reading between the lines

1

Matty's POV

I came in from school and went straight to my room, flopped on my bed and squeezed my eyes tightly closed. I was desperate to escape from the outside world, from school, and from the people I had to engage with when I wasn't cocooned in the safety of my dark grey duvet.

I heard Liam's voice hurtle up the stairs as soon as my door clicked into place.

"Matty!" He shouted. "Are you alright?"

As usual, I ignored him. 

While the darkness of my duvet encases me I think about my tasks for the night; I have maths, English and history homework which got issued today, I'll definitely get my history homework out of the way tonight but I'm not sure about the others. I'm going to try and find the time to play my guitar tonight too, I'm feeling like it's time to learn a new song. 

I lay for a bit longer, not thinking about anything in particular, before my nose twitched: muffins. I freed myself from the duvet I was trapped in and ran down the stairs into the living room. 

"Who's been baking?" I ask curiously

"Harry" Liam replies dryly. "banana and hazelnut muffins, help yourself" 

I walk into the kitchen smiling and pick up a still-warm muffin... It's perfect. I would love to say I ate it slowly and savored every mouthful but I didn't; the muffin was demolished in three clean bites. I was about to grab a second when Liam shouted through to the kitchen.

"Oh btw Matty" Liam perks "if you eat a muffin you have to do your homework, down here where we can see you"

Oh he's clever.

"I was going to do it anyway but fine. You do know that there are no problems in school with my homework or grades right? I always get it done on time, that's more than a lot of people do" I respond; Liam has had a few phone calls about my behavior recently so he's trying his best to crack down on it at home, apparently forcing me to do my homework in his eyeline is his way of doing that. But as I said, my homework has never been a problem.

I grabbed my History and English books from upstairs and found a place on the sofa in front of the coffee table with another muffin and a glass of juice

"What are we watching?" I asked as I looked around at silent faces until I met Liam's gaze

"We're watching the Liverpool V. Man city game, you're doing your homework" 

"I can multitask"

"Homework, Matty"

I give up and open my History book ready to plan an extraordinary essay on the significance of the development of medicine in the 17th Century when a piece of paper falls out, on it is written '07789 564285 Amy x'. I smile to myself, trying to dip my head slightly to hide the smile from the boys around me. Amy has been one of my closest friends since nursery and I've liked her as more than that for a couple of years now. You would think that if she's one of my best mates then I'd have her number already but no... She got a new phone recently and decided to tease me by not giving me her number. I put the number into my phone and text her a little while doing my homework.

Louis' POV
Matty's texting someone, I think it's a girl cos he's smiling a lot. Like more then me when I look at Harry. Wait no. Not that much, I smile A LOT when I look at Harry, he's perfect. He must have seen me looking cos he puts his hair in a bun meaning I can't play with I, I guess I pouted a little cos he just started laughing at me. He's so goofy.
Wait. Matty isn't smiling anymore and damn he's gone pale af, he saw something on his phone and now he's acting really wierd. He's pale and clamy and looks like he's shaking a bit, none of the other lads have noticed, are they blind???
"Matty lad, you alright?" I ask quite concerned for the young lads welfare
"Yeh, I'm fine thanks Louis" he closes his book and stands up, he opens his mouth as if to speak but no noise comes out and off he disappears to his room.
I need to get to the bottom of what's going on and I know how.
"Hey H maybe we should request to teach Matty's class in school, I feel like we'll connect well with the older ones"
And yes me and Harry are teachers, don't come at us please cos we're actually well good at it, the kids love us and we get good results out of them. Teaching Matty would be the perfect way to find out what's going on and get him to trust us more. I mean I'm Louis Tomlinson, my middle name is trustworthy. Louis trustworthy Tomlinson. Wow that actually sounds pretty good, I rest my head on Harry's chest as I begin to tire. I've not really been sleeping well recently and I don't want to tell Harry cos I don't want anything to worry that curly little head of his. It's so cute and pure and it needs to stay that way but maybe I should go the doctors to get some sleeping pills cos I can't continue to be this tired day in day out, especially if I want to start helping Matty out. I need to be on the top of my game, I can't miss a single thing.
"You alright Lou?" I felt Harry's hand start to gently move around my head, twirling pieces of hair as he does so. I smile and nod, wrapping my arms around his abdomen and nestling close into his chest. There's no better feeling than cuddling up to my H, he's my world and I don't know what I'd do without him, there's a lot of things I wouldn't have got through without him but I'm not ready to go into that yet. It's personal. Right now I just want to lay here on the sofa with my haz and watch the world pass by. I count each car that drives past out window and after about 25 minutes I'm fast asleep, dreaming away my heart's desire.