The cold metal of the locker handle burns against my palm. Or maybe it’s just me—sweaty, nervous, trying not to look like I’m two seconds from bolting straight out of the corridor and back to the safety of my mum’s car. First day at a new school. Brilliant. Who actually wants to be the new kid halfway through term? No one. Especially not someone like me. Someone who dresses a bit too nice. Talks a bit too soft. Smiles too much at the wrong boys.
I already feel the stares like darts to the back of my head. They whisper when they think I can’t hear—“freak,” “poof,” “what is he, like, a girl?” Heard it all before. Different school, same poison. My old school? Let’s just say I didn’t leave by choice.
I slam the locker shut, the sound echoing too loud in the crowded hallway, drawing more attention than I want. I duck my head and shove my hands in my blazer pockets. Keep walking, Haz. Just keep walking.
Then I hear his voice, all bright and brash, and a bit too loud for 8:30 in the morning.
“Oi, Hazza! There you are, you little gremlin!”
Louis Tomlinson—Tommo—is grinning like he’s known me forever, which is half true. We met during the summer—football camp. He’d found me sitting alone, sketching in my notebook under the bleachers while the rest of the lads were talking about which girls they’d shag given the chance. I wasn’t part of the banter, didn’t try to be. But Louis didn’t seem to care. Called me a “weird little artsy freak” and then shoved half his sandwich in my face. We’ve been mates since.
But even now, months later, he doesn’t know. Not really.
He doesn’t know that sometimes, I stare a bit too long at him when he’s laughing, when he’s dripping in sweat after footie practice, shirt slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t know how my stomach twists when he slings an arm around me in that casual, best-mates kind of way and calls me “pretty boy” without a second thought.
And he definitely doesn’t know that the reason I flinch when the other lads say stuff like “no homo” is because I’m not always sure I can say the same.
“Alright, Tommo,” I say, trying to smile like my throat isn’t tightening. “Just trying to not get shoved into a locker on my first day, you know?”
He laughs and throws an arm around me, pulling me into the chaos of the corridor like it’s nothing. Like I’m not walking a tightrope every second I breathe around him.
“You’ll be fine,” he says, his voice confident in that way mine never is. “Stick with me, and no one’ll mess with ya.”
But they already are. I see the looks when I hang out with him. They think I’m just some hanger-on, some little puppy following the captain of the footie team around. And when I answer a question too softly in class, or when I forget to drop my voice an octave around the lads—God help me. One wrong move and I’m done.
The worst part? Half of me wants to deny it. Wants to be normal, wants to prove them wrong. The other half? I don’t even know. The other half saw a boy in the art room this morning with paint smudged on his jaw and nearly forgot how to breathe.
But I can’t say that. Not here. Not in this school where the word gay is used like a curse, where Louis makes jokes like “hope you’re not in love with me, Haz,” and laughs like he thinks I’m joking when I say “as if.”
He’d never believe it. He’d laugh it off. Or worse—he’d look at me like they do.
So I bite my tongue, smile too hard, and pretend I don’t see the way the lads look at me like I’m a ticking time bomb. I’m not sure how long I can keep the act up.
But for now, I just let Louis drag me toward our first lesson, where I’ll sit two seats behind him and watch the back of his stupid head and try not to think about what it would feel like if I ever told him the truth.
And maybe, if I’m lucky, today I’ll only get called a slur once.
Maybe..
Every time Dean and his dogs spat a slur my way, Louis would just laugh it off or change the subject. He didn’t defend me unless it made him look good. He didn’t ask. He didn’t see that I was drowning in it…and this was one of those moments.