There For You {Back For You - Prequel}

27 - Louis Was Afraid

AN - well here we are with another update! Now I'm just gonna say it now okay, I am on my Easter holidays at the moment soooo it is possible that I may be able to squeeze in a mid-week update like I used to with BFY!! Are you excited?!?!? I will try my very hardest, but if I forget you have to forgive me okay!?

ALSO OMG GUYS YOU KNOW LAST WEEK I TOLD YOU THAT IM GOING TO SEE THE FRAY OKAY OMG THE TICKETS HAVE ARRIVED ALREADY (on a side note how fucking quick omg????????) AND I CANNOT STOP LOOKING AT THEM

Anyway, back to the important stuff. This chapter may make no grammatical sense because I literally have been a mess grammatically for about a week and it didn't change in time for this chapter haha. As I was typing it I was literally thinking, this sentence makes no sense. And neither does this one. You know what, the whole paragraph makes no sense. Actually, full honesty, the whole chapter makes no sense but you're all used to my rambling by now so I feel like you can deal with it. haha

Love you all, my sweetums!

CONTENT WARNING: I feel like this chapter has some content in it that could be quite distressing actually, it came out worse than I planned. It features homophobic bullying, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and complete disconcern about self-welfare :(:(:(

It’s odd, really. The entire situation that Louis was enduring was just simply odd.

He wasn’t sure if he was being beaten because these boys were ignorant or religious or even maybe jealous and they were all pushing out their internal homophobia about their own sexuality, onto Louis. He couldn’t think of a clear reason why they clearly had so much raw anger inside them about his sexuality that still was alleged because really, all these rumours were fuelled on was one boy who saw him on holiday with European Derek, and his friendship with Harry.

The alleged-ness aside, there were still rumours and there were still boys who liked to beat him up in secret, and girls who gossiped, and groups who just blocked him out completely.

Louis found it more and more difficult every day to wake up and go to school, for those twenty-one days. For those twenty-one days, every time he left the house to go to school he knew with every bone in his body that he was putting himself in danger, because those boys were ruthless.

Sometimes Louis would cry when his alarm went off in the morning, because he would be sat awake waiting for it already because his bruises would have woken him up in pain already – and when the familiar beeping would go off he knew that he had no choice but to leave his house and watch look at the back of Harry’s head in class where Harry seemed to be attempting to create space (he probably thought that it would make things easier, but it just made Louis feel so, so alone) and where he would watch the clock hand tick around until he had to walk home. It was so terrifying, walking home. Every step, Louis’ heart would race a little faster because every step took him further from school which meant that the boys who were always ten steps behind him would gain confidence.

They were so strong, and Louis was so afraid.

~-~

“Louis! Honey!”

Louis winced, because he knew what his Mum was calling up the stairs for. He was well aware that if he didn’t leave soon, that he would be late for school – and Jay had obviously just clocked onto the time and was now about to hurry him along.

“Yes Mum?” Louis muttered back, as he ambled down the stairs as slowly as possible.

“You’re late for school! Have you got everything you need? Have you got all of your books? Have you had breakfast? Have you got money for lunch?” She said as she rushed around the hall packing her own bag for work.