Chapter Four

At the boys’ school, all sixth formers were required to take Personal Social Health Education, or, PSHE. It was one hour every two weeks, and was purely a way of the Sixth Form to install drink and drug awareness into the boys, as well as talk about health issues, and of course, the ever awkward cherry on the top of the cake, sexual education. Most of the boys already knew most of it from the classes they had had in lower school, but it was compulsory.

Zayn Malik never looked at it as a bad thing. When all of the other sixth formers would moan and grumble as they walked into their classrooms, Zayn wouldn’t see much of a problem with it. He thought it was interesting. The boys were allocated into small groups of around seven or eight, and the other boys in Zayn’s group never really paid much attention to him, but Zayn didn’t mind, because Harry was in his group. That made the lesson a little better, because Zayn enjoyed listening to the curly haired boy crack out jokes and long winded stories about drunken nights out, the teacher rolling his or her eyes and telling him to quieten down, even though they were laughing as much as the other boys.

When the bell rang to signal the start of PSHE, Zayn left his art classroom with his large art sketchbook and rushed towards the classroom where his PSHE lessons were held. His drawing book was in his backpack, which made him a little paranoid due to the fact that it wasn’t in his arms safe, but it soon would be. He darted through the sixth form building and into the classroom, and smiled when he realised he was the first there. He went over to his desk by the only large window in the room, and sank down into it. He smiled to himself as he pulled out the chair next to him and placed his schoolbag on it, so that he could save it. Maybe Harry would sit next to him if he saved him a seat?

He carefully pulled the seat out a little more than halfway, and smiled a little as his fingers brushed over the texture of the plastic chairs. The other boys always moaned at how uncomfortable the chairs were, but he liked the feeling of them, they always reminded him of sand. He placed his bag down on the seat before he pulled out his pencil tin and his drawing book, now feeling relieved that he had it and it was alright and no one had done anything to it. The door opened and the other boys started to file in, completely ignoring Zayn sat by the window, smiling away to himself as he waited for his curly haired friend. They all walked in conversing with each other.

When the door finally opened and Harry Styles walked in, Zayn smiled widely and turned to look at the door. Harry was wearing the blue watch around his wrist, his blazer sleeves around his elbows once again, which caused Zayn to mentally tell himself off for forgetting to put his own blazer sleeves around his elbows. His bag was hung off one shoulder, and Zayn quickly looked down at his backpack, wishing his bag was as cool as Harry’s. He started to plod lazily into the room, looking everywhere in the room but on Zayn. When Harry neared Zayn’s desk, Zayn reached over and picked his bag off his seat with a small smile, trying to gesture for Harry that he had saved him a seat, but Harry’s green eyes hadn’t reached Zayn yet, but the boy patiently waited for the moment when they would. They did, for a split second, before he focused his attention on the other boys in the class yelling his name out.

Harry walked straight past Zayn without even a glance and slipped down into a seat next to one of the other boys. Zayn watched his swift movement for a moment, before he shrugged a little and placed his bag back on the chair. Harry had obviously not seen him, and plus, his friends were calling over for him, so Zayn understood. If he had friends that were calling for him from the different side of the class, he would have done the same thing as Harry. Zayn knew it was unintentional, and so smiled to himself a little, before diving into the world of his pencils and drawings.

Zayn didn’t hear the hushed voices of the other boys as he was too immersed into the half drawn picture of Tom the cat. His mind was going over all of the little details that he had remembered after looking at the cat in his Nanna’s front room. Zayn had a photographic memory, when he was drawing from memory, it was almost like his head was an overhead projector. His mind would show the image and project through his chocolate brown eyes, where his pencil would quickly start shooting across the page drawing in every last inch of detail.

“Malik!” the loud voice of one of the boy’s came, and Zayn quickly looked up in shock. His hand quickly clenched around his pencil as he looked up at the other boys in the class. He hated people shouting at him, it scared the hell out of him. Loud and sudden noises like shouts, or objects falling onto a floor always made him shudder like a frightened child. Loud noises just hurt his ears, and he didn’t like feeling hurt or frightened. 

The boys all looked over him with strange looks on their faces. Zayn took in each of the boys’ appearances. He just didn’t understand what he had done. He had just sat doing his drawing, he never spoke or made any noise, why do the boys in his year always see him different? Zayn watched as the one closest to him tilted his head a little to the side, and Zayn’s eyes quickly picked up on the pink coloured, circular rash on his neck that had emerged from his school collar from moving to one side. Zayn looked back at his face, wondering how a rash could come up on someone’s neck.

Zayn’s chocolate eyes were so confused, and he was about to look over to Harry for some sort of clue as to why everyone was now suddenly staring at him with scrunched up eyes, when the boy with the rash commanded for him to take off his glasses. His voice was loud and rough, and Zayn didn’t think twice to pull off his glasses. His vision was now a little blurred, and he squinted a little as he tried to make sense of who was who now. The class was quiet, and Zayn wanted to dissolve into thin air so that everyone would stop looking at him. He looked over to the blurred figure of a curly haired boy, unaware of how his teeth were digging into his bottom lip due to how anxious he was.

“Christ…you were right.” The boy who had shouted him mumbled, as his strong blue eyes looked over Zayn like he was some sort of museum object. The boy looked over to a boy on the other side of the classroom. Zayn didn’t know what to do, all he wanted to do was go back to his drawing.

“Put your glasses back on.” Harry’s voice came stern from across the classroom, and Zayn quickly put them on and the classroom became crystal clear once more through his chocolate brown eyes. The rest of the boys all looked at Harry in slight confusion for a moment. Harry’s shoulders stiffened.

“Don’t mess with the specials, they never understand anyway.” Harry’s voice came, this time a little quieter, and the boy sat next to him burst into laughter.

Before Zayn’s mind could try to understand one of Harry’s jokes, which he was sure was probably funny whether he got it or not, the teacher came into the classroom, projecting an apology for being late as he went to the front of the classroom and sunk into the comfy teacher’s chair, his fingers madly typing into the keyboard. The teacher started to talk about the lesson objectives and what they would be looking at, but at that point Zayn once again zoned out. He relaxed a little now that the other boys were all now watching the teacher and taking in his words with bored eyes and ears.

Zayn had now given up on drawing Tom the cat, and was more preoccupied on tracing out the figure of Harry once again. He had shielded his drawing away from the other boys, before he lost himself in his drawing. He was trying to recreate the way that Harry had looked at him just moments ago from his seat a few desks away. Harry’s curls had all been swooping to one side as always, as he sat on his chair. His body had been turned half away around in the chair; his head fully turned to face Zayn. His left arm, branded with the blue watch was over the back of the chair, swaying a little as his fist had been closed, his knuckles turning a little white. A small tattoo had poked out from behind the watch, which Zayn had thought was really cool, and his brown eyes had taken every detail in to work out it was a small black padlock.

“Mr Malik!” Another shout came from the classroom, and Zayn looked up again, trying not to let out a whine at being shouted at once again.

“Have you even been listening? We’ve been talking about the influence of alcohol this whole lesson.” His Teacher was the one speaking, as he stared at Zayn through worn out eyes. Zayn’s own eyes quickly picked up on the large bags underneath the middle aged man sat at the front, pointing at a powerpoint about alcohol. They picked up on the small grey hairs that started to litter his brown hair, and the sprinkling of grey in his eyebrows too. Zayn nodded weakly, even though he had been so zoned out into his sketch he had had no idea what was going on around him.

“What has your experiences with alcohol been like? If you’ve had any.” The teacher sighed, and Zayn realised he must have been through the whole class before finally coming to Zayn. Zayn sat in his seat feeling lost and confused.

This PSHE lesson was really starting to weigh him down. He was so confused from the way the other boys had stared at him and made him take off his glasses, and he felt bad that he didn’t understand Harry’s joke so that he couldn’t laugh along. Just when he had felt happy again, as he sat and drew in the details of Harry’s school uniform, the teacher was now asking him about alcohol, something he was frightened of and avoided as much as possible. He shook his head strongly.

“He can’t talk, sir.”

“And I doubt he drinks, either.”

The other boys started to answer for Zayn, before another one of the boys started to go off on a rant about when he had gone to a house party and gotten extremely drunk. Zayn listened to his harsh voice for a minute before shuddering. He shook his head quickly before going back to his sketch. His mind started to cloud with visions of alcohol and glass bottles with bright labels. He had to try to control his pencil from pushing down too hard from the paper. The more he thought about alcohol, the more he thought about the consequences of it.

The school bell pierced through his mind and brought him from his thoughts. Zayn looked up and the rest of the boys were all standing up, about to leave the classroom. Zayn quickly shut his drawing book so that no one could see inside. The other boys in the class had filled him with uncertainty and unease, and he didn’t like feeling like that. He had come to the class to learn, yet was about to leave feeling more on edge then he had felt before. The teacher and the boys all filed out, and Zayn stood up slowly, now alone in the room. Well, he thought he was.

“Hey, er, Zayn?” Harry’s voice spoke, and Zayn looked up and flinched a little before he saw Harry stood in front of him. He beamed a smile as he pulled his backpack over his shoulders. Harry was stood directly in front of him, his bag messily over his shoulder, his right hand ruffling up his hair, even though the brown curls slipped through his fingers, and Zayn watched in wonder as the unruly curls did as they liked. He started to wonder how soft Harry’s hair was.

“Want to get some lunch? Just you and me?” Harry spoke confidently, and Zayn beamed another smile in his direction and nodded eagerly. Harry smiled at him, before he picked up Zayn’s sketchbook and passed it to him. Zayn just continued to beam a smile at the curly haired boy, before he put out his hand. Zayn looked down at Harry’s large hand, his chocolate eyes quickly picking up all of the lines in the skin, and the odd dots of blue ink from where he had accidentally drawn on himself. Zayn slipped his hand into Harry’s slowly, before looking up at Harry with worried eyes.

“Am…Am I doing it right?” He asked quietly. Harry tilted his head and smiled a little, even though there was a weird look in his eye that Zayn couldn’t pick up.

“You’ve never held a hand before?” Harry asked, which caused Zayn to think back through his life. He couldn’t remember any time he ever held someone other than his Nanna’s hand. He shook his head with a slight shrug.

“Your hands are really big next to mine!” Zayn let out with a wide smile, which cause Harry to look down at their hands and smile down at them, before he tugged Zayn out of the classroom.

It was hard holding his sketchbook and drawing book in just one arm, but Harry’s hand seemed to fit around his own really well, and Harry’s thumb grazed over Zayn’s every so often, and the feeling of his soft thumb going over his rough knuckles made him smile. Zayn was too busy concentrating on the tall boy who was walking quickly down the sixth form corridors to concentrate on carrying the large A3 sketchbook, and it slipped from his arm, which made Zayn let out a short and quiet mew as his sketchbook and drawing book fell to the ground. Harry quickly stopped and turned around, looking a little flustered.

“You carry your sketchbook, I’ll hold your other book,” Harry started, but Zayn snatched out for his drawing book and looked up at Harry and shook his head. Harry forced a small smile and picked up the sketchbook instead, before he dragged him quickly through the corridors once again.

If Zayn wasn’t too busy innocently believing the fact that Harry was so eager to have lunch with him due to the fact he was rushing through the corridors, Zayn would have realised the reality of the situation. Harry was checking around constantly so no one could see him holding hands with Zayn Malik, the mute kid, and was dragging them into the old art closet, where no one would see them together.