Take Me Home

Chapter Twenty-Six

After dropping Louis off at school, Zayn drove Harry to the doctors.

They were there early for the appointment, so they decided to sit and wait in the car, rather than a waiting room full of silence and sick people. Harry had his head against the window, staring outside. It was raining, not an uncommon occurrence in England. He watched a rain drop travelling down the glass.

"What's going on in there, buddy?" Zayn asked from beside him. Harry jumped slightly, because it had been quiet for a while and the sound was unexpected.

He glanced across into the man's honey-coloured gaze and then shrugged. "A lot of things, I guess. They're not gonna...make me take pills or anything, right? I'm not sick," he said. He hated the idea of having to take medicine for all of this.

Zayn stared at him with soft eyes for a moment before he sighed. "I don't know, bud. But you have to be completely honest with whoever you speak to in there, alright? But if you don't want to take any medication, nobody can force you to," he said, gently.

Harry frowned, eyes wide and scared. "You're coming in with me, right?" he asked, sounding like an eight year old again.

Zayn smiled at him. "Course I am. As long as you want me there," he said.

Harry nodded abruptly, just as his phone made a noise. Zayn raised a brow.

"You've been getting a lot of texts on there. Everything okay? Nobody's been getting at you, have they?" He asked, instantly worried.

Harry shook his head. "No, it's Ashton," he said, softly.

"Our Ashton?" he asked, and Harry grinned because that was the exact thing that Liam had asked the other day.

"Yeah. We chat sometimes," he stated.

Sometimes was an understatement. Since that first phonecall, Harry seemed to be conversing with Ashton every waking minute. It felt weird to go for anything longer than a few hours without at least saying hi. He hoped he wasn't being one of those clingy or annoying friends, but Ash didn't seem to mind. He seemed just as eager. If Harry went any longer than three hours without checking his phone, he would be bombarded with faux angry messages about being abandoned, and then a bunch of memes just for good measures to make him smile. They had a nice little dynamic going on.

"Ash's a good kid, I'm glad he stuck by your side through all of this," Zayn said, and Harry nodded in agreement. He wished he had taken more time to get to know Ashton whilst he was in the home, but they had barely spoken then. Harry had never even found out why the kid was there in the first place, just that it was always going to be temporary.

"Do you think Lou's okay? He seemed a little weird about going to school today, don't you think?" Harry asked, watching as the rain turned to hail and bounced off of the bonnet of the car.

Zayn smiled at him, proud that he cared in a way that sounded odd. "He's just a little worried about going in without Ni since the bullying thing. I might pick him up early at lunch, he must've been tired from being woken up at three this morning," he said.

Harry nodded, holding back a yawn of his own. "Yeah. Ni sure can yell...you think he's okay, too?" he asked, sheepishly.

"Yeah, Haz. Kids have been through a lot, but they're okay. It's time you started to care about yourself as much as you care about them," he said, gently. Harry hesitated, then nodded.

Not sure how to carry on the conversation, he glanced down at his phone, smiling at the message from Ashton wishing him luck.

Luck. He was sure he was going to need more than that...