We walk back into the gymnasium and he walks up to his friends. They notice that he's been crying and, of course, get worried.
"What happened, Harry?" Stephen asks. "Did he try to convert you?"
"Leave him alone," Harry snips. "He came after me to see if I was okay when you guys couldn't care less."
"We just figured..."
"No," Harry stops him. "You didn't just figure. You don't care. Maybe being friends with you is a mistake. Maybe I should've been friends with Niall all along." Harry starts crying.
"Fine. Tell us what's wrong then."
"I'm gay. I've been gay all my life. And I don't appreciate you guys making fun of Niall for being gay. Now, I assume you guys don't want to be friends anymore. So, I'll be hanging out with Niall from here on out."
"Whatever, Harry. If you really want to make that choice."
Harry gets up, ending the fight on a silent note, and sits down by me. I've never thought that I'd be talking to Harry Styles, let alone building a friendship with him. I've always thought of him as this tough, silent prep. But, I've now seen the side of him that no one else has seen. The soft side. I feel honored to be the one to have gotten Harry to open up to people. I've never had anyone except for Savannah open up to me before. So, this is obviously all new to me.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he whispers.
"Don't worry about it. I'm used to them acting that way towards me. I'm honestly not used to you acting this nice towards me."
"I'm not a bad person. Honestly. I was just worried about my image. I didn't want people to know I was gay. I didn't feel like it was really anyone's business who I was attracted to. That's why I didn't talk much or date. That and it made everyone like me even more. I don't know why. It just did."
"You shouldn't care what people think about you. Popularity isn't anything. In about two years, nothing that was said is going to matter anymore. We won't care. We'll just be doing us and not worrying about what everyone we went to school with thinks."
"I know... After that video, I realized that I shouldn't care what these people think about me. I'm probably going to lose my popularity. But, I don't care. As long as I'm being myself, I'll find out who my true friends are."
I can't help but smile. Out of all the people in this school, I never thought I'd break the Harry Styles. He's always been that kind of person that cared about his apperance. His popularity was everything he had. Losing it would break him or so I thought. But I guess that version of Harry is in the past. Now, he's kind and warmhearted.
~~~~
As soon as the assembly ends, I head to my locker and start to head out to the bus when Harry stops me. I don't know what he wants and I start to freak out.
"Niall, do you wanna hang out?"
"Sure. My mom won't care. I'll just text her and let her know I'll be home later."
"What time do you usually have to be home when you go out?"
"10 pm."
We get into his car and I can't help but feel out of place sitting next to him. His car is really nice. I'm not good with cars, so I really have no idea what model it is. But, it says Mustang on the side. It's a dark red color with tinted windows. The seats have these dark black covers on them and it's spotless.
"What did you have in mind?" I ask.
"You'll see," he smiles.
We drive for about five minutes until we get to the lake just outside of town. I get a little worried. This lake always has little to no people here when they're not holding something here. I've only ever seen a maximum of maybe 10-12 people here on a regular day. We park at the most abandoned part of the lake, which is at the back of the path by a bunch of picnic tables. It's actually a really pretty spot and very private. He gets out of the car and opens the door for me. I can't help but smile. He's being really nice to me and it's all new to me.
We walk towards the picnic table farthest away from the car. I'm guessing he wants to talk or something and wants to make sure we have enough privacy. I honestly don't blame him. After everything that's happened today, he probably just wants us to have some alone time. Not only did he come out to his so called "friends", but they rejected him all in a matter of five minutes. It must be hard to go from the most popular guy in school to an average Joe like me. I could never imagine what it must be like to be thrown so far down on the food chain because you finally decide to come out to the people that you thought you could trust the most. I've never really had that problem. I've never really had any other friends besides Savannah and she obviously still cares about me.
"Niall, I was hoping that I could talk to you."
"Absolutely. What do you need?"
"Why... Why don't you talk? I mean... You're always using that app on your phone. You won't even actually talk to Savannah and she's supposed to be your best friend."
"It's not as easy as whether or not we're friends. It's just.... Things happened in my past that I just have a hard time dealing with... I was told not to tell anyone or the person was going to kill me... I'm afraid of telling someone. He's in jail and we have a restraining order against him. But, it still kinda scares me."
"What happened? You can tell me anything. I opened up to you about my sexuality. You're the first one that knew. You can trust me, right?"
"Well, yeah.... But still.."
"Please?"
I've never been able to open up to anyone before. I don't know what it's like to be able to open up to anyone. Honestly, I don't know how much trust I should put into him just yet. I mean, we just started becoming friends. It's not easy for me to be able to open up to just anyone. I even have a hard time opening up with Savannah.
