Lounsbury Prep

Zayn ran a hand through his already insanely disastrous hair, strands sticking up in every possible direction from constantly grabbing it with clenched fingers. His chemistry homework was completely confounding him, almost as if he were trying to read Russian, judging from all the symbols he was just expected to know, although he’d never seen them in his life. The word questions made no sense, the math problems didn’t seem answerable, and he was almost certain his brain was melting inside his skull. He anticipated that, at any second, it would start leaking out of his ears and into the book, just to make him pay the extra two hundred pounds to replace the damn thing.

He groaned and threw down his pen in frustration before smashing his forehead against the desk, feeling the throbbing pain spreading from the one spot to his entire cranium.

He was just about to start cursing himself out for ever thinking he could handle such a prestigious prep school when the door to the dorm room flew open.

“Whoa, you’re still in here?” Liam’s voice asked him, a bit of humor seeping into the question.

“Yeah. I’m working on my chemistry.”

“Clearly,” the boy snickered, taking in the sight of Zayn looking half-dead with exhaustion. “You need a break, mate.”

“I can’t take a break,” Zayn argued, his tone full of venom, though he had no reason to be angry with his roommate. “I’ve been working on fucking chemistry for two hours, and I still have five long questions left that I can’t bloody figure out.” The large portion of the assignment that still waited to be completed hovered over the poor boy, and he reached up to massage his temples, trying desperately to keep a grip on his sanity.

“No, seriously, you need a break.” Liam, not making so much as a squeak, hurried across the room and ripped his friend out of his seat.

“Liam-!” Zayn started to scold, but the other boy cut him off.

“No, don’t. You look like smoke is going to start coming out your ears.” He stopped talking for a second, snapping his head to the side. “Oh, you know what you should do? Come with me tonight at seven.”

“I can’t,” Zayn replied flatly. “I need to do my economics homework and read for English after I do chem.”

“You still have a couple hours,” Liam reminded the dreary boy. “Do all you can in that time, even if you’ve got to bullshit some of the answers, and then you’re going to come tonight.”

Before Zayn could utter even a word in protest, Liam was out of the room. The door that slammed behind him screamed finality, so Zayn knew he had no more say in the matter. Not that he had much say to begin with.

He had to go to the mysterious meeting, no matter how much he didn’t want to.



Liam and Zayn walked side-by-side across the courtyard where many of the students spent time and studied during the springtime. Their feet crunched with every step, destroying the first autumn leaves that had just begun to litter the ground, their reds, oranges, and golds mixing with the soft green of the grass and forming a kind of scene that even Zayn could appreciate as a beautiful subject for a painting, though the only thing he drew well were cartoons.

Zayn had always been a boy of few words, the kind of guy that used to sit alone in his bedroom and watch television, away from his parents and his sisters. But Liam didn’t seem to like that, and he was almost always talking about something or other to fill the silence that Zayn had always found so incredibly comfortable. Part of Zayn wanted to tell his roommate to shut up, but he knew he’d feel awful if he did. After all, Liam was just being nice, trying a little too hard to make the new kid feel at home.

Zayn hoped that he’d get more comfortable as the year went on so he’d be able to get along with Liam without gritting his teeth. Maybe it was just his heightened stress level that was causing his irritability. It was highly likely, seeing as Liam had still insisted on bringing Zayn on his little mission, even though the boy from Bradford still had to read three chapters for his English book before the course came around again in the morning.

Finally, the two boys approached a building with a dilapidated sign hanging over the doorway that declared the building as the AUDITORIUM. For a school that received so much money for tuition and things, Zayn was quite surprised to see the sign in such bad condition.

Liam, seeming to read his mind, said, “No one uses it, which is why we’re allowed to do this. Most assemblies are held in a theater on the other side of the campus.”

Without another word, the boy leaned forward and shoved open the doors, proudly announcing, “This is where the magic happens!”

Zayn came face-to-face with a dusty old building with seats that were ripped apart, the upholstery pulling away from the metal of the rest of the chairs, or broken completely, hanging off rusty old hinges that no longer had the strength to hold the things together any longer. The stage was small, and half the lights were out. All in all, he was wholly unimpressed.

“You’ll get used to it,” Liam whispered, as if they were interrupting the audience’s viewing of a show that had already started by entering. “It’ll become a home away from home away from home soon enough.”

It took Zayn a minute to realize what he meant by that before piping up, “Wait, how often does this club meet? I don’t have time for something that happens all the time.”

“It’s every night,” Liam stated seriously. “And you find time. We all do. It’s the only thing that keeps us sane in this mad place, where everyone is serious and stuffy all the time. It’s just boring, you know?”

Zayn had actually gotten that impression, but he didn’t want to validate Liam’s statement, just in case it went to his head.

“Hello!” Harry’s deep voice rang out, reverberating off the walls around them in a never-ending series of echoes. “Are you coming down here or what?”

“Just giving Zayn the intro,” Liam replied with a large smile. “You all know Zayn, yeah?”

The curly-haired boy and the blonde nodded, and Zayn grinned at them in response. But the boy on the far end, Zayn didn’t recognize, and he knew he would have if they’d ever spoken. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief and life, something that Zayn’s eyes had always lacked, and his light brown hair was styled in a kind of fringe hairstyle. He had a lean kind of build, yet still had a fullness about him that left Zayn feeling entirely curious.

The boy was beautiful. Zayn felt a kind of tingling in his stomach, an anticipation of getting to know him better. He’d promised his parents that wouldn’t happen if he went to an all-boys’ school, as they were worried about what he’d do if he were unsupervised, but he couldn’t help it. He had developed tunnel-vision, and the boy that had yet to be named captivated him.

“He hasn’t met me yet,” the boy spoke in a melodic, slightly high-pitched accent before giving him a gorgeous smile. “I’m Louis. Nice to meet you, Zayn.”

Zayn struggled to find words before he stuttered, “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Alright!” Harry interrupted, not seeming to notice the connection between the two boys at all. At least, what Zayn hoped was a connection and not just him starting to pant after a boy that would turn out to be uninterested. Or, even worse, straight. “Now let’s get this glee club started!”