When no one's watching

Chapter 16

Liam's pov:

I woke up on Tuesday but wanted to fall asleep right away again.
I just couldn't stand it being with that stupid girl any longer. And it only was the second day!
In the past it had always bothered me but never this much.

I stood up sighing. The only actual reason I went to school was because of Zayn and because I had told him yesterday that we would see each other today.

It was hot outside and as I stood in front of my closet, I actually wanted to pick out one of the tank-tops. But a second later I facepalmed myself.
I couldn't wear a tank top.
I sighed and took out a sweater which didn't seem to fully give me a heat stroke.

Zayn's pov:

As I saw Liam walking up the stairs to school, thank god today without a girl attached to him, I gave him a puzzled look.

The weather today was horrendously hot and Liam was literally wearing a sweater.
Everybody knew that if it was already this warm in the morning, we would probably die because it got so hot later on. Especially in these suffocating class rooms.

So why the hell was Liam wearing a sweater?
The more I thought about it the more I came to realization that I hadn't ever seen him in a short-sleeved shirt.
Weird.

He made his way towards me and the others.
"Hey!" Liam smiled and stopped in front of me to shortly bro-hug me. It wasn't how we always hugged, it was just one of those bro hugs he gave to everyone. Still, not complaining because a small hug is better than nothing.

Louis then just randomly started snorting with laugher.
We all looked at him confused.
"Liam you literally didn't even notice us, eyes only on Zayn, huh?"

I saw that Liam's cheeks turned into a shade of red but I was probably just imagining it.
He didn't respond to Louis' 'accusation' and so the bell rang.

Luckily I had my first class with Louis.
He grinned at me all the time. "If I wouldn't know better I would really think that Liam's head over heels in love with you! But since he's fucking straight as a ruler he just seems to be a weirdo."

I already wanted to protest but I knew I couldn't just tell Louis about Liam's secret so I kept myself quiet.
"Are you speechless, Malik?"

"Shut up you fool." I grinned back at him but quickly stopped as our teacher sent me devilish stares and told me to stop interrupting her teaching.

The rest of the lesson I was fearing to get a heat stroke and it wasn't even the hottest time of the day yet.

And I feared that Liam might actually get one since he literally showed up in a hoodie.

When me and Louis arrived at lunch, Liam was, like I expected, still wearing his hoodie.
It was visible that he was way too hot and his cheeks were flushed. Looked quite cute though.

"And Payno? Haven't had a heat stroke yet? Just take it off already, it's not like everyone hasn't seen you without a shirt or whatever anyway!"

Louis had always been the sassiest one and sometimes it went a little bit over the top.
Like at this comment, Liam's eyes had widened at what Louis had said.

That wasn't good, Liam definitely took that one personal and I sent a death glare towards Louis.
He shrugged and started a conversation with Niall and Harry.
What a cold douchebag he was.

I nudged Liam's side and smiled at him encouragingly. He returned the smile and continued to pick at his food.

"We can share this meal if you don't want to get a whole meal yourself." Liam looked at me and gave me a fork so I could eat with him.

I was so thankful to have him as a friend.

Harry's pov:

I was talking to Niall and Lou when I glanced over to Liam and Zayn.
It was a cute scenery, they were sharing a meal and since Zayn seemed to have issues eating, Liam would share with him.

Liam waited until Zayn took a bite so he wouldn't eat everything from Zayn.

If I wouldn't know that Liam was really, really straight plus was having a girlfriend, I would think right away that he liked Zayn.

Something was clearly going on with Liam for a while now. And I knew that it probably was something that was alarming but he wouldn't let anyone near himself.

I just really hoped that he had finally found the person he could speak to in Zayn.
I really liked Zayn even if he also was quite concerning sometimes.

When I looked up again, I could see Cheryl coming up to our table. She stopped behind Liam and held her hands over his eyes.
Then she turned him around and kissed him. I was a bit confused as I saw that Liam wasn't close to happy with that, he even looked disgusted.

Also Zayn's smile had turned into a deep frown and he stood up to throw away the rest of the food without a comment.

Fortunately, the bell indicated that lunch was over, otherwise I would've feared that someone would have gotten killed soon.

I went over to Zayn who was still standing at the tray trolley, obviously wanting to procrastinate.

I went over to him and put an arm around his shoulder. I never really realized how fragile he actually was but I now could feel his bones that I didn't even knew could stick out.
"Hey mate, we got P.E. together, wanna go?"
Zayn nodded and smiled at me relieved.

In the locker room I quickly glanced over to Zayn as he pulled his shirt over his head.
He was way more fragile than I had thought. His ribs were visible and his collarbones were sticking out as well.

I noted that I should mention that in my call with Lou today.

"Come on Harold let's go."
Zayn nudged me before making his way towards the sports field.
I followed him, trailing behind a little slower.

"Lou, before I forget it I gotta tell you something about Z..."
"And I need to ask something about Liam but you go first." He chuckled slightly before shutting up so I could speak.

"So as you know, Zayn barely eats and today in P.E. I could see that he is skinny. Like really, really skinny, I don't think that's healthy anymore. Do you...do you maybe know something that he maybe...has an eating disorder...I don't know?"
Louis stayed silent so I continued.
"Look, it's just what I thought and it could be complete bullshit but..."

"No Harry, it's not. I thought about it as well and I really don't know. But I definitely know that he won't tell us but maybe Li can get him to speak."

I nodded before noticing that he couldn't see me.
"Yeah probably, they've been very close lately...Anyway, now you, what did you want to ask?"

"So maybe my assumption is completely wrong but...you know that Liam wore a hoodie today and I had P.E. with him and he literally kept it on. We were playing baseball outside and the sun was shining. Liam was close to collapse, I could see it but he refused to take that fucking hoodie off. Why is he acting like that?"

I didn't know how to respond because of course I had noticed that.
"I don't know what he's trying to hide...he didn't do that last summer. It just started as autumn last year came, even though Liam had always been the one to wear short-sleeved shirts in the coldest winter."

The phone line went quiet for a minute.
We both had the same assumption but we didn't dare to say it out loud.
No, not Liam.

"I know what you're thinking of, babe. And I think the same...we have to consider it as long as we don't know better."
Louis sighed at the other end of the phone line.

"But Lou, I don't want Liam to hurt himself..."