I wake up the next morning because someone is knocking on my door. I mumble a quiet “Come in”, too tired to talk louder. I couldn’t fall asleep last night and when I did, I woke up several times in the middle of the night. Maybe it was the fact that I slept in my bed alone.

“Hi, darling”, Mum says, “It’s eleven, already. Harry is leaving now. Don’t you wanna say goodbye?” She walks over to my window, opening the blinds and the window.

“He’s leaving? Right now?” I blink, trying to process everything while still feeling extremely tired. She nods and I can feel my chest tightening so badly that I’m scared for my lungs to stop working.

“Did he not tell you? He wants to catch the early train because his grandma will arrive home early as well. You don’t have to say goodbye, I’m sure you two exchanged numbers anyways and will meet up again soon, anyways, but it’d be nice, if you’re not too tired.”

“Don’t think we’ll see each other again”, I say, getting up, “Told you we were just hanging out for the summer ‘cause we didn’t have anyone else, did I not?”

I head downstairs where Harry is sitting on the floor, tying his shoes carefully, his travel bag lying next to him, the backpack on top of it. He doesn’t even look up when I come downstairs.

“Harry”, Mum says when coming downstairs, smiling broadly, “It was so nice that you were here for the summer, love. I’m looking forward to you and maybe Anne as well visiting soon, if you want to.” She smiles again and Harry smiles back so genuinely that I want to fucking punch him. He won’t ever smile at me like that.

“Thank you”, Harry says, getting up to hug Mum who’s reaching her arms out, “I appreciate that you two let me stay here a lot.” He looks at me over Mum’s shoulder, “It meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, of course, love. We were happy to have you here too, at least at some point we both were, I think. You were a great guest.” Harry keeps looking at me even when Mum finally stops hugging him, blinking slowly.

“I have to look after my coffee”, she says even though I am about a hundred percent sure that she did not make herself any coffee, she never drinks more than one in the morning. “Get home, safely, okay? And visit soon, I mean it.”

She hugs Harry for one more time, then disappears into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. We stay in silence for some time, just staring at each other and I wish I could say anything, tell him that this all meant so, so much to me and that he might be the best human I’ve ever met and that he makes everything better, but instead I just nod.

“Goodbye, then.” I can’t get anything bring anything else to leave my lips because that feeling is rising in my throat and I want to fucking burst into tears and let him hug me so badly.

“Bye, Louis. Your mum wants me to come by soon, so, we might see each other then. If you’re not busy with your friends and school and all. Maybe.”

“Sure”, I say, “Yes. I mean yeah, maybe. I, yes, see you then. I suppose.” I shrug twice and watch him pick up his baggage, nodding.

My eyes start burning and I don’t understand. I don’t understand myself; I don’t get why I’m not saying anything and why I’m not asking him what’s up because something has to be up and I also don’t understand why he’s acting the way he is but I’m not brave enough to bring it up and I feel small and weak and stupid for letting myself catch feelings.

“Bye”, he repeats, swallowing heavily and I don’t answer this time, just nod again and then he opens the door, slips outside and closes it again behind him and the moment I hear the door close, tears run down my cheek and I hurry upstairs because I don’t want Mum to see me like this.

I cry for the rest of the afternoon until I feel like sleeping for twenty-four hours and everything hurts. I cry until I realize that I’ve never liked anyone more than I like Harry and I cry until I can’t remember why I didn’t just tell him, anymore.

~

It takes me until Wednesday to finally talk to Zayn about it. The start of school was busy and I almost forgot about being sad a bit because I really, really concentrated on making a good first impression and remembering everything the teachers said. I want to do better this year.

Zayn noticed that something was wrong, definitely, but he was busy as well and only asked me today to come over after lunch. He’s sitting in the living room, snacking on some gummy bears when I enter, typing something on his computer, probably an essay for school.

“Nerd”, I say when dropping down onto the couch next to him, “Is that homework I see?” I smile and he nods, grinning, before he shuts the laptop and puts it down onto the couch table.

“What the fuck is wrong?”, he blurts out, raising his eyebrows, looking like my mum when she wants me to admit something I apparently did wrong.

“Harry”, I say because there’s no point in denying it, Zayn always notices, “Harry’s home and I like him and he doesn’t like me back and he doesn’t even want to stay friends even though I’m not sure if I’d even want that because it’d hurt so much, having to see him as just a friend and I don’t know what to do because I can’t force any feelings onto him but at the same time I always felt like he might like me as well and I don’t-“

“Woah, calm down”, Zayn says, interrupting my way too quick ramble, “I only understood half of that, Louis. If you’d talk at a normal pace from now on, please?” I nod and he continues talking before I can say anything. “So you like Harry, I knew it, by the way, you looked at him like he was a fucking god, and he doesn’t like you back? And you know that how, exactly?”

I ignore his stupid comment about me looking at Harry and explain. “He acted weird the last day and then he didn’t want to sleep at mine and then he said it was cool that we were friends for the summer but he doesn’t want anything else, basically. I don’t remember exactly but it was clear that, I don’t know. I’m not important to him.”

“That you’re not important to him? Louis, fucking bullshit, even I could tell you were both important to each other. You forgot to ask me to hang out at some point, you know. And Harry never met up with Niall anymore either. You two were so important to each other that you forgot the rest of the world was living as well.”

“I didn’t forget about you”, I say but at the same time realize that I did not call Zayn anymore after the third week of holidays or so. It was always him asking me to hang out.

“Don’t worry, Louis, that’s okay. I had Liam and Niall and Niall had us and we’re all good. I just wanted to prove my point. There’s no way you’re not important to Harry. You spent every goddamn minute together. Harry went to the toilet about a minute after you went.”

“That was just because-“, I start, but Zayn interrupts me. “Would you stop that? I’m trying to prove my point. I don’t care whether he followed you cause he had a wee after you or because you snogged each other’s faces off, I’m just saying that Harry looks at you like you look at him and that you two never spent a second apart and there’s no way in this world that he’s not madly in love with you.”

“But he said that, he said that it was just for the summer. That’s exactly what he said. I still remember ‘cause it was exactly what I had told Mum when she asked. I didn’t want to admit my feelings and I was preparing for the worst because I was uncertain about the whole situation so I told her the worst thing I could imagine to happen. I said we were just buddies for the summer, or something. And Harry said the exact same thing later and it made me feel so bad because even though I kept telling myself that, I wasn’t prepared for him to say that at all.”

“You told your mum that?”, Zayn asks and I nod.

“Yes, that’s what I just said.” I lean back on the couch because so far, Zayn has only been telling me that Harry is in love with me what is not helping at all. If he had in any way friendly or romantic feelings for me, he wouldn’t have acted the way he did.

“And when did Harry tell you the same thing?”

I sigh. “Like an hour later. It’s not important, is it? I don’t want to analyse the whole situation, I’m sorry. I’m just tired of thinking about it. Can we play some PlayStation, maybe?”

“No”, Zayn says. “Was Harry in the room when you told your mum? Probably not, right?”

“I’m not absolutely stupid. I wouldn’t have said that in front of him, of course.” I start looking around for the remote of the TV while Zayn acts like he’s investigating into a cold case after years having passed.

“So you’re telling me you both had feelings for each other, then you tell your mum that and like an hour later Harry starts acting weird and tells you about the exact same thing?”

I shrug, nodding. “Something like that. I guess he started acting weird right after the dinner and said that later. It’s not like it matters, Zayn. Can we watch Netflix, then?”

“What if Harry heard what you told your mum? Is it possible he was next room or something? Remember how we used to spy on your parents when they had friends over? Even if the doors were closed you could hear the people talking inside of the room.”

I raise both eyebrows, then shake my head. “I don’t know, Zayn, sounds like you’re reaching a bit.”

“But he said the exact same thing. Sometimes in arguments when you’re hurt you do repeat things back to the person. Like when you say that I’m stupid, I’ll say something like ‘Oh yeah, I’m so stupid anyways, so it doesn’t matter”, you know what I mean?”

He takes the remote out of my hand and turns the TV back off. I look at him, thinking about what he just said. “I mean, yeah, he could’ve heard some of it. The door was closed so that the whole house wouldn’t smell like cooking, I think, so we wouldn’t have noticed him standing in front of it. But hypothetically, he could’ve just told me, right? He could’ve told me he’s hurt and explained his feelings.”

“You could’ve too”, Zayn says, “If it really was that way, you were both equally stupid. And I’d go talk to him. I’d go visit him as soon as you can and I’d clear things up because I honestly can’t stand you all whiny and drowning in self-misery.”

I nod, looking at the TV Zayn just turned back on. I don’t know what to think of his way too complicated theory and I don’t want to think about it in that moment but as I’m winning Fifa against Zayn, as always, I realize that I’ll have to talk to Harry.

~~~

one more chapter and epilogue left <3

hope you enjoyed, what do you think of Zayn's theory?