Harry's POV

On Monday morning I woke up with a frown on my face, pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. It was too hot today to wear jeans. And I dragged myself downstairs to eat breakfast with my family.

"What's with the glum look?" My mom asked

"Just... I don't want to go to school today" I said miserably

"Harry, baby, I thought you liked this school... What's wrong?"

"Just not feeling like participating in this world today... I don't know..."

"Did someone bully you?"

"No of course not... I would have told you"

"Did one of your new friends say something insensitive?"

"No..."

"Is your schoolwork to difficult? Do you want a tutor?"

"No I don't want a tutor, the schoolwork's fine"

"So you're just not feeling it today? Did you sleep okay?"

"I slept fine... I just don't want to go..." My voice unexpectedly cracked, I leaned into my mom's shoulder as she rubbed a hand through my hair.

"Harry... You have to go to school, remember, you don't get to skip days until the third week when you're settled in..." My mom and I had this rule, where I could take days off of school whenever I was too stressed, or needed time to regain my mental health, but this rule had one exception. I had to at least go through with the first three weeks consecutively, this allowed for me to settle in and get a better hold on my new surroundings. Right now I hated that exception.

"Will you drive me today?"

"Sure... I'll drive you today"

Passing through the other half of our neighborhood we saw a kid walking to the bus stop at the end of the street, and by their swagger, the way they held themselves, I knew before I saw their face, that it was Louis. I tried to wave at him from the window, but this only got my moms attention.

"You know him?" She asked, slowing the car

"Yeah, he's my friend"

"Why don't we offer him a ride to school?"

"Muu'uum..."

"What? I'm being nice" She rolled down my window and called to Louis, who having previously not noticed us swung around in startlement.

"Would you like a ride to school?" She called, leaning over me, pressing me into my seat.

"Um... Okay... Hi Harry." He got in the backseat, directly behind me so that I couldn't see him, and I couldn't turn around to look at him because that would be weird. I was frozen, trying as hard as I could to stare straight ahead, but at the same time act completely natural so that my mom wouldn't notice...

"So you two are friends already? It's only been three days since school started"

Oh god, Louis probably didn't even consider us friends... Just because we talked... Just because I enjoyed talking to him, I had started to consider him sort of a friend. But hearing it come out of my mother's mouth... Louis was going to be weirded out.

"Yeah totally, Harry's super cool" Louis said. I sat there in shock for a moment, before letting myself relax... Louis considered us friends after all, or maybe he was just saying that because my mom was there. Whatever the reason was, I was relieved.

"So Harry." Louis asked "What did the teacher say in english class on friday? I've been trying to figure out exactly what the assignment was... She was really vague with the description."

"So she wants us to pick an event in history, and then write an essay about it from a mass communication multimedia viewpoint"

"Okay... But what does that mean?"

"So I picked the american civil war, and basically you have to write about it as if we had all the media platforms we have today. Like... What if Instagram, or Facebook existed at that point in history, and people were reacting to it like they react to big events now... Does that explanation help at all?"

"Oooh... Okay, I think I understand now? So does other tech exist? Or just like everybody had cell phones and shit in the midst of the dark ages?"

"I went for the second one..."

I still couldn't look at Louis, I mean, I could barely even breathe. And then I found that my mom was pulling up in front of the school, so I stepped out, turning so I could look at Louis.

We walked to class together. I think that Niall noticed when we arrived to class at the exact same time. I think he made a big deal out of it in his head. I think he kept it to himself. Even though I knew Louis was there, sitting next to me, my heart jumped a little bit when the teacher called his name for attendance and he actually answered this time. I was just a little bit content. Just a little bit recovered from my breakdown that morning.

And then I found out we had a quiz on thursday...

Louis' POV

It was my first real day of school, and it started out great. Harry and his mom had picked me up while I was walking to the bus, saving me time and effort, as well as giving me a chance to chat a little bit with Harry. All I could think of to say to him was asking about the homework, I understood the homework mind you, I'd completed the homework already, I don't know why I asked about it other than to hear Harry's sultry voice.

So of course the day went downhill when I remembered what school was like... There was a quiz this week and we hadn't learned the material, the talking behind people's backs (Thankfully not mine) and the overly sketchy highschool bathrooms... It was like they had planned to make the sketchiest bathrooms ever. I'm not talking about dirt, and grafiti, I'm talking about the dim lights, the stalls with no locks, the mirror not against the wall of sinks, but against the adjacent wall, the faucets that you would push down and the water would go, but when you let go it would stop so you had to only wash one hand at a time... The creepy posters telling you how to brush your teeth. And then there was the fact that there were never paper towels to be found anywhere. And every single bathroom was like this.

When I'd gone on uni visits in the past I'd been amazed at how lovely their bathrooms were, like first of all they had been all gender bathrooms which was great, and then they had their pretty tiled floors, automatic lights, feminine hygiene products, etc. Why the hell couldn't the high school invest in some nicer bathrooms. Okay, I was done ranting in my head. I was walking with Harry and Niall to the cafeteria for lunch. We didn't have a block off today, so we were going to have to be very fast. We sat down at an empty table, and I was almost surprised when other people began to sit next to us, I could see by Harry's face that he wasn't sure what to think about that. The line had twelve people in it, six of them were going to be late to class. I pulled out my thermos of leftover chinese food and started eating. Niall thankfully had packed a lunch, and so had Harry. The other kids sitting with us went to get in line... Poor kids.

We finished eating on time to make a dash for C building, making it to class just before the bell rang. I was going to write a letter to the school... They couldn't do this to their students... It just wasn't fair.

I had football practice after school, but my arm prevented me from playing, so I just sat on the bleachers, watching everyone have loads of fun without me. I wished Harry was there, although why would he be? We'd just met... This was going to be a long, long semester.