You Can Let It Go [ZARRY]

Thirty Six

Zayn:

After the boat ride, Marcel wasn’t ready to go home yet.

A place crammed with people was too steep a step, so we went to Volunteer Park where he strolled over the grass, pointing
out the differences in foliage between the park and the Styles backyard while Harry and I sat on a bench.

Close enough to touch but not touching.

Twice, our hands brushed, wanting to hold on, but Harry pulled away when someone walked close to us.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be,” I said.

“Even if you weren’t trying to keep things on the down-low, it’s not like it’s always comfortable showing affection in public. You never know if some asshole is going to make a comment or if a mom is going to shoot you a dirty look for existing in front of her kids.”

Harry’s face twisted. “That happens a lot?”

I shrugged. “How much is a lot? Once is too many.”

He nodded, thinking. “I keep wanting to touch you, Zayn, out here on this bench, but this memory from Alaska keeps jumping out at me, whacking me in the face. Literally.”

“Tell me.”

Harry had his sunglasses off and his eyes were clouded and heavy.

“We were outside, gathered around a pitiful campfire. It was January, I think, cold as fuck. I was cleaning a fish, hardly able to hold the little knife, my hands were so numb. I started thinking about Marcy and how I was so fucking glad he wasn’t there to see me go through all this shit.”

He nodded his head in his brother’s direction.

“Then I kept thinking about Marcy, because he was something good, you know Something good and far away from the misery.”

I nodded, listening, feeling a tightness in my stomach for what must be coming next.

“Out of nowhere, pain exploded across my cheek, knocking me flat.” Harry turned his gaze to me.

“Coach Simon had whacked me across the face with a log.”

I ground my teeth. “Why?”

“He said it was written all over my face that I’d been thinking ‘soft thoughts.’”

“Goddamn,” I breathed.

“Goddammit, that asshole. That’s awful.”

“And now I’m sitting here, with you, watching Marcy be out in the world, definitely having what Simon would consider ‘soft thoughts.’”

“No one is going to hit you, Haz,” I said quietly.

“No, but if I were holding your hand, or if we kissed, we might get a snide comment or a dirty look, right?” he asked.

“How is that different? Seems to me that that’s almost as fucking awful. You’re just. . . minding your own business, being happy, and you get whacked.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem all that different to me.”

I turned facing forward because if I looked at Harry for one more second, I was going to grab him and hold him; I wanted to grab a log and beat away anyone who’d even think about hurting him.

“Where is Simon now?” I asked.

“Please tell me some parent came to his damn senses when his kid came back and
had him arrested.”

“Some parents from my group were pissed, I heard. Their boys were in the hospital with me. There was talk of hauling him in. Not from my father, of course. But Simon vanished.”