Stories we already told | Larry Stylinson

Chapter Eight

PART TWO

September 21th 1977, Gillmoor Woods, Greentown (UK)

Harry stared at me.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. You don't have to-"

"Yes, I am," he interrupted me.

"Why didn't you tell me? I told you about me. You know I would never judge you."

"It's not that easy," he replied. "I don't know how things are in 2005, but right now being openly gay is hard. I can't just tell people I like men, and neither should you."

"I didn't tell people, I told you."

He smiled.

"Good night, Louis."

After he said that, Harry turned off the lights and left the living room.

"Good night, Haz," I said. I don't know if he heard me.

***

September 30th 1977, Greentown (UK)

I had no idea that confession would have changed so much my relationship with Harry. If I had known I would never have asked him.

It was my fault. Except for Stan I had never been close with another man who was attracted to men and I wasn't used to it. It was weird, because Harry was attractive, that was an objective statement, and the knowledge that something could happen made me feel awkward every time we were in the same room. Not that something would ever happen. I was still in love with Martha.

I didn't want Harry to notice, so I tried really hard to hide my uneasiness. When he asked me to play for him, I carefully avoided love songs, this was a bit tricky since half of my repertoire was made of romantic tunes. One day he specifically asked me to sing him Without You by Harry Nilsson and I had been forced to comply. The song quickly became a duet. Our voices melted together like they were created to do it. We were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, at a comfortable distance. It shouldn't have been awkward, we were just two friends singing a nice song, I had done it thousands of times with Zayn. Except that my best friend had never locked his eyes with mine while singing: "And now it's only fair that I should let you know / What you should know / I can't live, if living is without you."

I didn't find the strength to lower my eyes. His gaze was magnetic, looking at him felt as vital as breathing.

We were singing the last lyrics when I finally broke the stare, feeling guilty. I had promised to myself not to let this happen. I had to put a stop to this whole thing. Starting to have a crush on a man in the Seventies was the dumbest thing I could do. The fault of all this was definitely the forced closeness, I needed to find a house just for myself.

"I love this song," Harry said.

"Yeah, me too."

I also stopped smoking with Harry, not only because I noticed that my dazed brain found the way he held the joint between his index and middle fingers extremely hot, but also because I didn't think I could have long night conversations with him without making my situation even worse.

It was like the revelation about his sexuality had unlocked something in me. I had already noticed his looks of course, but I could manage that, the problem was that he was also one of the most interesting people I had ever met. He knew a lot of cool things and he wrote beautiful poetry.

That Friday, though, everything between us had been extremely normal and platonic, there had not been long stares and love songs yet. Summer had already come to an end, but it was a rather hot afternoon. I had just gotten off work and I was resting in one of the chairs outside, observing Harry's flowers.