Letters to the Author -Larry Stylinson

chapter eighteen

"This is so frustrating," Louis sighs, throwing his pencil across the bed and laying his head on his worksheet, puffing a breath of hair through his lips so that his hair flies up for a second. "English was so easy until we had to label every single part of the sentence."

He glances at Harry, who is watching him steadily.

"What? Are you just a genius or something?"

"Do you need help?" Harry asks softly, moving from his place on the floor with Lucile to sit next to Louis. The bed sinks down when he sits on it, and Louis moves over to give him more room.

"I just don't understand adverbs and gerunds and..." Louis looks at Harry. "Explain it to me?"

Harry smiles warmly. "Adverbs are like adjectives. Adjectives describe what?"

"A noun," Louis blushes, biting his lip.

"And adverbs describe..."

"Verbs. But don't they just always end in -ly?"

Harry shakes his head. "Most of the time yes. But sometimes they don't. If you don't know, just try to use just the word you're describing and the describing word. If the word you're describing is an adverb or a verb, then the description word is an adverb." Louis watches his face carefully, watches the way his eyebrows furrow, watches the way he licks his lips when he is drawing a sentence diagram. It helps him, it really does, but at the same time it's hard not to get distracted by the flawless characteristics of Harry's face.

And Harry doesn't notice until he is finally done drawing the diagram that Louis is staring at his face intensely.

"Louis," he whines, but the beam on his face hints to Louis that really, Harry is not upset at all that Louis wasn't listening to his mini lesson.

"Can you teach me again?" Louis shrugs, winking at Harry when Harry sighs. 

"Of course, Lou. Of course I'll teach you again." Harry leans in so Louis can feel his warm breath fanning his cheek. "Control your urges this time, Prince."

This time, Louis learns the lesson, but he can't help but hold Harry's hand gently in his the whole time.

"I really like this," Louis says softly when Harry finishes. "Don't you?"

Harry looks up at him, his pencil pausing. There is a small smile on his face, his eyes twinkling from the Christmas lights. And for some reason, with Louis listening to the slight hum of the heat coming from the vent by his window, and the small breaths escaping both of them, and the sound of cars whooshing by from the traffic below, and the laughs from the lounge outside his dorm, Louis thinks that he has never wanted to kiss someone so much in his life. The kiss they had before was heated and sloppy, and they had quickly pulled back when they realized what they were doing.

But now, Louis had remembered something.

He could see Harry, younger, just like he had at that party. His eyes were still bright green, full of innocent excitement.

They were holding hands.

Why were they holding hands?

Louis' closes his eyes, the memory becoming so much for him as it all floods him at once. He can hear Harry saying his name but he tries to block it out because he doesn't think he'll be able to remember this again and he wants to remember.

Harry is pulling him down a hallway, but he doesn't know where at. He is crying. He can remember the sadness, and his heart aches at the memory.

"Don't listen to them," he remembers Harry saying as they walk out a door and stand in a parking lot. And Harry is hugging him now, outside of what looks like the high school. "They're nothing. In two years you will never see them again. Just pretend they're not here. Louis. Oh my god, please don't cry baby. Please."