Do You Realize? |l.s.|

XXXVII

"There you go, Lou. Now you're picking up on it," Harry encourages after I get my seventh question in a row correct. He's been helping me study for 45 minutes and honestly, it's already helped me so much. I've always been shit at studying, and when I told Harry that, he offered to help me. So, now we're at my house at the dining table doing flashcards because Harry insists it is one of the easiest ways to study, and I have to admit he's right.

"How many more have we got to do?" I ask.

"Erm," he drawls out, flipping through the cards quickly. "I'd say we're a little over halfway finished."

"Alright, so-" I'm interrupted by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. My heart sinks and I can feel the blood draining from my face as my eyes dart over to the window by the door and see him stopping the car. "Shit, dad's home."

"Does he mind that I'm here?" Harry asks.

"Just, just leave through the back real quick," I improvise, and Harry stands up and gathers his things together with a confused look on his face.

"Is something wrong?"

"No just, I'm not supposed to have anyone over. Now please, go," I tell him, pushing his textbook into his hands and shoving him towards the door. Just as that door closes, though, the front door opens. 

"Louis?" Dad grumbles, and I can hear the drunkenness in his voice.

"In here," I say back. I can hear him stumbling towards the room and I look over to see Harry' phone on the table. My eyes widen and I quickly lunge to stand in front of it, covering it up as dad fully enters the room.

"The hell are ya doin' downstairs?" he asks, knowing I spend basically all my time in my room.

"Studying," I point towards the textbooks behind me.

"Better be," he says, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it. I never liked the smoke, it turned everything yellow and now something as common as the smell of smoke reminds me of him. "Fuckin' failed your exam."

"Yeah, I'm gonna get my grades up. I promise," I smile timidly at him. Just then, Harry's phone buzzes against the table and I squeeze my eyes shut in frustration, knowing he's about to get pissed.

"What the fuck was that? Is that a phone?" he asks, pushing me aside harshly as he takes the phone in his hand and inspects it, before opening it up to see the phone's wallpaper, which is Harry taking a selfie as he's giving me a piggie back ride, and my head is rested on his shoulder as we both have our tongues sticking out. His eyes flame up with anger as he turns to me quickly, his grip hard on the phone. "That's the faggot that was walkin' you home that day! I told you to stay away from him!"

"D-dad, I swear I-"

"You're a fucking slut! A fag! A bloody queer," he yells angrily, getting close to me as our faces our inches apart. I scrunch my face together, one because of the spit flying from his mouth as he yells, but two because I am trying not to cry. With the first hit, I can tell this one is gonna be bad.

I don't know if I can even list all the things that happens in the span of five minutes before I'm on the ground, on brink of unconsciousness. I hear a knock on the door and my dad swearing and stomping over to it. I feel even more terrified when I hear Harry's voice, because I don't want him to cross paths with dad when he's angry.

"Hey, can I speak with Louis, please?" he asks. 

"He isn't home," dad grumbles as he slams the door shut. When I hear the car speed off, I hear the front door open again. 

"Lou?" Harry asks, worry evident in his voice. "Louis, where are you?"

"Harry?" I ask as I move to a sitting position and lean up against the wall. He walks in and sees me, looking terrified himself.

"Hey munchkin," he says softly. I can tell he's trying to stay calm, and it's helping me not to freak out between the amount of pain I'm in and the fact that he knows every shitty thing there is to know in my life. "Hey, I'm gonna call Zayn, alright? We'll get this sorted, just try and stay awake for me, alright? You're gonna be okay."

"You heard?" I ask, and he looks at me sadly and nods. He calls Zayn before making his way over to the freezer and putting ice in a towel. He places it on my eye that I can already feel swelling up before he sits next to me when soon enough, Zayn arrives. He doesn't even knock, just walks in quickly and makes his way towards me.

"Fuck," Zayn says. "The fucking asshole!" 

"Zee, calm down. Getting worked up won't help," Harry says.

"You're right," Zayn nods. "H, can you carry him out to the car?"

"Yeah," Harry says, picking me up bridal-style cautiously. I wince, and he just looks down at me briefly with teary eyes before looking forward again. "I've got you, Lou," he reassures me, once again. He says that the entire car ride as I lean against him in the back seat, and when we get there, he takes me up to my old room, and I feel comforted seeing as they've turned it to somewhat of a guest bedroom, and they added in some new furniture and decorations.

I'm drifting in and out of consciousness while Zayn and Harry bring things from ice packs to frozen peas, and they also bring me pain killers and tea. They're basically treating me like a hospice patient, just trying to make me comfortable as they've got no medical experience whatsoever. Not even five more minutes go by before I'm out like a light.