Messages » Larry AU

Chapter 7

I lied on the cold, hard pavement for several minutes, trying to get up, but only managing to sit up until the pain became too much. Taking a few deep breaths, I moved my hand to my face, ignoring the many cuts on the back of it, trying to make out how bad my face was, without seeing it. The skin around my right eye felt swollen, pounding furiously under my touch. My nose didn’t feel better and judging by the wetness underneath it, I was bleeding - not badly, but still. The rest of my face felt rather normal, except for my jaw, which had received a lot more punches than my nose or eyes.

I waited a few more minutes, before carefully getting onto my feet again, walking a few steps until I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and exhaustedly sat down on the nearest bench, groaning in frustration. How was I supposed to get home? Should I get home at all? It would break my mum’s heart to see me like that. I decided to call Niall or Liam as soon as the pain would decrease and I could move for longer than only a few seconds.

As I sat there, wondering what I had done to deserve to end up like that, my eyes suddenly filled with tears and I soon was full on crying, not able to do anything but let the tears fall from my eyes. Was being different, being gay, really that bad that people felt the need to beat others up?

Suddenly my phone started ringing. Surprised that it still was working, I searched for it in my pocket, careful to not move too abrupt, trying desperately to stop myself from sobbing. I glanced at the screen, but due to the tears in my eyes I couldn’t see one thing. “Yeah?” I croaked, my voice breaking away at the end as another sob escaped my trembling lips, clearly giving away to whoever was on the phone that I was crying.

“Lou? Are you crying? What’s wrong, love?” The panicked voice of him could be heard from the phone. Of course, from all the people that had my number, he had to be the one to call me at that moment. “Of course I’m crying. Some stupid blokes from school beat me up a few minutes ago and I can’t fucking move because it hurts so much” I snapped back, all of sudden getting furious - not just because of him, but because of everything at once.  Because of the beating up. Because of my stupid crying, that just won’t stop. Because of him being all caring, when I didn’t deserve him one bit and of course because of the fact that I had no fucking clue who he was.

“Calm down, love, and tell me exactly what happened and I’ll help you”, he asked, sounding hurt, probably because I had snapped at him. However, him being all nice and insightful only made me angrier. “How the fuck do you expect me to calm down? And stop calling me love. You only call people that when you like them and care for them. But you obviously don’t care about me. Otherwise you’d be here at my side now. You can’t exactly help someone through the phone, can you? You’d have to be here, next to me. But no, you have to play hard to get and don’t tell me who you are” I cried out desperately another sob escaping my lips. I regretted it a second after I had said it.

I wanted to apologize, so badly, but instead of words only more sobs came out of my mouth. My phone slid out of my hands and I let it fall down, not caring about anything at that moment. My whole body was shaking, while the tears continued to run down, wetting my cheeks, as I buried my face into my bruised hands. I did fuck up this time, didn’t I? Not only did I get beaten up for being gay, no, I had also scared away the first person I had ever liked – really liked.

I continued to cry into my hands, when suddenly there was movement besides me, and before I could protect myself in anyway or even put my hands from my eyes, I was pulled into a careful, sweet hug. I didn’t need to look up now, his scent gave away who he was.

In any other situation I might have looked at him immediately, to finally reveal the mystery that his identity was, but all I needed at that moment was a hug, so I flung my still aching arms around him and cried into his shoulder, completely drenching the jumper he was wearing.