i'm not the prettiest flower but i'll do

how can someone with so much baggage and a haunting past possibly be pretty?

mood: start of something new- high school musical

Monday, September 10th 6:00 am

Louis showered when he woke, as he usually did before school. But today he took longer than usual, taking his time to scrub himself clean and letting his mind wonder to anything it wanted except Harry. It frustrated him how he had to force himself not to think about him because that's all he'd do if he allowed himself to. It also frustrated him how his mind would roam to the curly haired boy anytime he thought about anything (just out of curiosity). Like he'd be thinking about something random like balloon animals and wonder if Harry liked them or if he knew how to make them (Louis thought that he probably does know how to make them because he's weird and full of surprises). Or his mind would wander to butterflies and flowers and all the pretty things in life and he'd wonder if Harry liked them or how the flowers would look pretty in his long curls.

He didn't want to think about Harry, he really didn't, and he didn't know why that name was a constant in his mind. He's come up with a few theories that could possibly be the reason why he's been acting different lately but just because Harry's giving him attention he's never had before doesn't mean he'd think about him all the time, right? Just because Harry was nice and came up with the strangest ways to talk to him doesn't automatically mean he'd think about him, right? Trust me, he didn't want to think about him and it drove him insane because it seemed impossible to get him off his mind. And the fact that Harry lives just a few meters away from him didn't help the situation at all. Anytime of the day Louis could just walk over and look at his house for however long he wanted before he was internally punching himself across the jaw, screaming self deprecating words to finally break away.

Louis didn't think about Harry all the time because he liked him, no. Yeah, maybe he thought Harry was attractive and all that because who on earth is going to say that Harry Styles is ugly? Absolutely no one. He's got to admit that he may have had a slight crush on his neighbor but he's gotten over it because he knows it'll never happen so he never got too hung up on it. But he doesn't think about him because he likes him, that'd be absurd (and he definitely was not allowing himself to think about him right now).

He hopped out the shower after cleaning himself three times (it was a thing he did sometimes) and [very] carefully dried his body since his skin was a tad sensitive from all the scrubbing and gently patted all the scratches, fresh or healing. Quickly, he threw on black loosely fitted joggers with a white sweatshirt and slipped on a pair of black vans. Ruffling up his hair, he towel dried it, leaving it messy, and headed downstairs. Instantly he was greeted by his mum, startling him. "Good morning sweetheart," Laura chirped from the kitchen as she flipped over a pancake.

Charles looked up from his morning newspaper to look at his son. "Hey sport."

Louis cringed at the word; his dad always called him sport and he always hated it. He felt like his dad was trying to masculinize him, since he wasn't as manly as Charles most likely wished he was (and probably because he was gay). "Hey," Louis said shriveling into himself, walking to the fridge to grab a bottle of water and quickly headed for the front door.

"You should start getting down earlier, so you have time to eat breakfast," Louis' mum said handing him an apple.

Louis grabbed the apple, putting it into his backpack. "Yeah, yeah. Bye ma, I'll see you later." Charles' head snapped up from the paper to look at Louis, waiting for his farewell but never received one. Louis only squinted his eyes a little and walked out the door.

"Laura," Charles sighed shaking his head in disbelief. He looked towards his wife with an unpleasant expression.

Laura walked back to the kitchen. "I told you, you just need to be patient with him. He said hi to you, that's improvement." She brought a stack of pancakes to the table and sat down.