Care for me (L. S.)

2

Tuesday the first of September | Harry

His mother gave him a semi-worried look as he rushed downstairs.

"Are you sure you want to wear all of this to school, honey?" she asked carefully.

It was barely eight o' clock and Harry had been up for exactly twenty-four minutes since he purposely slept over his alarm. Despite that, he had still taken his time to sort out his outfit. He was very selective when it came to clothes actually.

Harry raised one eyebrow at her, shoving toast with jam into his mouth.

"Weah whasz shup whizh zhat?"

Anne shook her head. "I thought I raised you better than to talk with a mouth full of bread."

She took a sip of her coffee as she amusedly waited for Harry to finish chewing.

"Yes. What is up with that?" He repeated. Now mockingly articulating every syllable.

"Nothing, nothing..." She carried on sipping her coffee.

"Mum?!"

"I just–," she tried, "I just worry about you... All this extravaganza of colour and nail polish is fine inside these walls," she threw her hands up in the air to back up her words, "but out there... at school? I'm just scared that they will say things behind your back or start taunting you for it."

"Well let them, I'm not scared of it," he said, chuckling.

"You are so brave. I couldn't be more proud of you!"

Harry was barely surprised to see his mother so emotional so early in the morning.

"Mum, don't cry, it's not even eight yet."

His mother let out a shaky laugh and wiped a single tear from her cheek with the side of her hand.

"I'm not crying," she sniffled. Her hand stroked his curly head, lovingly.

"You are just growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday you were a baby and now you are all grown up!" Harry rolled his eyes at the words 'grown up'. Like he didn't act like a ten year old for 90 percent of the time!

Anne noticed his ironic smirk and added: "I'm serious, Harry. I only wish your sister could see you right now. She would probably offer you her lip-gloss and mascara to finish the look."

He grinned; that did sound like something Gemma would do. His mum looked up to him and joined in the laughter.

After spending the entire summer with him and his mother, his sister, Gemma, had gone back to uni in Manchester to study English and literature. Like last year, Harry missed her during the week, but sometimes on Friday, if she didn't have too much work, she came home. Whenever the three of them had dinner together, it was always a very pleasant event: they talked over each other excitedly, telling each other how their weeks had been. Harry would tell anecdotes about Niall's family in Ireland and how he and Zayn tried to hide Zayn's cigarettes from his mother. In return, Gemma told him about how ridiculously complex some of the poetry was that she needed to read for class and about the boys that had (very unsubtle) crushes on her.

Harry knew he wouldn't see his sister as much now that school had started for both of them, but they promised they would call every week and text every day.

On the other hand, he was quite thrilled to see his friends again. He spent most of the summer with Zayn at his gigantic house, and Liam joined them the last few weeks, but he hadn't seen Niall since June!

They stood there for a moment, in the kitchen, silently enjoying each other's company while sipping coffee and eating some toast. After a few minutes, Anne looked at her phone.