Forever My Father

Chapter Five

Read Author's Note Please!!!

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The next day is hard to say the least. Harry manages to coax Zayn out of bed, five minutes before he's suppose to be leaving, so the boy sluggishly changes into a pair of athletic sweats as well as one of his hockey practice shirts before walking down the stairs where the rest of the family is waiting.

"Zee, what do you want for breakfast?" Liam ask the boy while walking to the fridge.

"Not hungry," is all Zayn replies and Liam sighs before looking over to Harry.

"Zayn you're not leaving this house till you eat something. You need energy, baby," Harry says in a stern-gentle manner.

"Well then I won't go to school," Zayn replies simply before beginning to make his way back up the stairs only to be pulled back down by Harry.

"That's not how this works, Zayn. Come on, babe, we don't want what happened last time to happen again cause you don't eat."

"It was one time and you said you would stop bothering me about it!" Zayn slightly shouts while glaring at his uncle.

"Yes, I was going to stop bothering you about it as long as I saw you taking care of yourself which right not you're not," Harry says back with more authority in his voice. The two glare back and forth between one another, before finally Zayn huffs and grabs a granola bar from the cupboard.

"Happy?" The boy says in an annoyed manner with a mouth full of food.

"Yes now get your bum in the car before you make you and your cousins late. Come on, go along now," Harry says while patting the boy's bum lightly to get him walking. Finally Harry manages to get all three kids out of the house and quickly begins to clean up the kitchen mess. As Harry paces back and forth through the kitchen putting things away of relocating misplaced objects, he's stopped by a pair of arms wrapped around his torso.

"What's going on, babe?" Liam asks while kissing the side of Harry's head which causes the younger man to sigh and slump against his husband's chest.

"I'm worried, I'm worried Zayn's going to shut down again. I can't go through that again, the first time was bad enough and he was only twelve then! Now he's fifteen and he worries about a lot more things," Harry says while turning to face his husband. "Should we schedule an appointment with Dr. Samuels?"

"I say one of us have a sit down with him later, and we'll decide from there," Liam replies simply and Harry just nods before placing a quick kiss to his husbands lips.

+

In school, Zayn is overly quiet. Sure the boy might not be one to talk during class much, but this is different. This is abnormal. Normally, Zayn would smile to people in the hall, even if he didn't know them. Normally, Zayn greets each of his teachers upon arrival, even the ones he's not fond of. Normally, Zayn meets Danny, Ant, and Shahid at the lockers at every bell just to say hi to one another. But he didn't do that today.

No, today he grabbed a hoodie from his locker, threw it on, and made no eye contact with anyone. He walked in the halls with headphones in so he wouldn't hear anyone talking about or to him. Throughout his classes he would take the headphones out, but keep the hood up and head down. Normally teachers don't allow the behavior, but everyone knows what happened last night. Everyone was there. Everyone saw.

Come time for lunch, Zayn knows he has to show up because Louis will tell on him if he doesn't see the boy, so the boy walks into the canteen and sits on the floor by the stage. Alone. He picks at the sandwich Harry made him, but he couldn't bring himself to eat more than two bites without wanting to throw up. As Zayn's about to get up to go to the library, someone sits next to him and pulls the boy onto his lap.