Burden // LS STORY

Part 12.

Kissing Harry gave me every calming feeling in the world, the amount of rage and anger I was feeling, all flooded away the moment our lips met, and I felt his presence lingering all over me. The taste of him, the smell of him, the way his touch sent shockwaves through my body. It was a feeling I would never get sick of, a feeling that I didn't know I was addicted to until after having my first taste. He was a drug, and I was now hooked.

"What the fuck?" The sudden bellowing of an all too familiar voice made me disconnect my lips from Harry. I felt the floor beneath me absolutely disintegrate the moment my eyes became locked with my darkest fears.

Zayn.

His eyes were tracing back and forth between mine and Harry's. Lips parted in shock. I didn't know what to say. Harry didn't either. Apparently, neither did Zayn. We all stood there in deafening silence for what seemed like the longest period of time. I needed someone to speak, I needed someone to break this horrifying scenario, but I couldn't be the one to do it. I didn't know how.

"Louis, what the fuck is this?" Zayn repeats again, zoning his gaze in on me.

"Zayn, let me explain!" I beg of him taking a step toward him.

He backs away as if my presence holds some sort of disease with it.

"Get away from me fag, what the fuck?" he hisses at me, backing away even further.

That word definitely doesn't sit right with me. But what sickness me further is that I use to use that exact word when Zayn and I would make fun the flamboyant boys at the school we went to.

"Zayn, it's not like that." I begin to defend myself.

"You're telling me I didn't just see you with your tongue down his throat?" he sneers.

I look over at Harry who has his eyes locked on the floor, unsure of what to do in this scenario.

"Zayn, please, can we just go somewhere and talk?" I beg.

"No fucking way, I don't want to be alone with you, you fucking... homo"

The overwhelming sickness in the pit of my stomach is growing to excruciating lengths. The amount of disrespect that my once best mate was now throwing toward me was a hard pill to swallow.

"Don't speak to him like that." Harry's instant groan comes from beside us, catching us both off guard.

"What did you just say to me?" Zayn threatens as he takes a step closer to Harry.

"I said, don't speak to him like that!" Harry repeats, taking another step closer to tighten the gap between he and Zayn.

The look in both of them was a look I knew all too well, I knew it from Zayn for the number of times and I would get into scurries with dickheads back home, and it was a look from Harry I saw right before he and I got into our first fight. This wasn't going to end well.

"What the fuck are you going to do about it?" Zayn barked, the two of them now face to face. Their matching heights the impending that much more frightful. That both physically and mentally, there were matched.

"You don't get to call him a fag, or a homo, or whatever disrespectful choice of words you concur just because of his choices." Harry mumbles in a stern yet controlled voice.

"Guys, stop it!" I yell, jumping in between them and pushing Zayn back to create distance between them, the amount of tension in the air right now was getting overwhelming.

Zayn looks me up and down like a stranger, but also kind of hurt that in this scenario, I chose to push him, my friend of years over someone who I just met. "What the hell has happened to you Louis?" he groans in a low tone.

I shake my head at him and drop my head to the floor.

"I don't even know you anymore?" he adds.

"Zayn, I'm just, trying to figure stuff out!" I stumble. "I don't know who I am anymore, and I've been trying to figure it out."

He looks me up and down with the most disgusted look on his face. "This" he gestures at Harry and I. "Isn't you." He shakes his head. His tone sounds almost disappointed in me.

"I think it is." I whisper almost completely under my breath. I feel Harry's gentle touch on the small of my back. The gesture blind to where Zayn was standing from but giving me the reassurance, I needed at a time that I was spiralling.

"Mark would be so disappointed in you" he insults with a hurtful tendency.

That comment left me utterly speechless and hurt.

Mark was my stepfather, but for all intent purposes he was my dad. He and mum got together when I was only 2 and he took me in as his own, I even held his last name. Mark and mum were no longer together, but even with the divorce, he never let go of me. I continued to treat me as his own flesh and blood, he was my rock and my role model, I looked up to him more than anyone, and Zayn knew this. For him to choose to strike me there, he was purposefully inflicting pain.

Before I had time to even process the statement fully, Harry launched from behind me and struck Zayn in the side of his face.

"Mr Styles!" Matron was back and had just witnessed him assault Zayn.

"No, he didn't do -" I try and defend him, knowing that the punch his just inflicted on Zayn was in my honour.

"Quite Mr Tomlinson, that's strike 2 Mr Styles, you know the rules. Follow me." Matron gestured toward Harry.

He gave me a quick glance before following two guards up the hill. He was going to confinement, I knew it, and I wouldn't be going with him.

"How long are you holding him for?" I gasp out at matron.

"That's none of your concern. Run along now you two" she instructs to me and Zayn before turning around to follow the guards who had led Harry halfway across the field toward the main building.

"What the fuck is your deal" I hiss toward Zayn who was already beginning to walk back to class like nothing happened.

"Oh, give it a rest Louis, you and I both know I just did you a favour." He replies.

"What?" I shout. "You think that was doing me a favour?"

"You aren't gay Louis, I don't know what it was that I just witnessed, but it's not you. Is he like drugging you or something? Do you owe him something?" He asks in a concerned voice.

Was he really for real? Does he seriously think I was getting with Harry out of force?

"You're unbelievable." I shake my head in disbelief.

"you're not fucking gay Louis, I've known you most of your life, if you were gay, that's something I would have figured out before now!" He says whilst gripping my arms and facing me back to him.

"I didn't think I was either, but things changed." I snapped.

He looked me up and down, like he didn't even know me anymore.

"Things don't change that much Louis." He firmly replied before walking off, leaving me to dwell on his statement.