The following Monday they made the decision to split up the practices. They had spent an hour shouting over each other, and the boys of the team had looked like they wanted to rather die or sit through algebra than suffer through it. It was all Louis’ fault, naturally. The boy couldn’t let Harry decide anything on his own, he didn’t even let him handle the warm-up. Coach accepted Harry’s request that day, perhaps realising that dipping a toe in might be better than diving in headfirst, and Louis seemed to find it beneficial enough to agree.
The following month was pure purgatory. Louis dictated his practices as if he were the king of the jungle, and Harry made certain he suffered for it later during his own sessions. Louis began sending out emails as they hit September, describing each of the exercises he wanted the team to go through over the next month. When he even began scheduling Harry’s training sessions without consultation, Harry made a WhatsApp group for the team that didn’t include Louis, solely for the purpose of making fun of the emails. Naturally, it took two days before Louis found out and Harry was forced to delete it to follow the non-bullying guidelines of the school. Louis only seemed to take it as a win, but it didn’t stop him from sending out more emails. He just didn’t care that the whole team despised it.
On a Sunday, Harry was slouching on the sofa in the family room of his house, a rerun of a documentary on the telly. He had just received a group email from Louis, giving unwarranted advice on dieting.
Food examples:
Breakfast: Banana, egg whites, almonds, protein shake of choice
Lunch: Chicken, rice, kidney beans, or fish
Dinner: veggies, salmon, avocado
Snack: you wish guys. Pizza is cool though. Sometimes.
Louis was overcompensating in his role as co-captain. It was sort of funny in a way, watching how eager he was to be in charge. Perhaps part of Harry should have worried that Coach would see Louis’ ambition and find Harry slacking in comparison, but he knew half of the shit Louis pulled was solely ridiculous.
Just stop it man, someone retorted within an instant to the email.
Get a life, someone else wrote.
You guys will suffer tomorrow, Louis wrote back.
Harry was certain the guy meant it. He seemed serious about fitness, and Harry had of course seen him without clothes many times over the years. He wasn’t blind, either. Objectively, Louis was fit. And not just physically in shape. For someone who was so stupidly annoying, he was gorgeous. Harry had noticed he was cute when they were fifteen, but as Louis was hitting eighteen, he was suddenly something different. Deep blue eyes, soft caramel brown hair that still looked like a mad haystack after a match, and a pair of really delectable, tanned muscular legs. Harry could admit to thinking about Louis. He could admit to wondering if there was a chance he was into guys. Of course, he’d seen him snog a girl once at a party, and maybe he was just projecting. Truth was, Harry had considered that very question for a long time when it came to himself. It wasn’t until last year, that he became certain of it. It hadn’t been a process he’d enjoyed, but at least he knew himself better now.
As if to emphasise the thought, another message lit up his phone. This one filled his body with anxiety. His fingers turned to stone as his eyes combed over the words on the screen.
We need to talk, Harry. You have to talk to me.
He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to forget her face. Sometimes he wished she’d never existed in the first place, and sometimes he wanted to just run away. Most of all, he wanted to be free of this. However, he knew the only way to be free was to tell the truth.
As his mum walked by the sofa, passing through the room towards the kitchen, he sat up, considering. If he told her, maybe he wouldn’t have to be so frightened. If only one other person knew, he would feel better, and his former friend wouldn’t have such a hold over him.
He sat up. “Mum, I need to tell you something.”
“Not now, darling. I’m on the phone with Lucy.”
He watched her disappear into the next room. Perhaps this was just as good. Perhaps it could remain a secret for a while longer. Just a little while.
He grabbed his things and shut off the telly, trudged upstairs, and curled up on his bed. The message had left a hard ball of anxiety in his stomach. It curled and had a life of its own. It was almost a sense of nausea that washed over him. Perhaps he would vomit? If he vomited, would he feel better after? Maybe he could disappear into the bed and resurface in a year when school was finished and he’d left Doncaster behind?
The following day wasn’t much better. Louis berated the boys for ten minutes for their disrespectful retorts to his emails, and Harry had an uncomfortable feeling in his gut lingering all throughout the day. As he warmed up, passing the ball between himself and Ed, he thought he was about to faint from the feeling of panic that flashed through him when he spotted her near the bleachers. Over the summer he’d managed to escape, but school made it nearly impossible. He did his best to avoid her, but everything from last year bolted through him all over again each time she appeared. All he wanted was to forget it. But he couldn’t, because she wouldn’t let him.
“Are you okay?” asked Ed carefully as Harry faced away from the rest of the team, suddenly breathless.
“Fine,” he grunted out. His stomach seemed to turn in on itself.
“What?” he heard Louis’ sharp voice complain. “Don’t tell me you’re already fed up with training, Styles.”
The nausea was replaced with anger. “Just shut the fuck up, mate, for once in your life,” he spat.
Harry didn’t look at him, but he heard Louis’ voice turn harder. “Lads, it looks like some of you have trouble keeping up. Why don’t we all stop the passing and run some laps instead.”
The boys groaned and shook their heads at Louis. Their co-captains’ fighting seemed to constantly be taken out on all of them. Harry’s fist clenched, but it was a Monday and Louis was in charge. However, running meant getting further away from the bleachers, and that invitation he gladly accepted at that moment. He began jogging, ignoring Louis’ smirk.
The rest of the week didn’t get any better. He received another text from the girl who used to be his friend, and it threw him all over again.
You need to talk to me. I’m running out of patience.
He nearly skipped school, but every day at the last second, he forced himself to go, knowing he had football practice to run. He contemplated it regularly, actually telling someone. Zayn was the clear option, but he wasn’t the person Harry worried about knowing it. It was his family and the football team. Simply the fact that he wouldn’t be able to tell them himself was what frightened him the most. Not the reaction, just the fact that other people would talk about him behind his back before he could face it himself.
On Friday, he had felt sick for a week, unable to withstand it. He needed to tell at least his family. They had to know before the whole school would talk about it.
He called his older sister, Gemma. She had moved an hour away for university studies, and he hadn’t seen her in months. She’d spent the summer in France with her current boyfriend. Mean-while, Harry had stayed in Doncaster as his parents worked and left him to his own devices. The two of them didn’t talk as often lately, but deep down he hoped his sister would be there for him like she had when they were kids.
“Can you come home this weekend?” he begged.
“Why?” she asked, and he swallowed.
“I have something important to tell you.”
“Just tell me now.”
He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see it. “I can’t. I need you to come home.”
“I’m sorry, Harry, but I have so much to revise this weekend. I can’t just drop everything and drive back to Doncaster.”
He felt his stomach clench. “It’s really, really important, Gemma.”
Her answer was final. “I can’t, Harry. Perhaps in a few weeks, okay? When I can organise my schedule.”
It made it worse, but he needed to do it anyway. Without Gemma by his side, the challenge appeared a thousand times more daunting, but the threat of not getting to tell them himself was too overbearing.
On Saturday morning, he made sure to get up early and catch his parents before they ran off to whatever they had planned for the day. His parents were both deeply invested in their work lives, and his mother often went to galleries and exhibitions in her free time, while his father wasn’t afraid to book up his weekends with business lunches and golf.
His mum was having breakfast on the terrace in the backyard next to the pool, and his father was in the kitchen, pouring black coffee into a thermos. Harry passed through the kitchen and opened the door to the yard in order to speak to them both simultaneously.
“Will you guys be home tonight?” he asked, trying to seem casual. Like it wasn’t the first time he’d seen them in the same room for at least a week.
“Who?” his father asked, looking up from his thermos, a loose tie hanging from his neck.
Harry stared at him. “You? And mum? Obviously.”
“Oh.” He looked away. “I’m off golfing, and tonight I’m having dinner with Michael. You remember him, right? Mr. Clark.”
“I have a thing with Lucy, darling.” His mum called the words from the terrace. Harry nearly rolled his eyes. He was so used to hearing Lucy’s name these days, he wondered if his mum’s colleague saw more of her than he did.
“What about tomorrow? Maybe we could have dinner together.”
It wasn’t the words they replied with, rather the silence that preceded them, that revealed how odd the question rang.
“Together?” His mum looked up. “Oh, darling, that would be just lovely.”
Harry nodded and glanced at his father. “Great.”
“Great!” repeated his dad. Then he slid out of the room, and Harry’s short-lived smile fell. Fantastic.
He hadn’t really expected anything better than the lukewarm reactions he’d received. This household hadn’t been particularly excited about family activities in recent years. Sometimes it felt like they lived separate lives, and only shared the roof over their heads. He could barely even remember the last time they’d had a conversation deeper than “Did you eat?” or “Did you do your homework?”
Of course, he had finished his homework. Having good marks was an important part of having real options after school. But the truthful answer to the question was: of course, he’d done his homework because aside from Zayn Harry didn’t have too many friends. The lads on the team were good mates, but none of them knew Harry in the earnest and deep way a real friendship warranted.
He’d been friends with Jasmine for the last three years of school, but that had ended abruptly last spring, and with that a lot of the friendships he had made through her were terminated. She’d been one of his closest friends, and now all he felt was pain when he thought of her. She was the reason he was forced to tell his parents about his true self, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. Nevertheless, it was inescapable.
He spent the Saturday alone, because Zayn had gone to visit his cousins in Bradford for the weekend. The house was too big when it was empty, and although the cat would come to cuddle on the sofa with him, he didn’t like the silence. Instead, he preferred to be outside. As he had done during the summer, he often went on walks through the parks, letting a football play at the toes of his sneakers as he went. Somewhere near the playground that particular day, not far from the football pitch, he noticed the blond hair of a guy that seemed to always be by Louis Tomlinson’s side at school. It was at least half a footie pitch away, but he recognised the noise of Louis’ laugh the second he heard it. Harry turned around and left the park.
When the evening rolled about, he spent hours turning over in bed, contemplating how the conversation could be brought up at dinner the following night. “Do you remember when I dated Jasmine? Well, it turned out I’m gay and now she wants to tell everyone, so I’ve decided to come clean in order to not collapse of fear each time I see her face.” It wasn’t exactly something he wanted to say to anyone.
If he had imagined coming out, ever, it wouldn’t be because he was scared. It would be because he’d feel free. This was all wrong because he felt nothing close to free.
The whole Sunday he lay in bed, staring at coming-out videos on YouTube. None of it felt applicable, because deep down he wasn’t ready. But he told himself he had to. He had to.
At half-past six, his mum called out that dinner was ready. Harry had tried to help her, but his dad was talking in his ear about some sort of extracurricular project for up-and-coming entrepreneurs his company was organising next spring. Harry tried to wave him off, knowing he wasn’t interested in business, but his father had been persistent for a long time, trying to entice him. Harry had once attempted to explain his passion for football, but he wasn’t sure his dad had registered a word of it.
For dinner, they had gratinated pasta with basil and parmesan. They sat at the dark, wooden dining table, the shining cutlery and thick napkins suggesting it was a special evening. The silence around them loudly contradicted it. Harry was so preoccupied with the anxiety and dread of the words that he had to force out of his mouth not much later, that he didn’t even realise he hadn’t tasted his mum’s cooking for weeks. He didn’t even remember the last time they’d sat down to eat, the three of them all together.
“It tastes great, Mum,” he mumbled after ten minutes, even though he couldn’t feel any of it in his mouth.
“Very nice,” muttered his dad.
He swallowed and took a breath. “Um, I kind of wanted to talk to you about something.”
“About what, dear?”
“Is it about school?” His dad didn’t look up from the pasta, but his voice got louder. “Did you finally decide to drop those extracurriculars? Because you know I can bring you along after school to work. It’d give you a good start.”
Normally, Harry would get pissed off at someone referring to football as an extracurricular activity, because in all honesty football was a way of life. It lived inside him with a fire and a power of its own. But at that moment, all he could think about was forcing the two words that any homosexual person was eventually supposed to admit out of his mouth.
I’m gay.
I’m gay.
“I’m —”
“Oh, come on now, Des. Harry needs to focus on school work. Pushing him to do too much at a time won’t be beneficial for him,” his mum said, and Harry felt both grateful and tossed aside. “Remember when I was struggling in Cheshire, trying to do everything and anything I possibly could in order to just have one thing succeed… When we moved here, and Lucy found me, she told me to take a minute and then focus on one thing at a time. I did, and look at me now.”
Harry’s father stared at his wife, the brows on his forehead raised as if the words made him want to turn off his hearing for the rest of the week. “Anne, you know I don’t care one bit what that woman thinks.”
She looked offended. “Lucy is a fantastic businesswoman! Her advice is what’s brought me a lot of the success I’ve had with my work.”
He shook his head. “She may be, but this is a different field. Art is art, but business is business.”
Harry opened his mouth. Perhaps he could just shout it, so he didn’t have to listen to them bicker? “Anyway, what I was going to say —”
“A different field! But like you said, business is business, Des. Just because you don’t like her, doesn’t mean that you can disregard her achievements —”
“Here we go!” Harry’s father shook his head, beginning to stand from the table. “Lucy this! Lucy that! Christ’s sake, Anne. It doesn’t matter what she thinks, and it certainly doesn’t matter what she thinks about Harry. Either way, I don’t need to hear it.”
“Harry could benefit from her advice just as much as I have! Perhaps it’ll be better if he joins the gallery next summer, instead of loitering around in conference rooms and playing golf all day. Perhaps he will actually learn something before the business classes next year.”
Harry raised his voice, trying to get his words out. An angry knot was starting to form in his gut. “I was going to explain to you that I wanted to share something about myself —”
His dad was putting his plate in the sink in the kitchen, though, and his tired laughter could be heard. “Anne, if he spent the afternoons with us, he would know why those golf hours are as important as they are.”
“Please, Des! All you do is slam a metal stick into a ball. It’s a joke! Harry will spend the summer with me.” His mum placed a hand on Harry’s unmoving shoulder. She smiled at him. “Don’t worry, darling.”
Harry’s father walked into the room again, shaking his head as he disappeared upstairs to his office. Harry stared at his pasta, relieved and torn up all at once. The two of them sat in silence at the table, certainly thinking about entirely different things.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that his mum came to life, and Harry jumped in his seat as she touched the brown curls on his head.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, my dear. I know you wanted to have a nice dinner with us. Oh, Harry. Maybe tomorrow we can make it up?”
Harry doubted he would ever again put himself through the anxiety of forcing himself to come out, just for him to be ignored and feel like dying as an end result.
His mum stroked his cheek. “Harry, honey. I will make sure he’s home tomorrow night and we’ll have a lovely time. Perhaps pizza? Oh, we can walk into town. The weather is still lovely!”
Harry stopped listening.