Unbelievers

Chapter 10

"You know that this is pretty much criminal, right?" Harry tells his best friend as the lad jumps back into the car after dropping weed off at Niall's house.

Zayn leers at him, adjusting his seat belt in the driver's seat. "Just because I'm nice and sometimes give you some for free, doesn't make what you're doing anymore legal, you know."

Harry watches him for a second as he starts the car, contemplating. "Can I have two joints?" he asks.

"Why?"

"Louis?" Duh. "Have you seen happy Louis? Happy Louis on drugs is the best thing this world has ever seen. He is like a chipmunk singing carols in a tree in glittery attire. Do I need more of a reason?"

"You're the worst boyfriend ever." Zayn shakes his head, pursing his lips as he navigates out on the road, heading towards Harry's house. "How is it going with that, anyway?" he asks. "How many times have you broken up again?"

Harry scoffs. "Please... They're not breakups. If they were breakups, Louis broke up with me twice just last night. Fights are not breakups. Fights are fights, until Louis' thick head remembers he's in love with me and that we're going to be living together at uni. Then he goes all puppy again."

"Why do you even fight?" Zayn mutters. He has a way of seeming very uninterested, when in all actuality Zayn's interested-face is his face that looks uninterested. If that makes sense. It took Harry two months before he understood that Zayn was his friend.

"Because Louis says I'm high-maintenance, when he doesn't actually think so, and I'm not. "

"You talk way too fast."

"And did you know that Louis thinks he's smart when he tries to hide things from me? As if I wouldn't know the second he starts cooking something up! I know every single one of his facial expressions, and while saying 'No, I did not take your navy hoodie' his eyebrows did not rise that tiny fraction they would have if he were speaking the truth. He is the worst. Honestly, I should break up with him solely because of this." He blinks for a moment. "No, I shouldn't."

"Right..." his friend says. "How's his sister then?" he sighs, obviously trying to change the subject. Harry has a way of talking for too long when it comes to Louis. "She and her boyfriend broke up?"

"She broke up with him, yeah. She's fine. We've beat Louis at night time FIFA three times consecutively. He's very annoyed. He mostly grumbles and goes to bed without kissing me. He's a sour loser. Little grape..." he hums. "Did you know—"

"No, please. Harry."

"Did you know that during summer he trains double the amount he normally does?" Harry frowns. "Maybe he's afraid he won't be fit enough when we start at Manchester... Shit. I should talk to him about this. We should talk more—"

"Okay, Harry," Zayn finally says loudly, cutting him off. "I'm not buying this shit. What is going on? Really?"

Harry shuts up, giving in. He sure talks a lot about Louis, but he isn't a fast speaker. He stares at Zayn's annoyingly deep brown eyes for another moment, until he turns to look out the window instead. "Mum is finishing moving out today," he mutters, head falling back against the seat.

When he was told that she was moving to Cheshire the night before he found out he was accepted at Manchester, it literally felt like the world was crashing down on him. Spending two years with his parents' constant fights, bickering and passive aggressiveness, he somehow still wished that they would stay together. For a while it calmed down, they seemed much less stressed than tense, and at the time he actually thought they had worked things out. Naively, of course. He later found out that that's when they decided to finalize the divorce. Brilliant. Then he had to tell Louis he got accepted to Manchester University Youth Football Program.