left my heart out // n.h.& l.p. au love triangle

iii. put your heart into it

On day 5 of Operation: Quit Liam, I shut myself up in my flat with the intention of revising for my exams. They're not for a couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean I can't start early. Just because I've never started early before doesn't mean I can't now. My flatmate, Lucia, is rarely ever here, and when she is, she's shut up in her cave of a bedroom or blowing in and out of the flat in all-black clothes, making me wonder if she's a vampire. Point is, she isn't home now, which means I've got the place to myself. I spread my books all across the kitchen table and get to work.

Around dinner time, Liam texts me, but I ignore it. I know it's him because my phone only buzzes once: Liam always only sends one message, whereas Harry and Lila are prone to sending six messages at once, like telegrams. Hi STOP can STOP you get STOP me eggs STOP at sainsburys STOP ?????

So I ignore the message and keep on reading my textbook, which is telling me about all of these Italian artists named "Fra" and how they painted pictures of Jesus in a bunch of churches. Nowadays, American tourists pay money now to go see their anatomically incorrect Cabbage Patch Doll Jesuses painted on the church walls, apparently. I'm about halfway through the chapter and ready to gouge my eyes out when somebody knocks at the door.

I want to ignore it, but then they knock again. I only get up to open it because I start worrying that it might be Lucia, forgetting her key again, but it's not. It's Harry, wearing a stupid green beanie over his stupid hair and biting his lip like he's nervous he's accidentally committed a crime and is about to get caught.

"Hello," I say, raising an eyebrow. Harry rarely comes over unannounced. In fact, he rarely comes over. I usually only see him at his place, where I beat him repeatedly at Mario Kart, or in the library, where I attempt to read while he blinds me with whatever new tattoo he's decorated his arms and chest with.

"Hi," he says, pushing past me without another word. I shrug and go back to the table, picking up my pen and intending to continue with my reading. Harry and I study all the time, so maybe he's just decided to study here with me, since he couldn't find me at the library.

"I've got a secret," Harry says, sitting down at the table across from me and then immediately getting up again and pacing across the kitchen.

"Go ahead and tell me, then," I say, clicking my pen a couple of times to remind him that I'm busy revising and don't have all day.

"I'm not supposed to tell you," he says, biting his lip, which tells me that this is major gossip. Could even be life-changing. Harry's moral compass very rarely points due north, so this must be a secret about someone we know.

"Why not?" I ask. "Who's it about?"

"It's not a good kind of secret," he says. I sigh, shutting my book, and raise my eyebrows. This prompts him to take a seat across from me at the table.

"Look, Q," Harry says, looking somewhere over my head as he speaks. "I didn't want to be the one to have to tell you this."

"So then why are you telling me?" Anxiety bubbles in my stomach and makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. This can't be good news, not if the look Harry's got on his face, like he's just swallowed something disgusting, means anything.

"Because as your friend, I feel like it's my duty to let you know when you're about to be royally fucked over."

"I'm about to be what?" I'm pretty sure I'm already fucked, and it's my own fault. Nothing he can say can make it worse. But I wait for him to answer anyway, and suddenly all of it's out there, shooting out of his mouth all at once.

"Liam's in love with somebody. And it's not you," he says, ending the sentence with a relieved sigh, like he's glad he's not holding the words inside him anymore.