HOLLOW » Zarry ✔⚠

97

It's only a single stall bathroom, so he spots Harry right away, standing with his forearm against the wall and leaning on it.

"Go away." Harry says. "I know it's you, dad."

But he just locks the door behind him and stands there. "I can't go away. I don't want to leave you alone."

"But you're supposed to be going to Zayn's house to tell his mother what the doctors told us, remember? Go do that."

"I will. But not when I don't know if you're going to be okay staying here alone. I don't want you to do anything crazy."

Harry sniffles and cries some more. "I'm not going to do anything crazy. I just... I can't believe he'd do this to himself. And I can't believe I'm gonna lose him when I haven't even had him long." It's all barely audible, but his father still catches it.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"He never told me." Harry continues. "So I didn't know. Maybe I should've just stopped doing everything sooner. Maybe I should've told him how I felt earlier. Why didn't I? I could have prevented him from doing it."

"Hey now... You stop that." His father assures in a calm voice and he walks over to him, rubbing his back. "You can't put that all on yourself. You're only eighteen. He's probably always had that looming over his head. Maybe now, he just finally did it."

"No. That's not what happened." Harry says.

"You can't say that, now can you? You can't possibly know what was going on in his brain before you met him. Sometimes people hurt inside for so long until one day, they just can't take it anymore. Maybe that's what happened to him."

"No, You don't understand!" Harry is still crying and he shakes his head, still not turning to his father. "That's not it and I know it's not it because I was there!" He sighs and speaks calmer this time. "It's all on me. I just wish I had done things better. I should have been better to him. I didn't know things would be this bad. I thought he'd..." He closes his eyes for a second because he has to keep his composure so he doesn't end up spilling out the truth about everything that's ever happened between he and Zayn. "...It doesn't matter now."

"Harry. Is something going on?" His foster dad questions because he's known Harry about six years now, so he can tell when Harry is holding something back from him. Just like he can now. "What happened on that bridge tonight?"

"Nothing. It's... Just... It's nothing."

"Does nothing explain why you were cuffed to the bridge with my handcuffs and why Zayn had the keys in his backpack? Does it explain how you got that cut on your neck. I'm lost here."

Harry shakes his head. "Dad, please."

"I'm sorry. But you are giving me no choice but to wonder what's going on. Why are you so bent on being responsible for this? Why do you want to be blamed if he dies?"

"Because I just can't see how I couldn't."

His foster dad softly puts his hand on Harry and forces him to turn his body away from the wall to him. "Look at me Harry."

Harry looks at him but only for a couple of seconds because it's hard to focus eye to eye. His dad doesn't force him. "Whatever guilty feeling you have going on inside you, you need to remove it right away. You've got your whole life ahead of you. You've got a future and a great one at that. Feeling this way is only going to take you down and you've come up too far for that. You know this."

Harry looks him in the eyes finally. "But it hurts and it hurts bad. I really liked Zayn and I wanted to give him everything. Besides you, he was the only one who ever made me really happy. But I can't kiss you."