i fell in love in 1914 ~ l.s

😟 19 😟

(A/n: sorry, I'm one day too late :/ I hope you don't mind <3)

~ Harry ~

I held his hand when we walked inside the building. We brought the coats back and went back to the ballroom. Everything seemed perfect.

But now, while my aunt is upset and yelling at me and Louis is not holding my hand anymore, it doesn't feel perfect at all anymore.

My aunt wanted to "talk to me privately" while looking at Louis like she wanted to kill him, so Louis let go of my hand and left me with my aunt. She started to ask questions about Louis and especially about our "friendship". So I got defensive over Louis en she started yelling these things at me and I started yelling back. Then my uncle got involved and said I was rude.

"You will stay away from him!" My aunt yells at me.

"It's for your own good, Harry." My uncle is a lot calmer than my aunt and he barely ever raises his voice.

I'm surprised that I haven't started crying yet. "Why?" I ask and it feels like someone has their hands around my throat because breathing is a little hard.

"Because it's not good, it's not right." My uncle tells me.

"W- why is it.. is it not right?" I stutter.

"Because he's a dirty fag!" My aunt exclaims.

"Shhh no need to raise our voice, Edith." My uncle tries to calm her down. "What she means is that it's not right for two boys to be together, it's not natural and God doesn't allow it."

My bottom lip starts to tremble and tears start to collect at the bottom of my eyelids. "Wwwe aren't t- together." I say. It's more painful because it's the truth.

"Don't lie! I'm not blind, I see the way you two look at each other. I've seen it before and it will end bad." My aunt says, still very loud. Her face is red and she's clearly not very happy about me right now.

I thought the way we look at each other was a good thing, it always felt good at least.

"No, you're a liar! And Louis isn't.. isn't a dirty fffa...." it's hard to say it "fag." I end the sentence whispering. My throat hurts, tears stream down my face and my eyelashes are wet which makes it hard to see things. My breathing is heavy and I feel myself panicking.

"He is. You're too young to notice and too naive to realise that it's bad." My uncle says.

I'm hyperventilating and I'm unable to speak. It feels like I'm not getting any oxygen. It's even more embarrassing because we are standing in the corner of the ballroom and people are looking at us.

I decide to run to the bathroom because I don't want to be there anymore. As I run to the bathroom Thomas suddenly stops me. "Hey boy stop, what are y- wait are you okay?" He asks.

I'm still not able to speak and I hope Thomas hasn't forgotten about my asthma. My breathing is short and rapid and I feel a little dizzy. The airway in my lungs inflame, it feels like I'm suffocating.

"Get his inhaler, it's probably in his room." I hear him say to someone that works for him.

Panic attacks trigger my asthma attacks and it's hard to distinguish whether or not I have an asthma or panic attack but usually I they trigger each other so I end up with having a panic and asthma attack at the same time.

Thomas hives me my inhaler and tries to calm me down by giving me instructions on how to breathe. He tells me to sit up straight, which is very ironic and if I was Louis I would've laughed, but I'm me, so I just cry silently.

I'm not hyperventilating anymore, my asthma attack is over. I'm still panicking a little bit and I'm crying.

"What going on?" Thomas asks me.

"Your parents told me I should stay away from Louis." I say softly while still crying and my voice keeps cracking.

I look at Thomas and I see that I knows why. He has seen the way Louis and I looked at each other, he never said anything about it but he always looked away, like he didn't want to see it. I was too busy with Louis to care.

"They're trying to protect you." Thomas sighs.

"So you agree with her?" I feel my heart shatter a bit. Thomas is not only my cousin, he's also one of the people I trust.

"It's for your own good, Harry." He says. "You know it."

"You think Louis isn't good for me?" I ask while I'm still crying.

"Listen, I know he makes you happy, I've never seen you more happy. But you can't get too close to him, people don't like that and you'll end up hurting." He says honestly.

I start sobbing because I know he's right.

~ Louis ~

I can't find Harry, he isn't with his aunt anymore. I decide to go to the bathroom, he's probably just peeing.

When I enter the hallway I see Harry in tears and I hear Thomas trying to calm him down. I run up to them and I look at Harry worriedly. Once he sees me he immediately clings on to me and starts crying in the crook of my neck. I hold him tight.

"What's going on?" I ask Thomas. Harry isn't able to answer right now.

"He's upset." No shit. "I think you should talk to him, upstairs, in private." Thomas says.

"I will, thank you." I say as he gives me Harry's inhaler. I take Harry up the bifurcated stairs and hold his hand as we enter our bedroom.

"Do you want to take a shower? Or bath?" I ask as I lead him to the bed. He shakes his head and sits down on the bed.

He looks up at me with puffy eyes. His eyes are bloodshot because he's probably been crying for some time now. Tears are still rolling down his face and his eyelashes are wet. He's pale but his nose and ears are red.

"Do you want to sleep?" I don't want to invade him with questions about why he's crying so I just ask him what he wants.

"My family thinks that we're too close." He says with a cracking voice. He coughs after he said it and winces in pain, he probably has a sore throat.

I guess his family saw how close we are and the homophobia started showing. It's horrible. Especially because Harry has to go through it, no one deserves to be discriminated against because they're not what's considered the "standard or the default".

I don't know what to do, I'm scared that we're in too deep for me to back out. I have to options: listen to Harry's family so they'll accept him (or who they think he is), it's not a good option but at least he'll be accepted by the society and his family. Or I continue what we're doing and we're going to have to pretend and hide or we'll be punished for being who we are.

"Do you think that we're too close?" I ask him.

He starts crying again and he tightens his grip on my hand. He tries to hold back tears but I can see that he needs to let his emotions out. I sit down next to him on the bed and I let him cry in my chest.