Mean to Me ♡ Larry

2.9

Chapter 29: Sweater Weather

Past

It had been a week since the camp incident and Harry was still quite shaken. He knows people have had much more traumatic experiences, but in that moment he was so scared Stan would go further and Harry knows he would have been completely and utterly defenseless towards the boy.

Every time he had seen Stan, or Louis, for that matter, he had fled as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, not wanting to face either of them. He was embarrassed. Louis hates him and because Harry was so weak, Louis had to save him and it made him feel more worthless. Louis probably thinks he is more of a pathetic loser.

Today was school photos day. Harry had just worn some neat, blue jeans and a grey sweater. He felt ugly, but these were the best clothes he could find. Before classes start, he rushes to the bathroom to make sure his hair isn't too fluffy or too flat. It isn't. But it isn't sitting right either because of the way he slept. Nothing ever went right on picture day.

And that was proven when he left the bathrooms and ran into Stan. Harry stops dead in his tracks, eyes widening at the smirk that fills Stan's face. Harry looks behind Stan to see Louis standing nervously, looking down at his shoes and picking at his own sweater.

"Ah, Curly. How are you?" His voice is so sickly sweet it makes Harry want to roll his eyes. He takes a sip, from straw, of his soda, he must have got from the canteen. And then moves to take the lid off of it. Before Harry can even think about what Stan is doing, his sweater is dripping with brown soda, staining the light grey material. "I can't wait to see how fucking ugly you look in your photos," he grins and walks off, leaving a somewhat dumbfounded Louis behind.

"Come with me."

Harry hesitates, but when Louis glances and motions for him to follow the boy, Harry just does it. He begins to tear up a little, but doesn't let Louis see it. Coming from a family that isn't very wealthy, he was always trying to be careful with his clothing and belongings. But of course, with Stan around, nothing of his could ever be safe.

They make it to the gym building and Louis walks into the change rooms, Harry one step behind him. The slightly older boy points at Harry's sweater. "Take it off."

"What?" Harry blurts out, taking a step back. "Please don't take it or anything, please, Lewis. It's all I have to wear."

"I'm not-" Louis pauses to rub over his face in frustration at himself. The fact he couldn't be trusted, even when trying to be nice, just broke his heart. He didn't want it to be like this. "I'm not going to do that, I am giving you mine. You have a family who wants to see your photos, I don't. Nobody cares about mine, so please, take it, it doesn't matter to me."

Harry stills and looks down at Louis' clean, white sweater. Not only does it look expensive, but it looks way too small. "Y-you don't have to do that... The picture won't look amazing anyway, so the sweater is the least of my problems."

"Please, Harry," Louis looks at him with his beautiful, sparkly, blue eyes and his face is pulled into such a vulnerable look and before Harry even processes his actions, he is nodding.

He begins to slowly pull the soda stained sweater off as Louis does the same with his white one. The smaller instantly shoves it into Harry's hands and grabs the other, trying to cover his body as quickly as possible. But it's too late. Harry sees them.

Littered over Louis' stomach, ribs and chest are dark, deep bruises. Purple, blue, black and yellow splatters covering the soft, sun-kissed skin. Harry let's out a shaky breath and looks away before Louis can pop his head out of the sweater.

Harry gets into action and puts on Louis'. It's too tight on him, most definitely and a little of his stomach peaks just above his jeans. "Thank you for this," he turns to Louis, heart racing from shock and fear of what he had just seen. "It was really nice of you."

Louis looks at his shoes, a small blush tinting his little cheeks. He looks back up at Harry and smiles a little, a glimmer in his eyes. "I like the crop top look on you. You suit it."

Harry furrows his eyebrows, unsure of whether Louis was joking or being serious, but before he could ask, the boy was gone. Harry watched him walk out the door with no further words to be said at that moment. And maybe Harry shouldn't feel sick to his stomach about what he had just seen all over Louis' body, but he does.

-*-

Three weeks later and the photos had arrived in the mail. Anne did nothing but coo over how cute Harry looked. He had told her he spilt soda down himself and a boy from class had offered to swap him, she believed it, of course. She took pictures of the photos and sent them to Gemma, who at the time had been living with her dad, only seeing Harry on rare occasions and then Anne hung it up in Harry's room, right in the centre of his wall and many other pictures of their family.

"Now you can always look back at it," she turns to him with a warm, teary smile, ruffling his hair. "You're such a beautiful boy, Harry." She pulls him in for a gently hug as he keeps his eyes on the photo.

He looks at Louis, the boy just looks miserable. The oversized sweater makes him look even smaller, if possible and Harry can't help but imagine all the bruises it hides as he averts his eyes to the names under the pictures, "Louis William Tomlinson."

A/N: Hiya! I hope you enjoyed!
Leave me some comments, let me know your thoughts :)

I've left some hints in this chapter... 👀 can you guess what they might be?

Anygay, have a great day/night! xo