroom.

As soon as he pulls the door shut behind him, I cup his face into my hands and press my lips to his.
His breath catches—just a hitch, a tiny intake like surprise curling against his teeth—but he doesn’t pull back. Not this time.

His hands, still half-sleeved by the blanket and crowned with glitter, come up tentative, unsure, like they’re asking permission before they dare. I feel the tremble in them before he touches me, one palm landing soft and slow against my chest, the other curling around my waist like he’s anchoring himself to the present.

His lips are warm. Not urgent, not practiced—just soft, steady, a little shy. Like he’s still getting used to the idea that he’s allowed to want this. That he can lean into the wanting without being punished for it.

I kiss him slow, slow, slower than the sunrise. I kiss him like I’m trying to memorize the taste of safety. Like I’m trying to rewrite every cold night he spent afraid with this one perfect morning pressed between our mouths.

When I finally pull back, it’s only just enough to breathe. My hands are still on his face, thumbs stroking gently beneath his cheekbones. His eyes are closed, lashes trembling. And then—oh. He exhales, the kind of breath that leaves on a shiver, and leans forward, his forehead resting against mine.

His voice comes out hoarse, quiet enough I almost miss it. “You didn’t have to do that just because I looked sad.”

I close my eyes too. Breathe him in. Toast crumbs and mint toothpaste and the tiniest hint of glitter polish. “I didn’t.”

He lets out a soft laugh, almost a sigh, and when he opens his eyes again, they’re searching mine with something vulnerable and burning. “Then why?”

“Because I wanted to,” I say. Simple. Honest. “Because you were standing in my bedroom looking like a painting I forgot I was allowed to touch.”

A flush creeps up his neck, blotchy and beautiful, and his hands tighten a little where they rest against me. “That’s dramatic,” he whispers, but he’s smiling. A real smile, sweet and wrecked and glowy with disbelief.

“You’re dramatic,” I murmur back, nudging his nose with mine. “You’ve got sparkly nails and a tragic backstory. You’re basically a Disney prince.”

He huffs out a watery giggle. “Does that make you my sassy animal sidekick?”

“I will leave,” I warn, already grinning, already curling closer. “I’ll walk straight back down to the kitchen and tell Lottie to paint the words ‘Sassy Sidekick’ across your forehead.”

He presses his face into my neck and wheezes. “Please don’t,” he mumbles into my skin, but he’s laughing, all glitter and gold and sun-warmed trust.

We sink down to sit on the edge of my bed, legs tangled, blanket wrapped around us like a shield. My hand finds his again, and I run a fingertip along the drying polish—Mermaid Tears, the blue of deep sea secrets and safer tides.

His thumb brushes mine, and we just sit there for a while, quiet and close, hearts thudding in a rhythm that doesn’t ask for anything more than this.

“I feel like I’m in someone else’s life,” Harry murmurs at last.

His voice is barely there, like a secret shared with the sky. I turn to look at him, and he’s not quite smiling anymore—there’s something softer now, fragile and hollowed at the center. Like he’s holding onto joy with trembling fingers, afraid it might fly away if he grips too tight.

“Yeah,” I say gently, matching his tone like we’re passing a flame. “Do you like it?”

Harry’s eyes find mine, and there’s something vast in them—something shimmering and scared and impossibly young. Like he’s holding an entire galaxy in his gaze, but doesn’t know where to set it down. He nods, once. Small. Hesitant. As if even that motion could undo it all.

“I do,” he whispers. “I like it so much it feels… wrong. Like I’m gonna wake up and it’ll all…” He swallows hard, the word caught like it’s scraping past old bruises. “…be gone.”

Something inside me aches—slow and deep, not sharp like pain, but warm, like longing. Like love. I squeeze his hand, my thumb brushing over the glitter painted there, the sparkle worn down from how often I’ve held him already.

“It won’t,” I say, voice low and steady like a spell. Like if I say it right, say it true, the world will have no choice but to listen. “I won’t let it.”

He lets out a soft, disbelieving laugh. It’s shaky, but something in him loosens with it. His shoulders drop like he’s just set down a burden he’s been carrying too long alone.

“You can’t promise that,” he says, his voice touched with something wry and weathered. “The world doesn’t care about… about this.”

I lean in, close enough that my lips brush his temple, the words just for him. “Then we won’t give it to the world,” I whisper. “This is just ours. Remember?”

There’s a flicker in his face then—hope, maybe, or fear wearing hope like a costume. He leans into me slowly, his weight tentative at first, then heavier. His arms wind around me, not careful or neat, but tight. Needy. Desperate. Like he’s finally letting himself believe I can carry some of what he’s been holding alone.

His curls tickle my cheek. The blanket slips off his shoulders, pooling at our hips. But he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s holding on like he’s afraid of falling back into something colder.

For a while, the silence between us hums—not empty, but full. Of breath and heartbeat. Of Lottie’s footsteps upstairs and Mum clinking something in the kitchen. Of the safe sounds of a home Harry doesn’t have but gets to borrow.

Then, quietly, into the softness of my shirt, he says, “Do you actually like them?”

I don’t move. “Your nails?”

He huffs against me—just a little puff of amusement. But it’s warm. Real. “Yeah.”

I pull back just enough to see him, my hand still holding his like it’s the rope keeping us in the same tide. The polish catches the low lamplight, a shimmer of sea-glass blue and stubborn sparkles.
“Harry,” I say, my voice more certain than I feel, “I love them. They look like something pirates would fight over.”

That gets me the smallest smile, lopsided and half-hidden, but it’s there—a flash of him, unguarded. “Pirates?”

“Yeah,” I grin, leaning in conspiratorially, “like the treasure at the bottom of some dangerous cove. You’d have to outsmart sirens and storms to get ‘em. And even then—” I lift his hand and press my lips gently to the back of it “—you’d still have to convince me to give them up.”

The sound he makes is soft and strange, like a laugh that’s not sure it’s allowed to be one yet. His fingers curl slightly against mine, and for a moment, he just… watches me. Like he’s trying to memorize this, no for the happy parts, but for proof later—that this really happened.

“You’re ridiculous,” he murmurs, but there’s no bite in it. Just warmth.

“Maybe,” I whisper. “But I’m ridiculous with reason. I would defend off millions of pirates for you, baby.”

His breath stutters—just faint enough that I feel it more than hear it—and a slow blush climbs the slope of his cheek. He ducks his head, curls falling forward like a curtain, but not before I catch the way his mouth twitches, trying not to smile too much.

“Millions, huh?” he says, voice low, teasing, but there’s an edge of disbelief in it, like he’s testing how far I’m willing to carry this ridiculousness.

“All of them,” I say without hesitation. “The scrappy ones, the scary ones, the ones with the eyepatches and questionable dental hygiene. I’d duel them all, sword in one hand, you in the other.”

That gets me another huff of air—half-laugh, half-sigh—and his gaze flicks up through his lashes. There’s a softness there now, one that feels almost dangerous because it’s so open. “You wouldn’t win.”

I lean in, brushing my nose lightly against his. “Oh, I’d win. Because you’d be standing there, looking like this.” I gesture vaguely at him—at the wild hair, the polish, the way he’s still wrapped in the blanket like a shipwreck survivor I’ve rescued from the sea. “And every pirate worth their salt would stop fighting and just… stare. And I’d stab ‘em while they were distracted.”

His laugh this time is real. It blooms against my cheek, warm as summer. And for a beat, the heaviness that’s been shadowing him all day lifts, just enough for me to see the boy underneath, the one who still knows how to be delighted.

He doesn’t call me ridiculous again, he just acts it. His lips press against mine, and I pull him close on a new instinct.

It wasn’t a kiss that asked for anything. There was no desperate rush, no searching, just a gentle, lingering pressure. A question asked and answered in the same moment. His lips were soft, the ghost of a smile still there. He tasted like the orange he’d had earlier, and the salt of a day spent worrying too much. My own lips were chapped, but I didn’t care. The texture didn’t matter. What mattered was the way his hand, still holding mine, tightened in a silent promise.

When he pulled back, his smile is a wide cut across his face. His green eyes curling at the corners, and dimples caving in. I have to resist the temptation to poke at one.

"Okay," he murmured, the word barely audible.

"Okay what?" I whispered back, my own voice a little shaky with a sudden rush of emotion.

“I’ll let you kill all of the pirates for me.”
I laugh—quiet but uncontainable—and press my forehead to his, our breaths mingling in the warm little space between us.

“Generous of you,” I murmur, like he’s just knighted me for some noble, impossible quest.

His fingers are still curled around mine, nails catching the light with that stubborn ocean shimmer. I can feel the faint pulse in his wrist, steady but quick, and it makes me want to hold on tighter, like I could keep it from slipping away.

“You better start training,” he adds after a beat, his tone all mock-serious, though his grin betrays him. “Some of those pirates… probably do cardio.”

I snort, bumping my nose against his in a tiny, clumsy nudge. “Oh, I’m ready. You forget I’m a man of many talents.”

He tilts his head, curls falling to one side, eyes bright with that mix of challenge and curiosity that always makes my chest feel too small. “Name three.”

“Easy. One—killing pirates.”

He rolls his eyes but doesn’t let go of my hand. “Doesn’t count. That’s theoretical.”

“Two—I’m strong.”

“Hmm, you might need to prove that one.”

“Oh?” I pause, “and how may I do that, precious Harold?”

He lets out a slow, theatrical sigh, a sound of grave consideration. He shifts a little, his weight settling more fully against me, the blanket cinching tighter around us. “You could start small,” he says, his voice a low rumble against my ear. “Prove you can get me out of this shipwreck.”

He gestures vaguely with his free hand, indicating the nest of pillows and tangled blankets we’ve sunk into. “Go on, sailor. Rescue your mermaid.”

I grin, my heart doing a silly little flip. “You’re no mermaid, you’re a treasure.”

“Doesn’t count. And you’re just stalling.” He’s teasing, but there’s a new confidence in it, a comfortable lightness I haven’t heard from him before. He lets go of my hand, and before I can react, he wraps both arms around my neck, his legs straddling over my lap. “I’m a heavy treasure. I’ve been weighed down with worry all day. Can you lift me?”

I let out a soft groan, but I’m already shifting, my arms coming around him. “This is a ridiculous test of strength. You’re just a human, not a sack of potatoes.”

“I’ve been told I’m dense,” he replies, his laugh a warm puff of air against my neck.

“Dense in charm, maybe,” I say, bracing my feet against the floor. His body is warm and solid in my arms, the weight of him pressing into me in a way that feels more like trust than muscle strain.

“Oh, smooth,” he murmurs, tilting his head so that his curls brush my jaw. “Flattery to cover the fact you might drop me.”

I make a show of gritting my teeth and tightening my hold. “You wound me, Harry. I’m a man of my word. And my word is: you’re about to be heroically rescued.”

His grin is audible in his voice. “Proceed, Captain.”

I rock us forward and push to my feet, the blanket still clinging to both of us like a stubborn second skin. He makes a startled little noise—half gasp, half laugh—as his arms lock tighter around my neck. His legs squeeze against my hips for balance, and the warmth of him seeps through my shirt, through my skin, all the way into the marrow of me.

I stagger one step, then another, making it as dramatic as possible. “The waves are high! The storm is fierce! The treasure clings to me, but I press on—”

“God, you’re an idiot,” he says, but he’s laughing now, really laughing, the sound bright and unguarded, spilling against my ear.

“—the pirates are on our tail!” I continue, turning in a slow circle so the blanket flares like a sail caught in the wind. “They want the treasure back, but I—” I dip him suddenly, bending at the knee, my hand steady at the small of his back, “—will never let them take it.”

He’s breathless, his head falling back in mock peril, curls tumbling, the mermaid-blue polish flashing in the lamplight as his hands grip my shoulders. “You’re insane,” he says, but the words are too soft, too full of fondness to bite.

“Insane for you,” I reply without thinking, and the world tilts—not from the dip, but from the way his eyes catch mine right after. There’s something in them, something almost shy but not running anymore. Like he’s letting me see it.

I straighten us slowly, careful not to break whatever has just settled between us. His arms and legs stay around me even after I’ve ‘rescued’ him fully back to shore. We’re standing in the middle of my room, both wrapped in the same blanket, his chest pressed to mine, the air between us warm and fragile.

“You passed,” he says finally, his voice quiet, but it’s got that little edge of relief in it, the kind you only hear when someone’s been holding their breath too long.

“Of course I did.” I smile, my forehead brushing his. “I’ve been training for this my whole life.”

“Training to save mermaids?”

“Training to carry you,” I say simply.

And for a heartbeat, he doesn’t laugh or tease. He just looks at me—really looks, like he’s trying to decide whether to keep that sentence somewhere safe.

His thumb brushes the back of my neck. “You’re not allowed to drown,” he says.

“Not with you holding on,” I promise.

He smiles back, a quiet, perfect curve of his lips. Then he closes the small distance between us, a kiss. It’s gentle and deep, a promise more profound than any spell. It tastes like the end of the day and the beginning of everything else.

And sometimes I think, I would’ve told him that I loved him if he hadn’t kissed me right then.

The kiss breaks, not because either of us wants it to, but because breathing eventually insists. Harry’s eyes open first, lids heavy like he’s coming back from some daydream.

Mine take a moment longer—partly because I want to keep that dream going, partly because I’m afraid of what I’ll see in his face.

But it’s not fear there. It’s not even just relief. It’s something richer, more dangerous—like the sea after a storm, sunlight breaking over waves that could still swallow you whole if you stop respecting them.

He doesn’t pull back. Neither do I. We just… sway a little in place, tethered by the warmth of the blanket and the knowledge that if one of us moves, the air might go cold.

“Your heart’s loud,” he says suddenly, his voice low but without teasing.

“It’s yours doing that,” I reply, and it’s true—the thudding has a second beat in it, and I’m sure it isn’t mine.

His gaze flickers to my mouth, then to my shoulder, then back to my mouth. Like he’s weighing whether this is the moment to say something, or if saying it would make it break.
I want to tell him I’d hold whatever he gives me gently enough not to shatter it.

Instead, I just brush a curl away from his eyes and let my fingers linger at his temple.

“You know,” he murmurs, “I’ve been trying not to like this too much.”

I try to keep my voice even. “How’s that working for you?”

His mouth curves—small, wry, a little sad. “Badly.”
Something in me pulls tight and snaps. Not relief exactly, but the knowledge that I’m not the only one fighting this quiet, impossible pull.
I want to tell him it’s okay to lose. That sometimes, surrender is the safer thing.

But I don’t, I just smile a fond look in my eyes. “Tell me something.”

“Like a joke?”

“A joke, a lie, just something.”

He takes a slow, shaky breath. His gaze drops from my eyes to my neck, to the collar of my shirt. “I’m scared that you’ll soon see me the way I see myself.”

I feel it in my chest first, the way the air tightens there. I want to tell him I couldn’t possibly, that whatever he sees in himself can’t be what I see now—but the way he’s looking at the floor tells me he wouldn’t believe me. Not yet. Maybe not ever, unless I show him.

So I shift my grip on him, my hands sliding down waist to squeeze the base of his thighs. “Then I guess,” I murmur, “I’ll just have to keep showing you how I see you, so there’s no room left for your version.”

His brows pull together, just slightly. There’s a protest in his eyes, but it’s tangled with something softer—curiosity, maybe, or the faintest ember of hope he hasn’t let himself touch in a long time.
“Yeah?” he says, like he’s testing the ground before stepping on it.

“Yeah.” I nod, “I’ll wear you down with compliments. Hunt you down with pirate metaphors. Wrap you up in so much blanket and bad flirting that eventually, you’ll have no choice but to see what I see.”

The smallest huff escapes him—a fraction of a laugh—but he doesn’t pull away. If anything, he leans in, his head against my chest.

“What if I don’t like it?” he asks, voice so low I almost miss it.

I breathe in the warm, familiar scent of him—shampoo, wool, the faintest tang of orange. “Then I’ll keep showing you anyway,” I say, steady as a tide. “Because you deserve to be wrong about yourself.”

For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. The silence stretches, but it’s not empty—it’s full of him, of me, of the heat where our bodies meet. And then, so faint I almost mistake it for breath, he says, “You’re exhausting.”

“Good,” I whisper, my mouth curving. “Means I’m doing it right.”

He exhales a shaky sound that’s half sigh, half surrender, and in the next heartbeat, his arms are back around me, tighter than before. Like maybe—just maybe—he’s letting me win this one.

The pirates could’ve been banging down the door right then, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

We don’t move for a while. His breathing steadies against my collarbone, each rise and fall drawing me further into that soft, suspended space where the world can’t reach us. The lamplight catches on the curve of his ear, turning the shell of it gold, and I have the ridiculous thought that if I could, I’d keep him lit like this forever.

I smooth my palm down his back, slow circles over the dip of his spine. Not to comfort him exactly—more to remind him I’m here. He hums, so quietly I almost miss it, the sound buzzing through his ribs into mine.

“You’re warm,” he murmurs, words melting somewhere between tired and content.

“Perk of keeping the blanket hog close,” I tease, but my voice comes out gentler than the joke deserves.

His lips quirk against my shirt, a whisper of a smile. “Don’t let go yet.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I say, and it feels less like a promise than a fact. Like gravity, or the way his curls will never obey him.

The minutes stretch, and outside my window the streetlight hums to life, scattering amber coins across the dark. I think he’s fallen asleep, but then he shifts, his nose brushing my throat, his voice even smaller than before.

“I like it when you hold me.”

My throat tightens, but I keep my hand steady at his back. “Good,” I say, barely louder than him. “We’ll make a habit of that.”

He doesn’t answer—just presses a little closer, and I feel it then, in the way his body eases against mine. Not trust, not yet. But the beginning of it. Something fragile and feather-light, but real.

The evening presses forward, slow and sweet after me and Harry’s little adventure. We end up on my bed with one of my old sketchbooks spread across our knees. He likes looking—really looking—at the drawings, tilting his head the way people do when they’re trying to see more than the lines on a page. And I like watching him, the way his expression shifts—bright when he catches something soft, shadowed when the lines get darker. Sometimes I think he sees parts of me in the sketches I didn’t even know I’d left there.

When we run out of pages, we tumble into music instead—giggling, dancing, singing to a playlist I threw together ages ago. There’s no audience, no judgment, just the rhythm and the way he glances at me when we both miss a beat. It’s nice having him to myself, even if the thought keeps sneaking in—like a draft through a cracked window—that he’s not mine to keep. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

By the time the clock ticks toward the hour where the sun starts peeling back its gold and leaving the silver of moon and stars in its place, Mum calls us down for dinner.

Harry’s awkward at first—his shoulders high, hands uncertain. I don’t think it’s his first dinner with a family, but maybe the first in a long time. But Lottie, bless her, doesn’t leave him room to sink into the silence. She launches into a rant about some group from school, her hands flying like she’s painting the story in the air. And before I can guess where she’s going, she’s inviting Harry to a football match I didn’t even know about.

He freezes mid-chew, turning to me like I might translate the invitation.

“What?” I ask, smiling at him, then glancing at Lottie.

She’s relentless—I knew she would be. She doesn’t know how rare “yes” is for him, how much weight it carries, how Chris has made him believe that “yes” is a thing you pay for. “I know it’s not your year and all,” she presses, “but it would be fun! Lou can invite his friends, and it’s like… right before Christmas break. There’s even a house party after, but you don’t have to go.”

His eyes flicker between us, hesitating. I keep my smile steady, soft, like I’m holding the door open and promising he won’t be shoved through it. Finally, he turns back to her and says, quiet as a dropped coin, “I’ll try.”

It’s barely anything to Lottie—just polite agreement—but to me, it’s a step. Small, careful. A step toward a life where Chris doesn’t decide for him.

After dinner, we wash dishes together—Mum drying, me rinsing, Harry stacking in careful rows like he’s afraid of getting it wrong. Then Fizzy and the twins pull him into some chaotic game in the living room. He plays until the hour gets late enough to blush his cheeks, until his eyelids grow heavy but refuse to close.

When he finally leans into me, I can feel the fight leave his body in small waves. I hook my arms around him and lift him—light, but warm in a way that makes my chest ache—and carry him upstairs. His head drops against my shoulder, curls brushing my jaw. He doesn’t protest. He doesn’t flinch. He just lets me hold him all the way to my room, like maybe he’s starting to believe I won’t ever put him down somewhere cold.

I ease him down onto the bed, careful as a sailor steering through calm waters, the weight of him settling against the mattress like a secret finally told. His curls spill across the pillow, wild and untamed, catching the light in little sparks of gold and shadow.

His eyes flutter closed, lashes brushing the soft swell of his cheek, and for a moment, the room breathes with him—a quiet rhythm of rest and relief.

I sit beside him, the blanket slipping from our shoulders, pooling around his waist like a tide pulled back from the shore. My fingers trace lazy, feathered patterns over his arm, as if I could stitch the moments together with a thread of warmth.

“Sleep well, treasure,” I whisper, voice low, almost a prayer. And maybe, just maybe, in the soft rise and fall of his breath, I hear the answer.

The dim light settles over him like it knows where to stay—on the curve of his jaw, the faint hollow at his temple, the soft dip between his brows that never seems to smooth all the way out.

I stay there, sitting on the edge of the bed, because the thought of moving feels like inviting the world back in. And the world has sharp edges.

For a long time, I just watch him breathe. The kind of breathing that isn’t quite peace yet, but isn’t fight either. The kind that means he’s here, in this moment, not running from it.

I remember wondering—not for the first time—if he was really tired from the day, or if the sleep was more of a surrender, the kind you only give when you’re finally convinced no one will hurt you for it. I pictured him in Chris’s house, fighting it off because he didn’t dare let himself drift. Maybe he’d learned that closing his eyes was an invitation for someone to punish him for being human.

And now… now he was here. If all Harry wanted to do was curl up in my room and sleep for hours, I’d hold him for it. I’d guard that rest like treasure instead of stealing it away.

That thought swelled in me, warm and aching, until the quiet cracked—my bedroom door twisting open with the soft click of the latch. My head lifted, and there was Phoebe, slipping in like she wasn’t sure if she belonged.

She paused in the doorway, small shoulders hunched, one little fist curling tight into the fabric of her pajama bottoms. That tiny, familiar nervous habit caught at me, and my smile came slow but sure—a quiet kind of fondness, blooming in the middle of my chest.

Her gaze moved to Harry, taking in the shape of him tangled in my blankets, the soft rise and fall of his chest. Then her eyes came back to me, big and questioning, like she was asking something without words—like she wanted to know if this was okay, if she was allowed in this little circle of quiet we’d made.

“Mum is sleeping.” She starts, inching closer. “Can you make me some tea? I don’t feel well.”

I gave her a soft look, a silent message that she was welcome anywhere I was. "Yeah, kiddo," I whispered, careful not to wake Harry. "Of course. Come on."

I slipped off the bed, pulling the blanket up gently to cover Harry's shoulders. The movement rustled the fabric, but he just burrowed deeper, a small, contented sigh escaping his lips. Phoebe's eyes followed the motion, a faint smile touching her face, a silent observation of the gentle care I gave him.

I wrapped an arm around Phoebe's shoulders, drawing her close as we walked toward the door. The little space we'd created, that quiet moment of suspended time, was still there, still warm and fragile, even as we left it. The world hadn't rushed back in. Not yet.

In the dim hallway light, I turned to her, my voice low. "What's wrong, Phoebes? Tummy ache?"

She shook her head, burying her face against my side. "No. Just... a bad dream."

I squeezed her gently. “It’s okay. We’ll make some tea and chase it away.”

We tiptoed to the kitchen, the familiar scent of old wood and whatever my mom had cooked for dinner earlier that day filling the quiet space. The tea kettle whistled softly as the water came to a boil, a sound of everyday life that felt both comforting and a little strange after the storm we’d just weathered in my room.

Phoebe sat at the kitchen table, her small feet swinging, while I made two cups of chamomile tea—one for her, and one for me. I set hers down in front of her, blowing gently on the steaming surface.

I sat across from her, wrapping my hands around my own mug. It was one of Mum's old chipped ones, the kind that held warmth like a memory. I didn't push her to talk. I just let the silence settle, a soft blanket of its own.

Finally, she took a tiny, careful sip. Her eyes, so big and dark, were watching me over the rim of the cup. “Is he okay?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

I smiled, a little tired. "Yeah, he's okay. He's just really tired. A long day."

She nodded slowly, as if she understood. But she would never really understand, and I wanted her to stay that way. It was safer that way.

“Do you want to talk about your dream?” I ask, reading her every move.

Phoebe shook her head, her curls swaying gently in the low kitchen light. “It wasn’t… real,” she murmured, but her little fingers tightened around the mug like she was holding on to something heavier than steam.

I didn’t say more. Bad dreams, I’d learned the hard way, have their own tides—they either rush out of you in a flood or hide away until they’re ready to be spoken, if ever.

Instead, I reached across the table, letting my hand rest palm-up in the space between us. She hesitated, then slipped her smaller hand into mine, the warmth of her skin seeping into the gaps between my fingers.

When we finished our tea in comfortable silence, the bad dream seemed to have faded away. Her eyelids were getting heavy again.

I rinsed our mugs and set them in the drying rack. Phoebe stood there, a small, sleepy figure in the middle of the kitchen.

"Come on, sleepyhead," I said softly, "time for bed."
She came to me and wrapped her arms around my legs, her small body a warm weight against mine. I kissed the top of her head, my fingers smoothing the hair at her temple. "I love you, kiddo."

"I love you too, Lou," she mumbled against my pajama bottoms. "And I like having Harry here."
My heart gave a little lurch. "Me too, Phoebes. Me too."

I walked her back to her room, tucking her into her bed with the same care I'd used on Harry. She was asleep before I could even get to the door. I left the lamp on low, a small beacon in the dark, and tiptoed out, closing the door behind me with a soft click.

When I step back into the warmth and stillness of my room. The lamplight still held him, turning his curls to gold. The blanket had slipped a little, and I went to him, tucking it back around his shoulders.
His voice came slow, not even as deep as it once was just hours before. “Where’d you go?”

I paused, my hand resting gently on his shoulder. "Just to the kitchen," I whispered, the sound a soft breath in the quiet room. "Phoebe had a bad dream. I made her some tea."

He shifted, turning his head to look at me, his eyes half-closed and heavy with sleep. The lamplight caught the gold in them, and I had to resist the urge to just stay there and watch them until the sun came up.

"Is she okay?" he murmured, his voice thick with a sleep-addled concern that was so fundamentally Harry it made my chest ache.

"She is," I said, a faint smile on my face. "You two are both a couple of blanket-hogs, you know that?"
He gave a small, sleepy huff of laughter, and his hand came up, fumbling for mine. I laced my fingers through his, my thumb stroking the back of his hand. He held on tight, like a lifeline.

"I just woke up and you weren't here," he said, his words blurring together. "Felt cold."

My heart felt like it was doing a little flip. I squeezed his hand. "I wasn't far," I said, my voice as steady and gentle as I could make it. "I’m right here."

He hummed in response, a soft, sleepy sound that vibrated through my hand and up my arm. He brought my hand to his chest, tucking it against his ribs, and the warmth of him, the steady beat of his heart beneath my fingers, was the most solid thing in the world.

"Lou?" he mumbled.

"Yeah?"

"I think your plan is working."

I stilled, my breath catching in my throat. "Which one?" I whispered, even though I knew.

"The... compliments," he said, his voice fading back into a soft murmur. "And the... pirate metaphors." He let out a tiny, sleepy sigh that was a mix of contentment and surrender. "It's all... a bit much. In a good way."

A slow, happy warmth bloomed in my chest, spreading through me like sunlight. I moved onto the bed, lying beside him, still holding his hand to his chest. I pulled the blanket up over us, creating a cocoon of warmth and quiet.

"I'm glad," I whispered into his hair. "Because I'm not stopping."

He didn't answer, just shifted his head to rest it on my shoulder, his breathing evening out into the deep, peaceful rhythm of sleep.

Chapter Text

Even if I had wished for time to still its pulse, it hadn’t. It wouldn’t—not even for a boy who wouldn’t have much of it left.

The day that came for Harry to leave did, in fact, come. I tried to stretch it thin, tugging at its seams until they frayed, but morning bled into noon all the same. The sun rose without hesitation, spilling gold into the room as if it had no idea what it was taking from me. I kissed my love in the hush between breaths, my mouth wandering the familiar map of Harry’s body, memorizing it in the dim light.

He would go back to Chris, but he would stay with me in ways Chris could never touch—woven into the fabric of my thoughts, caught in the gentle snare of memory. I didn’t leave a mark this time. I’d learned. The first time, I had been reckless with wanting, branding him with proof that he was mine. But proof was dangerous in the wrong hands. If Chris saw a claim he hadn’t made himself, Harry would be the one to pay for it. Not me. Never me. Always Harry.

He ate breakfast quietly, the steam from his coffee curling into the cool air, the clink of his spoon a small, steady rhythm. Then he went upstairs to shower, his absence in the kitchen stretching wide and echoing. When he came back down, I handed him one of my favorite hoodies—a worn, soft thing that still held the shape of my shoulders—and a pair of joggers that didn’t quite fit, but made him look endearingly small, like he’d been gathered into my clothes the way I wanted to gather him into my arms.

When the clock on my phone tipped past noon, dread settled into my chest like wet cement. We’d planned it carefully—Chris was still away on a work trip, so I had to bring Harry back before the man returned. The timing was a fragile thing, brittle with what-ifs, and I couldn’t risk even the smallest crack.

Still, I dragged my feet. As the girls clung to him in the doorway, I felt my throat tighten. When we finally got into the car, I tossed him the keys, pretending it was casual. He drove through my neighborhood in lazy loops, hands loose on the wheel, the morning light threading itself through his hair. I let him linger in the driver’s seat longer than we’d agreed, knowing it might be the last time he touched a steering wheel for a long while.

Eventually, I had to take over. My hands on the wheel felt heavier than they should. Every turn toward his street was a betrayal, but the only kind that could keep him safe. And safety, for Harry, had always been a fragile, temporary thing.

The drive was quiet, but not the good kind. Not the kind where the air hums with unsaid sweetness, where the silence is just two people resting in each other’s gravity. This was the kind of quiet that tasted of endings. The kind that clung to the tongue like the last bitter sip of coffee, cooling in a cup you couldn’t bring yourself to put down.

Harry’s fingers fiddled with the cuff of my hoodie, stretching it, smoothing it, like he was trying to memorize the feel. His gaze stayed fixed out the window, the morning having dulled into an indifferent gray. The roads felt longer than they ever had before, each stoplight holding us just to let the moment ache.

I wanted to turn the wheel. Wanted to take some wrong exit, drive until the map stopped recognizing the streets and there was nothing ahead but sky. I imagined it: Harry in the passenger seat, my hoodie swallowing him whole, our laughter fraying into something freer than either of us had known in months. No Chris. No fear. No clock ticking down over our heads.

But reality doesn’t barter with daydreams. It just waits for you at the next turn.

When we reached his street, my chest caved in on itself. His house—Chris’s house—stood there like it always did, ordinary and terrible. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles whitened. Harry glanced at me then, his mouth forming the ghost of a smile, soft and resigned, as if he were the one trying to comfort me.

“Thanks,” he said, barely above a whisper. The word sounded too small to hold the weight of everything I wanted to tell him—that I loved him, that I’d take him away if I could, that I’d burn the whole world down before I let it eat him alive.

But I didn’t say any of that. How could you?
How do you cram the size of the universe into a single sentence without it collapsing in on itself?

“You don’t have to thank—” I begin, voice cracking like a match trying to catch flame.

But Harry’s already nodding, that crooked little smirk tugging at his mouth as his words overlap mine, a soft tide pulling me under. 
“I don’t have to thank you, I know.”

The quiet in his tone doesn’t match the acid burning in my gut, the sharp coil of dread that knows I’m about to lose him back to a place where my hands can’t follow.

Before I can find something—anything—to say, his palms are on my cheeks, warm and steady, tipping my face toward his. The touch is so gentle it’s almost cruel, like he’s afraid of bruising me, but not afraid of undoing me.

He looks at me like I’m the only steady thing left in a world that tilts too easily. “But I want to,” he says, his thumbs brushing the edge of my jaw. There’s a flicker in his eyes—gratitude, sorrow, something unnameable that feels like it’s been building for years.

“So. Louis. Thank you.”

And the way he says it—my name stretched in his mouth like it’s both a plea and a promise—lodges under my ribs, deep enough that I know it will ache there long after the car is empty.

I can't breathe. Or I am, but it's shallow, a broken rhythm that doesn't feel like enough. The words I'd been trying to find, the ones to fill the silence and push back the ending, have all dissolved into a desperate, hollow ringing in my ears. He's so close, his breath a soft ghost on my lips, his hands holding my face like I'm something precious.

It’s too much. The gratitude in his eyes, the way he’s looking at me, is a knife twist of its own. It's not fair that he has to thank me for something I can't even get right. I didn't save him. Not really.
I'm taking him back to the place he doesn't want to be. And he's thanking me.

"Harry, don't," I manage to say, the words catching on a lump in my throat.

He doesn't listen. His gaze drops to my mouth, and then his lips are on mine. The kiss isn't frantic or demanding. It's soft, slow, an act of quiet desperation. It tastes like coffee and the faint scent of my hoodie, a last, lingering echo of the home we’d made for a moment. It's a goodbye, a prayer, a promise that he's not forgetting.

My hands come up, gripping the back of his neck, pulling him closer, as if I can absorb him into myself and keep him there. I kiss him back, pouring all the things into the press of my lips against his. I love you.

He breaks the kiss, but only to rest his forehead against mine, his hands still cradling my face. His eyes are closed, a single tear tracing a path down his cheek. I want to wipe it away, but my hands are full of him, holding him against me.

"I have to go," he whispers, the words almost lost to the ache in his throat.

"I know," I whisper back. And it's the truest lie I've ever told. I don't know anything except that I don't want him to.

He pulls away, the cool air rushing back in between us, a stark and sudden reminder of the space we can't cross. He lets go of my face, his hands dropping away like a falling anchor. He looks at me for one last second, a silent world passing between us in that gaze, and then he opens the car door.

I watch him get out. He doesn't look back. The door closes with a soft click, a final period on the end of a long, beautiful sentence. He walks up the path, my hoodie swallowing the lean frame of his shoulders. The front door of Chris's house opens, a sharp rectangle of cold light cutting into the gray afternoon. Harry steps inside, and the door closes behind him, the sound barely audible over the sudden, roaring silence in my ears.

I sit there, my hands still on the steering wheel, the ghost of his touch a brand on my cheeks. The car is empty, but it's full of him. His scent, the imprint of his body in the passenger seat, the memory of his laugh. I put the car in drive and pull away, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm leaving a part of myself behind on that silent, ordinary street. A part of me that I won't get back until he does.

——-

Monday was slow, but that’s just Monday—sluggish and gray, a day that drags its heels no matter how much you plead. But Harry wasn’t slow. Not today. He was different. Not in the obvious ways, not in the ways that screamed change, but in the subtle ones—the way his smile lingered longer, like sunlight warming a hidden corner. He wasn’t just carrying the secret of bruises anymore; he was carrying the secret of who pressed soft lips against them, who tried to soothe the sting he bore.

Months from now, he had told me once, one night under a sky littered with stars like shards of angel glass, that after the first week of his affair, he had never felt more like himself. Strange, contradictory, impossible—but it was him being raw, being true. And now, sitting across from him that Monday, I understood that truth in the tremor of his laugh, in the way his green eyes caught mine and held them, wide and vulnerable and fearless.

I was nervous. Scared, even. Scared than when he looked at me, the light in his gaze wouldn’t be love—it would be regret. That the weekend we’d stolen for ourselves, the kisses, the heat pressed into our skin, had been nothing more than an accident. That when he went home, it would be like I’d never existed.

But he didn’t. He blushed when he saw me, the softest curl of color in his cheeks that made my chest twist. He greeted me warmly, sliding our legs together under the table like it was the most natural thing in the world. And when I risked a glance at his skin, searching for fresh purple insults against his perfect skin, he smiled. “I’m okay,” he said, the words soft but absolute. He was mine, still—entirely, irrevocably mine—even if he returned to someone else at night.

We would have to be careful, of course. The wrong eyes, the wrong whispers, the wrong assumptions could put him in danger. Chris already distrusted me. If he knew, even just suspected, there would be consequences. Dangerous ones.

So we learned to be quiet. To find the pauses between the chaos, the stillness before the noise. A brush of fingers in a crowded corridor. A shared smile across the lunchroom. A leg nudging mine under the table, slow and deliberate, our secret pulse of touch. Liam and Zayn noticed, of course—they always did—but they were allies in their own way, silent and protective, and I didn’t mind. Their eyes were the only ones Harry seemed to trust, so they were mine to trust too.

One time, Wednesday afternoon just before Lunch let out. Harry had dragged me into another one of our secret scandals.

“Cheeky,” I teased as Harry glanced down the empty corridor, the corners of his mouth tugged into a sly grin.

He tugged me forward, fingers laced with mine, walking backward with that careful, teasing pace. “Not cheeky,” he said, and the weight of his gaze caught mine, fierce and soft all at once.

“Then what?” I whispered again, though it wasn’t really a question. My pulse had picked up; I could feel it against my ribs, a warning drum. The hall was still empty, but every sound—the echo of our shoes, the distant murmur of kids—was suddenly too loud, too present.

He stops pulling me then, his body coming to a standstill in the middle of the corridor. The playful energy drains away, replaced by something heavier, more profound. He looks at me, and it’s like he’s seeing straight through my skin, past the teasing and the nerves, right to the frantic, hopeful thing beating in my chest.

“Necessary,” he says, his voice low and certain.
The word slams into me, stealing the air from my lungs. It’s not a joke. It’s not a flirtation. It’s a confession. He’s not stealing moments with me because it’s fun or rebellious. He’s doing it because he has to. Because it’s become part of the air he breathes.

Before I can answer, before I can even think of a word that could possibly hold the same weight, he closes the small space between us. His free hand comes up to cup my jaw, his thumb stroking the corner of my mouth, and then he’s kissing me.

It’s not like the kisses from the weekend, the slow, exploratory ones whispered in the dark. This is fierce and sure, a claim, not a question. He presses me back against the cool tile of the wall, his mouth moving against mine with a hunger that’s tangled up in desperation. It’s a kiss that tastes of defiance, a frantic attempt to prove that this—us—is the realest thing in his life. I kiss him back with everything I have, my hands coming up to grip his waist, holding on like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s trying to pull us apart.

The bell for lunch shrieks through the hallway, a brutal intrusion that shatters the quiet. We break apart instantly, breathing hard, the echo of the kiss still humming between us. Harry’s eyes are wide, his lips slightly swollen, the fearless look back in place, but this time it’s sharp, edged with adrenaline. He gives me a wry, sad smile, a look that says a thousand things I couldn’t say aloud. This isn't enough. But it's all we have.

Without another word, he drops my hand and turns, heading toward the cafeteria. I watch him go for a second, my heart hammering against my ribs, before I follow, making sure to keep a careful, calculated distance between us. The performance has to resume.

Lunch breaks became our stolen hours. Harry would catch my eye across the cafeteria, the corners of his mouth twitching with mischief, a green spark of mischief and vulnerability. And I would grin, leaning just enough to let our legs touch under the table, letting our fingers graze in the quietest, most dangerous of touches.

Some days, it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Wanted him pressed against me in empty corridors, wanted to trace the curve of his jaw with my fingertips, wanted the heat of his mouth on mine to linger, to imprint. He felt it too—the same ache, the same reckless need—and we would find ways. A hallway just emptied enough. A stairwell with no one watching. Each moment a stolen eternity, fragile and electric.

“Do you ever think about what happens if we get caught?” I asked once, breath hitching as his lips traced the sensitive skin behind my ear.

He smiled, that secret, dangerous grin that made my knees weak. “Every day,” he said. “But right now… right now, I only think about you.”

It was insane, the thrill of it. Our love was a quiet rebellion, a secret carved into the edges of ordinary life. And maybe that’s why it burned so brightly—it had to. Every kiss, every brush of skin, every glance was infused with the knowledge that the world couldn’t see us, couldn’t touch us.

Chapter Text

“I killed him.”

The wind answers before I can. Blows sharp and wild like it already knew tonight would end like this—with blood spilled, a heartbeat silenced, a soul slipping off to whatever waits past the edge of breath.

The moon watches from behind a haze, too dim to bless this kind of night. And the stars—cowards—hide behind thick clouds. No witness but me.
And him.

Harry. My boy.

He stands on my parents porch, soaked in the dark, hoodie clinging to him like it’s holding him up. My hoodie. The one he stole from my drawer a month ago. The sleeves are wet and darker now, streaked with red. His hands shake, fingers twitching like they haven’t yet realized what they’ve done. Or maybe they have.

He doesn’t cry. Not yet. But I know it’s coming. By morning, the flood will break. For now, it’s just shock—cold, quiet, cruel.

“No man will hit me again,” he says, voice hollow.
“No one.”

I have no doubt he has made sure of that.
I don’t say anything. What can I say?

He’s standing here in the dead of night, a boy I’ve kissed a hundred times and memorized twice as many. His eyes—those fire-lit, green-gold eyes—are wide and too dry. His curls are damp, sticking to his forehead. He looks like a ghost already. Or maybe a survivor.

My hand tightens on the doorframe. Not to slam it. Just to anchor myself. To keep from shaking like he is.

“He’s dead,” he says again. Quieter this time.
Chris.

I swallow hard. My mouth tastes like copper and regret. I’m not angry—not with him. I could never be angry with him. Because I know him. I know what his hands are capable of. I know they play guitar, and twist the strings on juice boxes, and once held mine so tight I thought my heart might bruise. I know they were never made for violence.
But tonight, they made an exception.

“Say something,” Harry pleads, voice breaking like the rest of him might follow.

I read his face again, even though I’ve read it a thousand times before. It’s all still there, beneath the horror: the stubbornness, the hurt, the hope.
“What do you need?” I ask, softly.

Because no matter what he’s done—he still came here. He still found his way to me.

He blinks. Just once. And then, “for you to stop imagining that I made it out not bleeding.”

And God. That shouldn’t be what he says.

He was supposed to ask for a hug. For warmth. For me. He was supposed to need something I could give.

But instead, he gives me the truth. And it tastes like rust.

Because this—him standing bloody and breathless on my porch—isn’t how it happened.

This is the version I wanted.
The one I prayed for on nights I couldn’t sleep, where he ran to me bloodstained and victorious, swearing no one would hurt him again.

But that’s not what the world gave us.
 The real story didn’t leave him standing. The real story left him broken.

When Friday came, it started like a kiss and ended like a brick to the chest. The morning sun was indifferent, casting long, careless shadows across the hallways, but inside me, the weight of anticipation pressed down, knotting my stomach.

Harry had gotten permission from Chris to go to the game—Lottie’s endless chatter about it had somehow made it seem important, necessary even. He’d told me he wasn’t sure whether Chris would come, but that didn’t matter. As long as Harry was somewhere I could reach, somewhere that didn’t feel like a cage, nothing else could stop me from keeping him safe, from guarding the edges of him no one else was allowed to touch.

There was a flicker of something in him that morning, something I hadn’t seen in a long while. Excitement, but soft, like sunlight through a cracked window. He was looking forward to the game in a way that had nothing to do with playing, everything to do with sitting beside me, sharing a space that wasn’t marked by fear or obligation. Just presence. Just us.

That lunch, I didn’t pull him into a deserted hallway for a reckless kiss or a dangerous, whispered touch. I wish I had. I would have, if I’d known what the afternoon would become. Instead, I had pulled Liam and Zayn into the plan, coaxing them to come along to the game. I had asked Zayn to pass the word to Niall too, because the more of us there, the safer Harry could feel, even if the weight of Chris lingered in the back of his mind like an unspoken threat.

Sitting there, watching Harry laugh at some small, inconsequential thing, my chest ached with a mixture of love and dread. Each smile, each tilt of his head toward me, was a reminder that our moments were borrowed, fleeting. That when the game ended, he would go back to the house that wasn’t ours, back to a place where his skin carried invisible instructions about how to behave, who to obey, how to survive.

I wanted to freeze it all—to hold this second, this laugh, this reckless freedom, and never let it go. But life, as always, pressed forward. I could only sit beside him, hand brushing his, heart pounding, and hope that the laughter and the game, the simple act of being near him, could stretch time just enough to give me a memory I could keep tucked inside until I could see him again.

“Louis, you remember that?” Zayn calls, his voice trembling with laughter, the kind that makes your chest tighten in anticipation of some ridiculous memory you’re about to be dragged back into.

I startle, my gaze snapping from Harry—who’s halfway through eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich—to Zayn. “Sorry, what?” My heart’s still thudding from the half-glimpse of Harry, and the sudden attention feels like a slap in the middle of a quiet dream.

Zayn’s grin widens, playful and merciless. “Remember the last time Lottie invited us to one of her activities? And you… pantsed Niall while he was talking to his crush?”

Heat floods my face—not embarrassment exactly, more a tight, twitching ache of memory. I can see it, clear as yesterday: Niall frozen, the world tilting for a heartbeat as his dignity took a nosedive, and me… laughing, shamelessly, because the moment had been impossibly perfect.

Harry, mid-chew, lets out a strangled sound that’s half cough, half suppressed laugh. A glob of peanut butter and jelly nearly escapes his mouth before he clamps his lips shut, his shoulders starting to shake with silent mirth.

Zayn, seeing the reaction he’d hoped for, cackles. “You should’ve seen him, Harry! He was talking to his crush—the poor bloke—and Louis just strolled up, cool as you please, and went for it. The thwack of his trousers hitting the floor was the only sound in the whole room for a solid five seconds.”

Liam, shaking his head and grinning, adds his own detail. “And Niall just stood there, completely frozen, in his little Spider-Man boxers.”

That’s what finally sets Harry off. A full, breathless laugh that makes his shoulders shake and his eyes water. It’s loud, so loud, a sound that fills the small, safe space of our table and pushes back against the endless chaos of the cafeteria. It’s not the quiet, guarded laugh he used to have, but a full-throated, unburdened sound of pure joy.

My face, hot with the memory of my own youthful idiocy, softens completely. I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m just completely, achingly in love with the sound of him.

When the hours tick down and the sun begins to sink, the horizon swells with the kind of gold that makes the air feel heavy. The football match is the reason we’re all here, but for me, it’s only the excuse—the stage for something else entirely. We can pretend to watch the field, but the truth is, I’m here for the moments in between.

“I got nachos. For me,” Niall announces grandly, balancing a cardboard tray in one hand and scattering the rest of his spoils along the bleacher. “Sour skittles for Lou, Reese’s for Li, and coke for Zee.”

He drops into the row with a grin, the smell of processed cheese trailing after him. We exchange thanks, the quiet rustle of candy wrappers mingling with the dull roar of the crowd. The items feel like tokens of something easy, something unshaken by heavier things.

Liam had staked out our spot hours ago—up high enough to see the whole pitch, angled just right to catch the cold warmth of the winter sun. This time of year, the air bites, even in its beauty, and I’m grateful for the glow clinging to the metal beneath me.

When Lottie and I arrived, she barely slowed—running off to her friends with a wave that was half-greeting, half-escape. Still, she’s sitting closer than I expected, her laughter cutting through the halftime music every now and again.

Zayn and Niall had come together, sauntering through the ticket office in that loud, careless way they have, turning heads and carrying the warmth of their own small storm with them.

But Harry… Harry hasn’t arrived.

I tell myself not to worry, because I know he’ll come. I have to believe that. Still, the crowd’s chatter turns hollow in my ears, my candy sitting untouched in my lap. The sun dips lower, brushing the edge of the bleachers in a glow that should feel romantic but instead makes the shadows longer. Every shift of movement in the corner of my vision makes my chest tighten, hoping it’s him, bracing for it not to be.

And when I finally see him—if I do—everything else will fade. The match, the noise, the skittles, the cold air on my hands. Because the only reason I’m really here is him. Always him.

He’s a ghost in the crowd at first—a flash of familiar curls, a silhouette against the low-hanging sun. My breath catches. He’s walking toward us, his steps a little hesitant, his shoulders hunched just slightly. It’s him. He’s here.

Relief floods my system so completely it feels like a physical wave, washing away the tension that had coiled tight in my chest. The world rushes back into focus—the bright green of the field, the cheer of the crowd, the cold metal beneath me.

Niall spots him a second later. "Harry! Over here, mate!" he yells, waving a hand wildly.

Harry’s gaze finds us, and his face breaks into a slow, shy smile. He quickens his pace, weaving through the throng of people. I stand up, a reflex I don’t even think about, and meet him halfway up the bleachers.

He looks tired, the afternoon light catching the faint shadows under his eyes. But he’s wearing a soft smile, and he pulls me into a hug that feels like a quiet confession. I wrap my arms around him, holding him tight, breathing in the familiar scent of him. He’s here. He’s real. He’s safe.

“I was worried,” I whisper against his neck, the words a confession I can’t hold back.

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes soft. "I know," he says. "I'm here now."

I let go of him completely, every part of me screaming to keep holding on, but the weight of where we are—and who might be watching—forces my hands to fall away. It’s a clean break, but it feels like tearing skin.

My eyes flick over his shoulder, scanning the crowd out of habit, but I falter when I notice the familiar drape of fabric against his frame. My hoodie. The one he’d worn last weekend, sleeves pushed up, collar stretched just enough to hold the memory of my touch. It hangs on him like a secret—ours, and no one else’s.

Something in my chest softens, even as the rest of me stays sharp with worry. My voice comes out quieter than I mean it to, too steady to betray the sudden warmth and fear twisting inside.

“Where’s Chris?”

The question lands between us, heavier than I want it to be. It’s not just small talk—it’s the quiet roll call of threats, the check-in I wish I didn’t have to make every time I saw him. And as I wait for his answer, my fingers twitch with the memory of holding him, already aching to do it again.

His mouth curves—barely. Not enough to be a smile, but enough to make me want to believe it is.

“He’s…talking to an old friend,” Harry says, like the words are a fragile truce he doesn’t want to break by speaking too loud.

My blood runs cold. The bottom falls out of my stomach, and the world tilts, all the bright noise and color draining out of it. An old friend. The words hang in the air between us, a flimsy, transparent lie. It’s a threat, not a truce. Chris isn’t just a shadow anymore; he’s a presence. He’s here.

I force myself to keep my expression blank, a mask I’ve had to learn to wear for him. My gaze flicks past Harry’s shoulder, a quick, frantic scan of the crowd, searching. My fingers, still twitching with the ghost of a touch, now curl into a tight fist at my side.

“An old friend?” I manage to ask, the words coming out sounding far more casual than they should. “Who?”

Harry’s eyes drop to the ground, and he shrugs a shoulder. "Doesn't matter. He's just... catching up with them. He said he wouldn't be long."

His words are a practiced balm meant to soothe, but they only fuel the fire of my anger. He’s been through this before. He’s so good at minimizing the danger that he’s almost convinced himself it’s not there.

“Come on,” I murmur, nodding toward our spot. “Before your seat gets stolen by Niall’s nachos.”

Harry’s lips twitch—this time closer to an actual smile—and he follows me up. I’m aware of every step he takes behind me, every time the bleacher rattles under his weight, the quiet comfort of knowing he’s right there.

When we reach the others, Zayn lifts a hand in greeting, Liam gives a small nod, and Niall says something about having “generously” saved him a bit of cheese dip, though judging by the empty corner of the tray, that’s a lie.

Harry settles in beside me, and without thinking, I angle my body just slightly toward his. Close enough for our knees to knock, close enough that if the crowd roars too loud, I can lean in and pretend it’s just to hear him better.

From the field below, the whistle blows and the players sprint back into position, the game starting again. But I barely register it. My attention’s fixed on the quiet rise and fall of his shoulders, the way my hoodie swallows his frame, the subtle tilt of his head toward me like he’s found the one safe place in the noise.

“Did they actually tell you that story?” Niall demands, aiming for mock annoyance but already grinning at himself.

Harry laughs—soft and warm—and nods, curls bouncing with the movement. “Yeah. Spider-Man boxers and all.”

The image flickers in my own head, uninvited but vivid—the lunch table earlier, Zayn cracking up, Harry’s smile lighting up in the middle of all that noise. I grin now, riding the echo of it, while Niall groans loud enough to turn a few heads in the next row.

Liam chuckles, leaning over to clap him on the back in that big-brother way that’s part comfort, part shove. Niall just drops his face into his hands with a noise of exaggerated shame, fingers pressing into his temples like maybe he can squeeze the memory out.

“Awe, it’s alright,” Liam says, still laughing. “You can tell him that story about Lou getting spanked.”

My grin freezes, the sound of the crowd dipping in my ears. Harry’s head turns toward me, curiosity sparking like he’s ready to ask, and my pulse stumbles over itself. I can’t even remember which version of that particular story Liam means—there are a few, each one equally cursed—but the way Harry’s eyes brighten makes me both want to disappear and… maybe stay exactly where I am.

There’s an intimacy in these stupid, harmless humiliations, the way our shared history folds over itself until everyone knows each other’s worst and funniest moments. And now Harry’s on the edge of that circle, stepping closer without even realizing it.

I nudge Niall with my knee, feigning nonchalance. “Careful, mate. I’ve got worse stories about you than boxers.”

Niall peeks through his fingers with a grin, and Harry laughs again—fuller this time, the kind of laugh that doesn’t just warm the air between us but threads straight through my ribs and stays there.

Harry tilts his head, curls sliding forward as his mouth quirks up. “Wait—spanked? Like… actually?”
I roll my eyes, aiming for unbothered but feeling the heat crawl up my neck. “Don’t make it weird.”

Niall’s grin sharpens instantly. “Oh, it was weird, alright. Coach had the whole—”

“—Nope,” I cut in, pointing at him like a warning sign. “Not finishing that sentence.”

Zayn, of course, is no help at all. He’s already leaning forward, elbows on his knees, grinning like he’s been waiting all year for this. “Nah, tell it. Haz deserves to know what kind of legend he’s hanging out with.”

Harry’s laughing now, soft at first, then louder when Liam joins in. The sound is ridiculous—it’s like watching someone light sparklers in the middle of an already bright day. I can’t even be annoyed about it, not really.

Still, I nudge Harry with my shoulder, a mock glare in place. “Don’t get used to them ganging up on me. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

He smiles at me—small, but real. “I am. Just… maybe after I hear the story.”

The way he says it makes something twist low in my stomach, like this isn’t just teasing, like he’s quietly asking for another thread to pull us closer. And even though I know they’re about to roast me alive, I let the moment hang there between us, warm and fragile under the noise of the match.

Zayn clears his throat in that overdramatic way that means he’s about to commit to the bit. “Alright, picture it—”

“Oh God,” I mutter, but it’s too late.

“—last day of training before finals. Little Lou here thinks he’s king of the pitch, right? Pulls this fancy spin move to show off, except—” Zayn breaks off to mime a spectacular fall, arms flailing. “Down he goes. Ball rolls straight into Coach’s ankles. Coach, being Coach, decides this is apparently a teachable moment.”

Liam’s already grinning. “And by ‘teachable,’ he means—” He makes an exaggerated smacking motion against his own thigh.

Niall loses it. “Right there in front of everyone! Lou bent over, laughing like it’s no big deal, but his ears were redder than the team jerseys.”

Harry’s covering his mouth, but it’s useless—the laugh escapes anyway, bright and surprised. “That’s—okay, I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious.”

I shake my head, fighting my own smile. “You’re all liars. It was a friendly tap. Barely even counted.”

“Sure,” Niall says with mock solemnity. “And I barely eat pizza.”

The group bursts out again, and Harry leans just a fraction closer to me, his voice low enough that it gets lost under the noise. “I wish I knew you when you were that young.”

For a second, I don’t answer. Not because I don’t want to—because I do, desperately—but because his words hit me in a place I didn’t expect. There’s a strange ache in them, as if he’s mourning something that was never his to lose.

I glance at him, really look. The laugh is still ghosting around his mouth, but his eyes… they’ve softened in a way that feels unguarded, almost raw. Like he’s not just imagining the scene Zayn painted, but placing himself in it—shoulder to shoulder with me on that pitch, running in the same sun, getting in trouble together.

“Trust me,” I say, my voice quieter than it should be, “I wasn’t nearly as impressive as they make me sound.”

He tilts his head, curls catching in the light. “Still. I think I would’ve liked you then.”

Something in my chest squeezes—half warmth, half warning. Because the truth is, he wouldn’t just have liked me. If he’d been there, he’d have been mine. And the thought of what that might’ve meant for him in those years… it’s both sweet and dangerous to imagine.

I smirk, trying to wrap the moment in lightness before it swallows us whole. “You’d have been the one carrying my water bottle and pretending not to laugh when I fell.”

He grins, but there’s something thoughtful lingering underneath. “Maybe. Or maybe I’d have made you fall on purpose.”

I huff a laugh, shaking my head, but I let my knee press lightly into his, just enough for him to feel it. He doesn’t pull away.

From the field below, a whistle blows again, the sharp sound slicing through the golden haze of the evening. The match is pulling everyone’s attention back, but for me, the game might as well be happening on the moon.

Because all I can think is that Harry wishes he’d known me then… And I wish he’d only ever known me now—when I can keep him safe.

The golden light fades a little more, edges sharpening against the bleachers, and then—like a ripple of ice in warm water—he appears.

Chris.

Not the shadowed threat that lingers in whispered rumors, but the presence that demands attention, that carries weight just by existing in the same space as Harry. My chest tightens immediately, the muscles knotting against themselves. Every careful plan, every whispered promise of safety, feels suddenly fragile.

Harry notices him too. I watch his shoulders stiffen, the slight hitch in his breath, the way his hand drifts subconsciously to the hoodie I’d given him—the one I’d imagined would be a shield, a piece of me keeping him safe. It isn’t. Not from Chris.

Chris moves slowly through the crowd, talking to someone at first, laughter too easy for someone who’s meant to be the danger in this story. But he’s scanning, eyes sharp, calculating, and my stomach twists. Every step he takes toward Harry is a countdown, a drumbeat of impending tension I can’t escape.

I place a hand lightly on Harry’s arm—just enough to ground him, to remind him I’m here. He glances at me, those green eyes wide and conflicted, a storm behind them. The smile he gives is small, tight, a mask for nerves. I nod once, silently telling him: I’ve got you.

Chris reaches the bleachers, and the air thickens like smoke. The football match might as well have ended hours ago; the only thing I can hear is the thrum of my own heartbeat, loud enough that I’m sure Harry can feel it against his side.

He greets Harry casually, too casually. The ease is deliberate, a test of territory, a way to measure our dynamic without words. I can see Harry tense against it, every inch of his posture telling me he’s aware, aware of the threat that has always hovered just outside our stolen moments.

I squeeze his arm again. Just a touch. A promise.
Chris’s gaze flicks to me briefly, and I meet it head-on, holding the line. There’s fire there, judgment simmering, but I refuse to back down. Not now. Not with Harry so close, so undeniably mine in every way that matters.

Harry exhales softly, leaning just enough into my side to let me know he trusts me—not the world, not Chris—but me. And that’s all I need.

Chris's smile is a thin, hard line that doesn't reach his eyes. "Harry, I wasn't expecting you to be sitting with... so many friends." The emphasis on "friends" is a sharp, deliberate point, aimed directly at me. It’s a challenge, a claim being staked.

Harry tenses, pulling back a fraction, and for a terrifying second I think he’s going to move. But he doesn’t. He stays right where he is, our knees still knocking together, my arm still a quiet weight on his shoulder.

“I told you I was coming to the game,” Harry says, his voice small and tight, a perfectly-delivered line in a play he knows by heart. “Louis’ sister’s friends are playing.”

Chris’s eyes flick from Harry to me and back again, sharp, calculating, like he’s weighing every inch of space between us. There’s a pause—a deliberate, measured silence meant to make me squirm. I would’ve said something then, but Niall interrupted in his loud glory.

“Oi! Are you two gonna stare each other down all day, or is someone actually watching the match?” Niall’s voice cuts through the tension like a flare, loud enough to draw a few curious glances from nearby rows. He’s grinning, completely oblivious to the storm brewing beside him.

Chris’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, his control slipping just a fraction, though he doesn’t react outwardly. He lets out a slow, deliberate breath, the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s deciding whether to bite back or play along. “I suppose I could watch,” he says smoothly, tilting his head toward the field—but his eyes never leave Harry.

Harry shifts closer again, almost instinctively, letting the warmth of my side anchor him. My fingers press lightly along the fabric of his hoodie, a quiet tether. “We were just talking about old stories,” I mutter, voice low enough for only him to hear, even as Niall continues his blabbering. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Chris lets out a low hum, the sound measured, controlled, like a predator testing his surroundings. “Old stories,” he repeats, voice soft but carrying an unmistakable weight. “I’d hate to think you’ve been hiding anything from me, Harry.”

Harry swallows, lips pressing into a thin line, and for a second I can see the flicker of panic—the flash of memory of all the times Chris has meant danger. But then he leans fully into me, letting our connection be the shield he can’t quite put into words. “Nothing’s hidden,” he says quietly, voice steady despite the tremor I know is there.

Chris, to my surprise, doesn’t push it. He seems to accept the fragile truce, though the way he watches us tells me the game is far from over. He walks away, heading down the aisle of bleachers and settling in a few rows below us, his presence still a heavy weight in the air.

Harry lets out a shaky breath, the tension leaving his body in a single, quiet rush. My arm, which had been a shield, is now a comfort.

The game rages on, the roar of the crowd a deafening sound in my ears, but I can’t hear any of it. All I can feel is the press of his body against mine, the quiet promise we’ve made to each other to be a safe place in the middle of a storm.

Niall, completely oblivious, points to the field. "Lou, did you see that?! What a save!" he yells.

I nod, my eyes still on Harry, who is looking out at the field, but not really seeing it. He’s just breathing, just existing, just being with me.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice thick with emotion. “I saw.”
I don’t know what’s going to happen when the game ends. I don’t know what kind of storm Chris is planning. But for now, here, in this moment, under the lights of the field, we’re okay.

The game clock ticks down, the final minutes of the match a dull, rhythmic backdrop to the real fight. Niall, completely unaware, is now arguing with Liam about who gets the last Reese’s Cup. Zayn is watching me, his eyes sharp and knowing, a silent ally.

When the final whistle blows, the stadium erupts around me, a cacophony of cheers, stomping feet, and triumphant shouts—but none of it reaches me. My attention is anchored entirely to Harry, to the fragile warmth of his presence that I know I cannot claim right now. I linger longer than I should, my fingers brushing the fabric of his hoodie one last time, memorizing the curve of his shoulder, the subtle tilt of his head as he glances at Chris. Every second is a stolen piece of safety, and every second makes leaving him feel like tearing a limb from my own body.

But I know—I know—if I stay, if I hover too close, the tension between him and Chris will snap. I can feel the unspoken threat, the tight coil of control and expectation that Chris carries like armor. Harry doesn’t need me risking a confrontation he’s already skilled at defusing. So I make the choice, heavy as it is. I pull away, forcing my feet to carry me toward the car, the chill air biting, my chest tight with every step.

Lottie had come over, her arms warm around Harry, the softness of her voice a balm for him even if she doesn’t know it. Her presence is a subtle reassurance, a reminder that he’s not alone—but it also sharpens the ache in me. Because I’m not the one holding him, not the one giving that quiet, steady comfort he needs.

I know Liam and Niall have agreed to a sleepover; their chatter and laughter fade into the background of my thoughts. The world is moving on, like it always does, but my mind is trapped in the amber of the moment I had to leave behind. The tight knot in my chest doesn’t loosen as I start the car. It twists, a stubborn ache, a reminder that love sometimes demands restraint more than closeness.

Zayn sits quietly in the passenger seat, uncharacteristically subdued. He needed a ride—of course he did—and the empty space beside him is a reminder of the one I wish I could fill. I slide into the driver’s seat, the hum of the engine under me a poor substitute for the steady rhythm of Harry’s heartbeat I’d been holding in my hands moments ago.

I glance in the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see Harry there, watching me leave, a ghost of the warmth I just had. My stomach clenches, a cocktail of relief and frustration. Relief that he’s safe, frustration that I can’t wrap him in my arms and stay, defying the tension hanging in the air. My hand rests lightly on the steering wheel, fingers lingering as though touching it could somehow tether me to him across the distance.

And as I pull away, headlights piercing the darkening evening, the ache remains, soft but persistent. Leaving him is an act of care. Leaving him because I had thought I had more time. That he had time.

I dropped Zayn off, and I had barely stepped through my front door that night when warmth swallowed me. The smell of tomato and basil sauce curled through the air, wrapping itself around my ribs. Home.

I kicked off my trainers and tossed my bag on the kitchen island. Fizzy was perched there, legs swinging, a bag of purple crisps in her lap. Her grin was wild, crumbs on her chin.

“You’re toast,” I teased, pointing to the half-empty bag. “Niall’s gonna lose his shit when he finds out you ate his crisps.”

She giggled around a loud bite and shook her head. “I don’t care. He’s funny when he’s mad.”

Her laughter was contagious. It filled me like sunlight, and I laughed with her. My day had been good, and for a little while, my world was simple.

I rounded the counter to kiss Mum’s cheek where she stood at the stove, her apron dusted with flour. The sizzle of the sauce was soft and steady, like a heartbeat.

“You know better than to curse around them,” she murmured, but her voice was warm, and the corner of her mouth lifted.

“Right. Sorry,” I said, grinning.

Sometimes I wonder if Mum had been on a hospital shift that night, I’d have known sooner.

Known who they’d rolled through the double doors. Known before the phone call carved the world in two.

But that night, I knew nothing.

I jumped up on the kitchen counter like I’d done a hundred times before, watching my house move around me in its easy rhythm.
Mum stirred the sauce at the stove, the wooden spoon making soft circles, steam curling into the warm light. The smell of tomatoes and garlic wrapped itself around the room, cozy and familiar, like nothing bad could happen in a house that smelled like that.

Fizzy sat cross-legged on the island beside me, a bag of Niall’s purple crisps in her lap. She swung her legs, unapologetic, crumbs scattered like confetti on the counter. She crunched loudly, then twisted toward the telly in the living room for a few seconds, mesmerized by whatever cartoon was flashing.

It was all so alive—little sounds and smells, the hum of family filling up the corners.
If I’d listened close enough, maybe I could have heard the world splitting open somewhere else.

Lottie came down the stairs then, phone in her hand, hair glossy and perfect. I blinked, caught off guard. I didn’t even know she was home yet from the match. She looked… finished. Like she had somewhere to be, or someone to see.

“You look nice,” I said as she breezed past the kitchen doorway, my voice soft with curiosity. “All fancy of you.”

She finally lifted her eyes from her phone long enough to flash me a grin. “Are we just pointing out the obvious? Of course I look nice.”

I snorted, shaking my head. I loved when the house was like this—safe, warm, teasing echoing off the walls.

“Lottie, hun,” Mum said, glancing over her shoulder as she wiped her hands on her apron. Her tone was easy, the kind of soft command only a mum could give. “Before you head out, could you get the twins?”

And just like that, the night went on, unknowing. The pasta bubbled, the telly flickered, and in some other part of town, the boy I loved was lying on cold tile, bleeding into the quiet.

We ate together that night like we always did—knees bumping under the table, the clatter of forks, the soft buzz of conversation weaving around the smell of Mum’s pasta.
Except for Lottie.

I found out later, through Daisy’s careful little whispers, that she’d been invited to some party—a season-end celebration for the team. Daisy made it sound dramatic, all wide eyes and exaggerated hand gestures, like Lottie had been summoned to some exclusive royal ball. But I didn’t mind. That was Lottie’s world, loud and bright, full of people who didn’t know how to sit still.

After dinner, I helped Mum with the dishes. The warm water bit at my fingers as I scrubbed, and Mum hummed some tune I didn’t know under her breath. It was one of those domestic, unremarkable moments that felt steady in my chest.

We all settled on the couch after that, Fizzy pressed into Mum’s side, Daisy leaning over the armrest with a blanket draped around her shoulders, Phoebe curled around a stuffy next to me. We argued for a few minutes over what film to watch, but eventually one played, flickering shadows across our living room.

I didn’t care for it. By the halfway mark, I was bored, half-listening to the dialogue, my eyes wandering around the room instead. I watched the soft rise and fall of the twins’ shoulders, the way Mum absentmindedly carded her fingers through Fizzy’s hair.

The giggles kept me there, though—Phoebe’s and Daisy’s tiny bursts of laughter. It was a sound I could never get enough of.

Then the phone rang.

Its shrill tone cut through the warmth of the room, slicing the evening open. Mum shifted, muttering something about pausing the film, we didn’t, and rose to answer it. Her slippers made soft whispers against the carpet as she left the room.

I didn’t follow.
I didn’t even turn my head.

I stayed on the couch, staring at the screen, pretending to be interested in the story I couldn’t have cared less about. Because in that moment, I had no idea that the phone ringing meant blood.

The film played on, the sound suddenly too loud, too bright against the quiet that had settled in my chest. I could still hear the phone in the hallway, Mum’s voice low and polite as she answered. I could hear her pause, the way her words caught before they even left her mouth.

Something in my bones knew before my brain could catch up.
The air changed.

Fizzy giggled at something on the screen, the sound sharp and innocent, but my stomach turned like I’d swallowed stones. I heard the way Mum’s footsteps quickened, soft slippers against the carpet, and then she appeared in the doorway.

Her face said everything.

The colour had drained, lips pressed tight, eyes too wide but trying to be steady for us. For me. Her hand was still wrapped around the receiver like it might keep her from falling.

“Louis,” she said. Just my name. Quiet, but enough to cut through everything else.

My blood went cold.
I slid off the couch, suddenly aware of my own heartbeat, too fast, too loud.

“What?” My voice cracked. I already hated the way it sounded—like I was begging for something I couldn’t even name yet.

Mum hesitated. I watched her throat move like she had to swallow something sharp before she spoke. “It’s Lottie.”

“Is she okay?” I asked, and my voice had gone thin, shaky, like a thread about to snap.

She took a step closer, her free hand reaching for my shoulder. “Yeah, she’s alright. She said that a few people were talking about seeing a boy, coming out of the school in a stretcher.”

My stomach dropped so fast it was like the floor had given out beneath me. A stretcher.

The warmth of the living room—the laughter, the film, the smell of Mum’s pasta—turned into something jagged in my chest. I could barely hear the telly anymore. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.

“A boy?” My voice cracked, and I hated that I already knew. I hated that some part of me knew. “What boy?”

Mum’s eyes softened, but her grip on my shoulder tightened, steadying me. “They didn’t say a name. But… they said he was bleeding bad, sweetheart. Real bad. Lottie thinks—”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
It was Harry.

The dread that took over my body in that one moment, felt more heavy than the house I stood in. Like his pain had reached through the walls of my home to grab me by the heart.

I blinked. Hard. As if that might erase the ringing in my ears. But it didn’t.

My legs moved before I could think. I was already grabbing my coat, my trainers, my phone, something—anything—because the walls were suddenly too close, the air too thick, and I needed to move.

“Louis,” Mum called after me, her voice sharp with worry. “Louis, slow down—”

But I couldn’t.

I grabbed my keys and left her in the warmth of the house, the door slamming behind me like a heartbeat too loud for the night.

The cold air bit at my face, but it wasn’t enough to cut through the fire in my chest. My hands shook as I gripped the steering wheel, sliding into that same car that had always been a safe place. The same car where Liam, Zayn, and Niall had made me laugh until my ribs hurt. The same one where Harry had sat in the driver’s seat for the first time, knuckles white, eyes flicking to me for reassurance as I teased him through the basics of driving.

Now it felt like a lifeboat in the middle of a storm.
The streets blurred as I drove, wet from rain or tears—I couldn’t tell which anymore. My vision swam with memories, with every first Harry had ever given me, each one pricking at my chest like glass shards.

The first time I’d seen him—not as the boy everyone else saw, but really seen him—when our eyes caught and, for a second, the world went quiet. I hadn’t thought anything of it then, just another glance in a park full of them.

The first time he spoke to me after that unbearable silence, after days of him avoiding me, my stomach had fluttered with relief so sharp it almost hurt. I’d feared I’d been forgotten, that I’d lost him before he was even mine to keep.

The first time he trusted me. God, I’ll never forget it—the way his head had fallen against my shoulder on a quiet movie night, his body warm and heavy with a safety he didn’t have anywhere else. I’d sat there barely breathing, terrified of moving and breaking the fragile spell of being needed.

And then… the first time his lips brushed mine.
Softer than a question.
Softer than the world deserved.

He had been someone else’s, but in that moment, I’d known—I would do anything for him. Anything to keep that light in his eyes safe from the shadows that followed him home. Anything to keep him from being hurt again.

Maybe that was what possessed me now, what anchored my shaking hands to the wheel even as my vision blurred and my chest splintered under the weight of panic.

Because I’d made a promise to myself with every first he’d given me.

That no matter what, I would not let this world take him from me.
Not like this.
Not tonight.

The road unspooled under my tires, a smear of grey and shadow that barely felt real. Streetlights blinked past like the slow pulse of some distant, uncaring heartbeat. Every turn I took felt too wide, too sharp; every second stretched, elastic with dread.

My knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I didn’t remember buckling my seatbelt, didn’t remember turning the key, only the way the car jolted forward like it wanted to outrun the thought clawing up my throat: What if I’m too late?

I rolled through a stop sign without looking. No one honked. Maybe the world already knew to make space for me tonight.

The hospital appeared like a lighthouse through the blur of tears, the white glow of its lights too harsh against the black sky. My chest tightened. This was it. This was the last line between the world I knew and the one where it all ended.

I swung the car into the lot too fast, tires squealing on wet pavement. My door flew open before the engine even cut off, keys dangling in the ignition. Cold air slapped me in the face, but I barely felt it.

The automatic doors yawned open, spilling bright, sterile light onto the empty lobby tiles. It smelled like disinfectant and rain and fear. My shoes squeaked as I crossed to the front desk, and the woman behind it—older, kind eyes, hair pinned back—looked up like she’d already guessed why I was here.

“Can I help you?” she asked, voice soft but steady.

My mouth opened, but the words got stuck in the tangle of my throat. I swallowed hard. “I—there was a boy. On a stretcher. He—he would’ve come in from the school.” My voice cracked on boy, and I gripped the counter to keep myself standing. “Please, I need to know—Harry Styles. He’s—he’s all I’ve got.”

The woman’s expression shifted, not quite pity, not quite confirmation. Just that soft, unreadable stillness people get when they’re holding back the truth because they know it will shatter you.

“Are you family?” she asks.

My heart stuttered. Family.

The word echoed in my chest like a riddle I couldn’t answer. Not with blood, not with paperwork, not in any way that would matter to this woman under the white hum of hospital lights. But in every way that counted—every laugh, every secret, every quiet moment where the world narrowed to just him and me—I was his.

“I’m his—”

The word snapped in half on a sob, splintering my throat as it left me.

I gripped the counter, knuckles white, as the panic in my chest clawed for air. “I’m his brother, his—cousin, his—dad, I don’t—his bloody nan, I don’t care what I have to be, just—” My voice cracked so hard it nearly gutted me. “Just tell me he’s okay!”
The plea tore out of me raw, unshaped, louder than I meant, so loud it bounced off the sterile walls. People in the waiting room turned their heads, but I couldn’t care. My lungs burned like they’d been holding their breath for hours. My hands shook against the counter, leaving damp, sweaty marks on the laminate.

“I can’t—” I choked on the words, dragging the heel of my hand across my face. My eyes stung, wet and blurring the world into streaks of white and shadow. “I can’t not know. Please. Please, I just… I need him to be okay.”

Because if he wasn’t—

If this was the night the world finally took him from me—

I didn’t know how to keep existing in a version of life that didn’t have Harry in it.

Her brows knit together, kind but firm. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”

“I need to see him,” I said, too fast, too desperate.
“Please. Just—just tell me if he’s alive. Please.”

Her lips pressing into a thin line as if she had to swallow whatever truth was sitting heavy on her tongue. Her kind eyes flicked over my face, like she was measuring whether I could handle the weight of it—or if anyone ever could.

“Wait here,” she said finally, voice soft, careful, as if I might break under it.

But waiting wasn’t an option. My whole body was vibrating, electric with dread, every cell screaming to move, to find him. My feet twitched toward the hallway anyway.

“Please,” I said, lower now, hoarse from the cry that had ripped out of me. My voice was a thread about to snap. “I can’t just— I can’t stand here while he’s—” I couldn’t even finish it. My throat closed around the words.

Her gaze softened. Pity. That was pity now. “Stay right there, love. I’ll see what I can do.”

And then she disappeared through a set of double doors, leaving me in a lobby that suddenly felt too bright, too clean, like a stage where my world was collapsing in public.

I turn to see a few chairs that are lined up in a waiting area type area. A little girl pressed close to her mother looks at me.

I stared back at the little girl, though I didn’t really see her. My eyes were too full of water, the world smeared and fractured like a photo left out in the rain. She blinked up at me, wide-eyed and silent, her hand fisting in her mother’s sleeve as if she could feel the storm bleeding off of me.

I dropped my gaze to the floor, shame curling in my chest. My shoes were damp, leaving faint prints on the sterile tiles, and I had this sudden, wild thought that if I just kept staring at those dark marks, maybe I wouldn’t think about the blood Harry had left somewhere else tonight. Blood on tile, on his clothes, on the hands of someone who had tried to save him.

I sank into one of the chairs, the plastic cold against my back. My body felt wrong, jittery and heavy all at once, like it didn’t know if it wanted to run or collapse. My hands shook in my lap, so I pressed my palms together, hard enough that the bones ached, like I could trap the tremor between them.

The lobby was quiet except for the hum of vending machines and the occasional distant crackle of the intercom. Every little sound scraped against my skin. Someone coughed. A phone rang somewhere far off. A nurse’s shoes squeaked on the tile. My chest tightened with every sound, like each one might be the prelude to someone walking out and telling me my heart had stopped beating somewhere in the back rooms of this hospital.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and buried my face in my hands. I didn’t cry—not properly. The tears were already there, hot and quiet, sliding down through my fingers and pooling on the linoleum between my shoes. My chest gave these little hiccuping gasps that hurt to swallow.

I thought about calling someone—Liam, Zayn, Niall—but what would I say? Harry’s hurt, he’s bleeding, and I don’t know if he’s ever going to come back to me. The words would shatter me to hear out loud, and I couldn’t bear to hear my fear echoed in someone else’s voice.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Time didn’t work right here. It bent, folded, stretched out like taffy. I stared at a crack in the floor tile so long I memorized the jagged pattern. I stared at the clock, hands crawling like they had all the time in the world while mine was falling apart.

When the door opened again, I stood before I even registered the sound.

The nurse was back.
This time, she wasn’t alone.

A man in scrubs stepped forward—tall, late thirties maybe, tired in the way people who carry too much always are. His ID badge read Dr. Morley. His face was calm, but there was something tight in the corners of his mouth.

“And you’re here for Harry?” he asked.

I nodded, but my voice was gone.

He stepped closer. “He’s stable, he came in with blunt force trauma to the head and some lacerations, major blood loss.”

My legs wobbled. The air turned to cement in my lungs. “Can I see him?”

The man hesitated, his eyes softening like he was taking in the wreck I was. “We’re preparing him for surgery, so I’m afraid not.”

My heart felt like it couldn’t take another minute of waiting, but I knew I would have to.

“But, he’s lucky that the injury was on the side of the scull. Otherwise he would have to shave his head.” The Doctor continues like it might make me feel better again.

I let out a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all—just a sharp, broken sound that scraped my throat raw. Shaving his head. Like that was the thing that mattered, like I cared about his curls when I’d just been picturing him cold and still on some empty floor.

The doctor’s words rattled around in my chest, half-comfort, half-nightmare. Stable. Surgery. Blunt force trauma. Blood loss. Each phrase lodged in me like splinters. I swallowed hard, but it didn’t make them go down.

“Lucky,” I repeated, my voice cracking on the word. “He’s… lucky?”

Dr. Morley gave a small nod. “Yes. Considering the circumstances. He lost a lot of blood, but he’s young. Strong. The scans didn’t show any swelling in the brain yet. We’re optimistic.”

Optimistic. It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t the thing I needed—he’s going to be okay. It was a maybe, a hope, a piece of string I clutched with both shaking hands.

“I’ll take the side injury,” I croaked, voice raw, cracking right down the middle. “I’ll take anything. Just as long as—” I couldn’t finish. I bit down on the rest before it tore me open.

Dr. Morley nodded like he understood more than he let on. He folded his arms, eyes scanning my face as if checking for fractures beneath the surface. “We’re doing everything we can. He’s already responded to some stimuli—we take that as a good sign.”

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with that. I couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t form any picture of what "stimuli" meant, couldn’t imagine Harry twitching under fluorescent lights, full of tubes and machines, just to prove he was still fighting.

“I’ll let you know when he’s out of surgery,” Dr. Morley said gently. “If it goes well, he’ll be moved to recovery. Might still be unconscious for a while, but you’ll be able to sit with him.”

Sit with him.

The idea nearly buckled me. To just be there. To take his hand, even if he didn’t squeeze back.

“Thank you,” I whispered. It didn’t feel like enough.
The doctor nodded once, brief and sure, then turned and disappeared back down the corridor, his footsteps swallowed up by the hush of the hospital.

The nurse who’d come with him lingered for a beat. “You can stay here, if you’d like. Someone will come get you when he’s out.” She gestured to the row of chairs like it was a gift.

I nodded mutely and sank back down, the plastic groaning beneath me. My limbs were lead now. Exhaustion crashing in like it had been waiting for permission.

The little girl was gone. The lobby had emptied out, or maybe I just stopped noticing people. The clock kept ticking. The machines still hummed. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears, thudding, irregular, broken by every footstep that wasn’t for me.

I pulled my knees up, arms hugging them tight, like if I curled small enough, I could fold all this panic back into my chest and forget what it felt like to wait on someone else’s heartbeat.

As I waited, as the stars edged ever closer to midnight, a quiet ache settled into my chest—a slow, insidious weight that pressed against my ribs. I found myself thinking about how I wasn’t there.

Chapter Text

I wasn’t there. God, I should have been.
I should never have left Harry with that man. But I did. I went home, I closed my door, and I let the world do what it always does to him.

So, when I speak this part of his story, it will never be perfect. It will never be whole, because I didn’t live it through his eyes. I only know it in fragments—glimpses he’s handed me over time, careful as if they were glass that might cut him if he held them too long.

I earned those pieces, one by one, the way you pin badges to a backpack. You don’t start with it covered—you carry the weight first, and you collect your moments as they come. That’s how Harry’s story came to me. Not in one confession, not in some neat and cinematic unraveling. It came in the dark, when the night was soft and his guard was softer.

Sometimes, he would wake in the middle of the night, lungs heaving from a dream that hurt too much to stay asleep in. He’d whisper pieces of it then, his voice still shaky with sleep, as if speaking it aloud made it safer to carry. Other times, it would slip out between our laughter—an offhand remark about the past, about pain, tucked into the spaces where the world had finally gone quiet for him.

And every time—every time—when he was finished, when the words had left his mouth and the ghosts had left his eyes for a little while, he’d say the same thing to me.

“You made me feel safe,” he’d whisper, like it was a secret I had to hold tight. “And you don’t understand how precious safe is until you’ve gone so long without it.”

I still think about that.

How something as small as safe—something I’d never had to define before him—could be the most valuable thing in the world to someone who’s been waiting for it their whole life.

Because every time I say I saved Harry, I don’t mean it the way people think. I wasn’t the hero in shining armor pulling him out of the fire. He saved himself. I was just the faint light at the end of a long, dark tunnel—a small reminder that safe existed somewhere, even if he couldn’t reach it yet.
I was safe in a world where safety was fragile, almost imaginary. Yes, I saved Harry. But Harry saved himself that day.

Now, with that in mind, I’ll tell you what happened.

He told me he’d watched me leave after the game, eyes following me as I slipped away. I couldn’t stay. If I hovered too close to him for too long, Chris would know. He’d see it in the way my chest caved in whenever Harry’s shoulder brushed mine. He’d see it in the way I loved him without meaning to.

So I left. And Harry stayed. Obedient, quiet, like he always was around Chris.

Later, he admitted he felt guilty. Not for me—for the hidden kisses, the fingertips brushing under tables, the fleeting moments that were ours. He didn’t feel guilty for loving me in the shadows.

He felt guilty because he knew Chris knew.

Harry said he could see it in his eyes: Chris watched him fall out of love in real time. Watched the spark he’d once owned flare for someone else. He knew his bruises were being kissed over—but not by the lips that made them.

It wasn’t the cheating that made his stomach twist. It was the knowledge that Chris was being forced to watch it happen. Harry didn’t love him anymore, and that truth was its own cruelty.

And I… I never felt bad. I only felt anger, thick and pulsing, for the man who had dimmed Harry’s light. But because I loved Harry, I understood his guilt. He saw sides to the story I never could. He could feel sorry for the monster while still fearing him. I couldn’t. I respected that difference between us.

Chris had kept him back after the game, lingering at the edge of the crowd with the boys he wanted to impress. He knew what he was doing—making Harry stand beside him like a prize, his silent, soft-eyed trophy. His kicked puppy no one could turn away from.

Harry said he realized it too late. Chris wanted the whole world to see that Harry was owned. That he was his.

That letting go would never come without a fight.
And that night, even Harry couldn’t have guessed how far Chris would go.

By the time the crowd thinned and the concessions closed, the pitch was almost empty. Only a few groups lingered under the soft silver of the moon, the stars washing a gentle warmth across the field. Harry said the breeze was cool but soft on his cheeks, the kind of night he’d normally want to star-gaze. He told me, later, that he imagined I would’ve liked it.

But Chris wasn’t thinking about stars.

When the last mate waved goodbye, Chris’s performance dropped like a mask hitting the floor. Harry had learned to measure danger in silence, and this silence was sharp.

Chris didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.
He grabbed Harry’s forearm—too tight, leaving its own mark—and dragged him toward the toilet block.

Harry told me he didn’t fight. Fighting always made it worse.

He just let himself be pulled, his sneakers scuffing the concrete.

Chris shoved him against the door. Metal rattled against the frame. Harry said he felt the cold slam of reality in his spine before the words even started.

“You think you can leave me?” Chris barked, voice echoing in the empty tiles. Harry recited it to me later, his jaw tight, like the words still had teeth. “I made you, Harry. Everyone respects you because of me.”

Harry knew leaving wouldn’t be clean. He’d imagined a fight. Bruises, maybe. Heartbreak. He’d just never pictured this exact moment.

Chris’s voice rose, splintered by rage.
“People look at you because I made you worth looking at. And now? You know what they’ll say when they find out you’ve been sneaking around with a nobody?”

Harry said he stayed silent. His throat had locked. Speaking felt like walking into a trap. He could taste the scream in his chest, but he swallowed it down, knowing it would only make things worse.

Chris paced, circling him like an animal caged with prey. His anger twisted into something bitter and sharp.

“People will think I can’t satisfy you,” he spat. “Is that what you want? For everyone to think I can’t take care of you? After everything I’ve done for you?”

Harry told me he never knew the right answers to those questions. They weren’t really questions. They were just traps. So he stayed quiet, shaking, counting his own heartbeats.

Until Chris aimed his cruelty at me. “I don’t even know what you see in him,” he hissed. “He’s fucking pathetic.”

And that—Harry said—was the moment something inside him snapped.

The boy who stayed silent, who flinched and obeyed, finally lifted his head. His voice came out like a snarl, harsh in a way he didn’t know he could sound.

“He treats me right.”

The words hung in the air, sharper than any fist.

Harry said the silence that followed was louder than the shouting had been. He watched Chris’s face twist, fury bubbling beneath his skin, disbelief flickering there too—like he couldn’t fathom the boy he’d owned daring to talk back.

“You—” Chris’s voice broke off, jagged and ugly. His hand hit the metal door beside Harry’s head with a deafening clang. The sound echoed in the tiled room, and Harry flinched despite himself. He hated that flinch. He said it made him feel small, but his body moved before he could stop it.

“You think he’s better than me?” Chris’s voice was rising again, spitting venom in every word. “You think some pathetic little sketching freak can give you more than I can?”

Harry told me later that he could feel the tears building behind his eyes, but he didn’t want to give Chris that. Not anymore. So he clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Chris had hated that—hated the defiance, hated the crack in the obedience he’d spent so long carving into Harry.
Chris hated most things, really.
And I… I hated him for what he did next.

Harry told me as much as he could without spiraling too far, speaking in broken fragments like each memory had edges that could cut him. He said he could still feel everything even after his eyes closed—like his body refused to forget even when his mind tried to slip into numbness.

“Chris grabbed me by my curls,” Harry whispered, his voice too calm for the words coming out of his mouth, like he’d practiced saying it without breaking. His head was in my lap, my fingers trembling in his hair. “He used them like… like a handle. Yanked my head back. And then he—he slammed my head into the edge of the sink.”

My vision blurred with tears. I didn’t even realize I’d started crying until one hit the back of my hand where it rested on his shoulder.

Harry’s eyes stayed closed as he continued, as if keeping the world dark made it easier to talk about the dark in his past.
“I think… I think he smashed me into it a few times. My skull felt like it was ringing, but far away. Like… like I was inside my own head and outside of it at the same time. My brain was screaming at me, but I didn’t understand the words.”

He paused then, exhaling slow. His voice was flat, almost detached, but I could feel the tremor in his body against my legs.
“I remember falling,” he said quietly. “I didn’t feel like a person when I hit the floor. I felt like… like a feather in my head, but my body dropped like bricks. I remember that thud. I’ll always remember it.”

His fingers curled in my jumper, almost unconsciously.
“He kicked me a few times after that. I think he was yelling, but it was muffled. Like… like someone yelling underwater. And the whole time, I was trying to read him, because I always could before. I always knew when he was about to break me. But this time… this time I couldn’t read him. And that was the scariest part.”

He opened his eyes then, just a little, green and glassy in the soft light of my room.
“I thought maybe that was it. I thought I’d finally… I don’t know. Just be gone.”

And I… I couldn’t speak.

My mouth tried, opened and closed like a fish pulled out of water, but no sound came out. What could I possibly say to fix the unfixable? So I didn’t. I just wrapped my arms around him and held him like maybe, if I held tight enough, I could convince his body that it was safe now. That the world couldn’t reach him here.

I didn’t gather the rest of the story that night. Harry couldn’t give it to me all at once—he had to spill it in pieces, over weeks, in the quiet hours when the dark felt like it belonged to us alone. But I’d learned enough to stitch the fragments together.

He told me once, voice flat with memory, that in the ringing chaos of his skull—half-pain, half-emptiness—he noticed the moment Chris realized he’d gone too far. He’d crossed the line he could never uncross.

“Louis,” he’d whispered into the space between us, “I could see it in his face. He knew he broke me. And he hated that he knew it.”

And in the most Chris way imaginable, he ran from it.

He ran from Harry’s blood and from his guilt, and he ran from the boy he claimed to love.
He left him there.

Left him crumpled on a cold bathroom floor, cheek pressed to tile, breath stuttering out of his lungs in uneven bursts.

He left his boyfriend—his soft, breakable, bleeding boyfriend—to die in that bathroom.

When Harry told me that part, his voice had wavered for the first time. Not when he described the sink, or the kicks, or the ringing in his head—but when he said, softly:

“He just… left. Like I didn’t matter at all. Like I was nothing.”

He said time didn’t exist after that. That he could’ve been there ten minutes or ten days and he wouldn’t have known the difference. He floated in and out of himself, his body shaking but his mind… quiet. Too quiet.

Later, the doctors would tell him how much blood he’d lost, would put numbers and timelines on the trauma, but none of that mattered to him in that moment. He just remembered the cold of the tiles, the way his own heartbeat echoed in his ears, and the weight of the emptiness pressing down on him like a second body.

But mercy came—not in the form of an apology or a rescue from the boy who swore he loved him—but from a stranger.

A janitor, keys jingling on his belt, had pushed the door open to find Harry on the floor.

Harry said he barely even lifted his head when the man gasped and knelt down beside him. He only realized later that the man’s hands were warm and steady, that his voice had that edge of panic that meant he cared.

That man called the police.
He saved Harry’s life.

And God, I wish I could thank him.
Because without him, I might never have gotten to trace the curve of Harry’s smile with my eyes again.

I might never have gotten the chance to tell him how much I loved him.

And even as much as that man saved Harry’s life that night, Harry saved his own.

Like I said, Harry saved himself.

He didn’t let that monster drag him home again. He didn’t stay silent on that cold tile floor, didn’t surrender the last fragile pieces of himself to Chris. He didn’t let his tears be currency for someone else’s power.

Sometimes I think about that too much—how close it all was, how easily the story could have ended differently—and it steals the air from my lungs. It makes me hold him tighter in the middle of the night, my lips pressed to his temple like a prayer I don’t know how to say out loud.

And in those moments, I kiss him my thank you.
Because I don’t know if I’ll ever be strong enough to say it with words—how grateful I am. Not just to the man who walked into that bathroom and called for help. But to Harry himself.

For fighting for his own life.
For refusing to be silent anymore.

Chapter Text

I only wake up because of the soft thump of a hand patting against my chest—gentle, like it’s afraid I might break. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep, but the grogginess clings to me like fog, and for a few disoriented seconds, I can’t place where I am. Then the sharp scent of antiseptic pulls me back, the steady hum of machines, the cold air that always seems to linger in hospitals.

And then—my mum.

She’s standing in front of me, her small, careful hands pressing a visitor’s sticker to my shirt as if it’s the most important thing in the world. Her eyes meet mine, soft and steady, and she offers me a smile. “Shh,” she whispers, “it’s alright. You can sleep.”

But the idea of sleep feels like betrayal now. I sit up too quickly, the chair creaking beneath me, my mouth parting to speak, though my throat is still raw and tight from the sobs I thought I’d buried.

She reads me instantly—maybe it’s the way my eyes sting, maybe it’s the tears still clinging stubbornly to my lashes. “He’s asleep,” she says quietly, as though speaking too loud might break him. “Doctors said surgery went well. Just a few stitches on the side of his head.”

I don’t breathe. Not really. I just sit there, my hands clenching against my knees, because even though I’ve heard the words went well, it doesn’t feel real. Harry is somewhere I can’t reach, tucked behind walls and wires and closed doors. Safe, but not with me. I won’t stop worrying until I see him, until I can lay my hand against his chest and feel his breath push back.

Mum takes the seat beside me, her presence solid, grounding. She studies me for a moment, then reaches up and gently pushes my hair away from my face. It’s such a small thing—ordinary, even—but in this sterile, fluorescent place, it feels impossibly tender.

“You scared me, baby,” she says softly, but her voice has that quiet edge, the one she gets when she’s holding more worry than she wants to admit. “You can’t just run off like that when there’s no one around to watch your sisters.”

My chest squeezes, guilt threading its way through the worry that’s already lodged there. “Sorry,” I manage, my voice cracked but sure.

I swallow, looking down at my hands before lifting my gaze to her again. “I just… I can’t lose him, Mum. Not him.”

The words hang there, heavier than anything I’ve ever said, like they’re the truest thing I’ve ever known. And for once, she doesn’t tell me to calm down. She just puts her hand over mine, “I know, but driving in the condition you were in was dangerous.”

“I know.”

My mum squeezed my hand, her fingers small and warm over mine. She didn’t say anything else about it, just let her presence be a quiet anchor in the stormy sea of my own mind. She let me sit with the silent weight of what I’d done, what I hadn’t, and the terrifying chasm of a life I’d nearly had to live.

After a few minutes, she asked, "Do you want some water? I could get us both a coffee from the machine."

I shook my head, not looking at her. The thought of moving, of standing in front of the bright, humming vending machine, was too much. It would be a distraction I couldn’t afford, a small, mundane task that felt like an insult to the enormity of what had just happened. My world had almost ended in a bathroom, and all I could do now was wait for it to start again.

We sat in silence, just the two of us, a small island of quiet in the hum of the hospital lobby. I could feel her watching me, her gentle gaze a weight on my skin, but I didn’t look up. My eyes were fixed on the double doors down the hallway, the ones the nurse and doctor had disappeared through. The ones that separated me from him. My whole being was a stretched wire, thin and vibrating with a tension that felt like it might snap at any moment.

And then, it did.

The door opened.

A different nurse came through, this one with a kind, tired smile on her face. Her voice was soft but clear, and it cut through the haze I was in, a jolt of pure, clean air. "Mr. Tomlinson?"

My head snapped up.

"He's been moved to recovery," she said, her smile broadening slightly. "The surgeon wants him to rest, but you can go back now. He's still sleeping, but he's stable."

The word stable finally felt real. It landed in my chest, a heavy, solid thing that I could hold onto. I nodded, not trusting my voice, and stood up, my legs wobbly beneath me as if they’d forgotten how to work.

Mum stood up with me, her hand a reassuring weight on my back. "Go on, love. I'll be right here."

I looked at her, and in her eyes, I saw not just worry, but an understanding that was deeper than words. She knew. She had always known. And in that moment, I understood that I wasn’t alone in this.

I walked down the long corridor, the plastic on the floor squeaking with every step. The walls were a sterile white, and the doors all looked the same. Each step was a small prayer, a silent negotiation with the universe. Just let him be okay. Just let him be there.

The nurse paused at a door and gestured for me to go in. "Just for a little while," she said gently, and then she was gone.

I stood in the doorway, my hand on the cold metal, and looked inside.

And there he was.

He was a ghost of himself, a pale and beautiful ruin in a bed that was too big for him. His face was colorless against the crisp white sheets, and a thick bandage was wrapped around the side of his head, stark white against the dark curls he’d been so proud of. The rhythmic beeping of the monitor beside the bed was the only thing that seemed to be alive, a steady, mechanical heartbeat in a room full of stillness. An IV dripped silently into his arm, and a thin tube snaked under his nose. His chest rose and fell with the slow, even rhythm of a life that was still happening, a life that was still his.

I felt a sob rise in my throat, but it was a different kind this time. Not of panic, but of a fierce, desperate relief.

I walked to the side of the bed and stood there for a long moment, just watching him, trying to memorize the sight of his breathing. The world outside of this room, the world of frantic pleas and sterile waiting rooms, had dissolved into nothingness. There was only this. Only him.

My hand reached out, hovering for a moment before I gently took his. His skin was cool to the touch, and his hand was slack in mine, not gripping back. But it was there. It was real.

I brought his hand to my lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. Tears, hot and silent, finally broke free and fell onto his skin. "I'm so sorry," I whispered, the words catching in my throat, a confession and a promise all at once. "I'm so sorry, Harry."

He didn't move. He didn’t stir. But his chest rose and fell under the covers, a testament to the fact that he had survived. That he had fought.

I pulled a chair closer and sat down, my hand still holding his, the silence in the room filled only with the soft beeping of the machine. I didn't care about anything else. I didn't care how long it took. I wasn't leaving again. He was safe now. And I was here to be that safety, even if it meant just holding his hand in the quiet darkness of a recovery room. I was here.

I wouldn't leave again.