These Violent Delights (Zirry Love Triangle)

Four

A few days later it was time for the new school year to begin, and if Harry hadn't known before he knew for sure now that coming back was a bad idea. The school was tiny and rundown, just like the town it sat in, and everyone knew everyone and everyone remembered Harry. But they didn't remember anything good about him, like how he always got perfect marks in English or how he sang a song in the talent show years ago, and he did so well that a few people clapped and no one booed, which was more than Harry had hoped for.  

No, they remembered that he wore flowers in his hair on the playground when he was little and that he threw up when Zayn punched him in the stomach in the middle of a science lab. They remembered that Janice Bearley swore she saw him get a boner during gym class when they had to climb the rope and that he cried when she pointed it out to everyone. And they must have remembered how much fun it was to knock his books out of his hands and to shove him into lockers, because it had been happening all day.

It wasn't easy being gay in a town like this. A town where people struggled to make ends meet and there were no stoplights or parks but plenty of liquor stores and pawn shops. Girls in Bradford got pregnant by sixteen, fifteen if they were pretty, and the only way for a guy to earn respect was by being good at football or part of the local gang.

So it was pretty obvious to everyone that Harry, who swung his hips when he walked and wore scarves in his hair, didn't belong. He knew he could have made his life easier if he buttoned his shirt all the way up and wore looser jeans and didn't clap his hands whenever he got excited, but he didn't see the point. He would still be Harry and he would still like boys and he still wouldn't fit in. Harry didn't know how to be anyone but himself, and while that might be a trait to admire someplace else, someplace Harry had never been, it didn't do him any good in Bradford.

Harry was in last period and the end of the day was finally in sight when he saw someone who made him sit up a little straighter in his chair. The guy must have been new to the school, or he at least hadn't been there the last time Harry was, because there was no way that Harry would have forgotten him.

He was tan and muscular, with brown hair and chocolate eyes and lips that were so plump that they made Harry forget about those other lips, the ones that he never forgot about, for a minute, just a minute, but still. That minute was enough to make Harry feel things he hadn't for someone new in what felt like forever.  

He knew it was pointless, but he couldn't stop the way his heart rate picked up and the way the hair on the back of his neck prickled when the guy looked over at him. He was sure that it was pointless, that it would only lead to someone new to ridicule him at best and someone new to hit him at worst, but he still couldn't help what he felt.

And then he smiled at Harry and walked over to him, taking the seat next to him, and it felt a little less pointless. And when Harry noticed the student peeking at him out of the corner of his eye during class, and when Harry could swear that he was intentionally walking out of the classroom so close to Harry that their arms brushed again and again, Harry felt something close to hope. And when the new kid stopped next to Harry's locker and held his hand out with a nervous smile on his face Harry started thinking that maybe nothing was pointless after all.

"Hi, I'm Liam."