Lounsbury Prep

Zayn stared down at his pop quiz in his English class and panicked. He’d done the work the night before, with the reading the chapter, but he hadn’t done it carefully because he’d known that he had to finish before Glee Club. So he’d skimmed the pages, nodding like he actually took in any piece of the information, and set the book down.

But that had been the wrong thing to do. He only knew one answer on the paper, and that was the narrator’s name. Everything else was completely lost on him, not even a flicker in the back of his mind to let him know the answer was buried in there somewhere.

When he turned in his quiz, filled out with random answers that made absolutely no sense, he kept his gaze away from his English teacher’s watchful glare. It was almost as if the older man could sense the impending failing grade that would tear up Zayn’s hopes and dreams of ever becoming an English teacher, and he wanted to prey on that destruction.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Harry whispered as Zayn retook his seat. “You’re almost as pale as Niall.”

Zayn shot him a look for a second before sighing. “I just bombed that.”

“So did I!” Harry’s voice almost sounded gleeful, like he couldn’t have been more excited of the F that would be scrawled at the top of his quiz. “But I’m not letting it get me down. You can’t let everything little thing make you feel worthless, you know?”

“I’m not letting it make me feel worthless,” Zayn argued, struggling to keep his hushed tone. “I just feel guilty. English is supposed to be my best subject, and now I can’t even do that.”

“It’s because you now know that it’s less important than letting Louis suc-”

“Mr. Styles!” Mr. Hartford scolded. “Unless you want me to tear up your quiz and give you an F for the entire semester, I advise that you shut your mouth.”

Zayn was blushing wildly, knowing exactly where Harry had been going with that statement, and he rested his forehead on his folded arms as he struggled to hide his embarrassment. God, what if someone had heard him?! It was possible they wouldn’t understand, since Louis and Zayn weren’t exactly public with their relationship, but they could always draw premature conclusions that wouldn’t prove to be very premature at all.

Harry actually stayed silent through the rest of class, probably hoping that he could actually scrape by with a D for the semester, as the boys around them scratched their pencils against their papers in hopes that they could become the overachievers their parents wanted them to be.

“Look,” Harry voiced frankly as the two boys exited the class about twenty minutes later, “if it’s really bothering you this much to get a bad grade, then just do your work. Stop thinking about Louis every second of the day, don’t go to his room to make out instead of doing homework, and your grades will go back to normal. When you make time for homework instead of struggling to make time for Louis, then your school life will go smoother.”

“But I don’t want to see Louis less.”

Zayn knew the declaration made him sound like a small, stubborn child, but Harry didn’t seem surprised in the least. “I know you don’t,” Harry sympathized, “but it’s almost impossible to get incredible grades and have a flourishing social life. One of them has got to give. Just make a decision on which one is more important.”

He thought of his parents receiving his report card in the mail, his mother’s eyes brimming with tears at the fall of their once academically-mighty son, his father wanting to strike out in anger. They would turn to Zayn with fire in their eyes and demand to know the truth as to why his grades had slipped so much, and Zayn knew they wouldn’t easily take the excuse that the classes were just harder. And if they found out about Louis, Zayn would be ripped out of the school and put right back where he started, where drug users and idiots surrounded him at every turn.

“Okay,” Zayn mumbled to himself, knowing that he had his answer, but Harry had already disappeared into the crowd.



“Wait, are you breaking up with me?”

Zayn was very careful not to look at Louis while he explained the situation, as he knew it would do nothing but make him cry. He needed to stay calm about reality, not let it consume him and leave him broken.

“Not breaking up with you,” Zayn corrected the tile floor. “I just think that it would be better if we didn’t hang out every afternoon. If my grades are high when reports come out, then my parents aren’t going to ask any snooping questions. If my grades are low, they’re going to demand to know who you are, and I promised them I wouldn’t get involved with anyone here.”

Louis’ eyes darkened. “So you’re ashamed of me, is that it? You don’t want your parents knowing that you like a bit of dick in your life?”

His tone was so harsh and cold that Zayn winced. “No, that’s not it at all. I just don’t want them to know that I’m seeing someone here because they’ll pull me out! They already know I’m gay; it’s why they made me promise not to see anyone romantically while I was here. I just want to keep up the façade.”

Louis let out a long breath, running his hand through his feathery hair. “Okay. I won’t like not seeing you as much, but I guess I understand. Just try to make time for me sometimes, okay?”

Zayn leaned forward and pressed his mouth against Louis for a second before sliding his tongue in the space between Louis’ lips. For a second, Louis relented, opening his mouth and letting the kiss deepen, but then he pulled away.

“Better go do your homework, Zayn.”

The darker boy stood up at the harshness of the statement, looking down at Louis with sad, pained eyes. He probably looked like a kicked puppy dog, but he couldn’t get himself to care. “Louis, you know I…care about you, right? More than I’d ever care about homework in my entire life. This just has to happen in order for us to keep our relationship going in the long run.”

“And what happens when summer comes? What are you going to do then? Or are you going to pretend I never existed when you go back to Bradford?”

“I’ll take the train to come see you, and I’ll tell my parents I met you at the mall. It’s not that they don’t want me dating guys; they just don’t want me dating guys here, right at this moment.”

Louis swallowed visibly before he nodded toward the door. “We’ll talk about it later, I guess. I’m not really up for it right now. Please go.”

Zayn struggled not to feel heartbroken as he did as he was told, escaping into the hallway and shutting the door behind him. Somehow, it felt like they’d broken up instead of decided they weren’t going to spend every day together, and Zayn really didn’t like the feeling.

But as he made his way back to his dorm room, he kept his head up high, just so nobody knew the truth of what had happened behind Louis’ closed door.