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Zayn should have been the oldest, but Harry couldn’t wait, and, on a bitterly cold morning in January, made a break for it. His mother, who’d just got up to go to the toilet for the fourth time, had finally found a comfortable position after almost an hour of adjusting and readjusting pillows when Harry made his escape. He did so with as much drama as possible, something his parents are now used to, but back then they had no idea what was in store for them so his mother wasn’t prepared for the swift kick Harry gave her to announce his imminent departure. She yelped and, in turn, kicked his father who had been snoring soundly, blissfully unaware that his son was coming two weeks earlier than expected. It made him leap out of bed and send the half-drunk glass of water on his bedside table flying across the room and that’s how Harry Styles came into the world, in a rush, startling his poor parents who pleaded with him to stay put until they got to the hospital.
He did – just – finding his way out a second after a nurse got his mother onto a bed. Mercifully, the doctor had quick reflexes and caught him as Harry landed in his hands with a shriek and, his parents were sure, a giggle. Zayn, however, was in no such hurry and was two weeks late. They had to bribe him with a cup of tea and a fried egg sandwich, his mother always says with a smile when she tells the story and Zayn always smiles, too, because it’s still the only way to get him out of bed. That or pancakes.
The Styles’ lived next door to the Maliks, at number 35, and were the first to introduce themselves the day they moved in. They brought a chicken casserole and Yaser and Tricia, who’d just moved out of a tiny flat on top of chip shop, were somewhat bewildered. Their old neighbours played their music too loud and would sit in their shared garden smoking weed all day. So when Tricia opened the front door to be confronted by a couple holding a casserole dish, she stared at them for a beat too long.
That was the hardest thing to get used to, not the curmudgeonly old house with its creaky stairs and white wooden windows that stuck in the winter, but Anne and Des. They were everywhere. Anne would say hello over the garden fence when Tricia went to put out the washing or Des would stop washing his car and wave at Yaser when he answered the door to the postman in his boxer shorts. But, as alarming as it was at first, after a few weeks, it was kind of nice, knowing that Anne and Des were there. Anne would sign for packages for them when they were at work and Ed offered to take their empty boxes to the dump one Sunday afternoon when he saw Tricia trying to wedge them into the shed. So Tricia began to say more than just hello over the garden fence and Yaser would offer Anne a lift if he saw her at the bus stop. Then, after a few months, when the Maliks had finally unpacked everything and bought a dining table, they invited Anne and Des over for dinner.
It was obvious from the moment Anne and Des arrived and went rigid, their eyes widening when Tricia led them into the kitchen where Yaser was still cooking, that it wasn’t the sort of dinner party they were used to. When they returned the favour a few weeks later and Yaser and Tricia sat in their dining room with its china cabinet and mahogany chairs, eating prawn cocktail from martini glasses, they realised that Anne and Des must have been horrified to sit at their scuffed, second hand table, eating with their fingers. But they were perfectly gracious and ate everything Yaser put in front of them. Even the aubergine pakoras, which they’d clearly never had before judging by the way Anne plucked one off the pile then sniffed it before smiling sweetly and taking a bite.
The Maliks appreciated that, that they were willing to try rather than turning their noses up, so it became a regular thing. They would have dinner once a month and in the summer, when Anne and Des were having a barbeque, they would call over the garden fence, saying that they had veggie burgers for Yaser.
It wasn’t long until they saw each other almost every day, so, when Tricia and Anne got pregnant (at almost the same time, prompting months of ‘there must be something in the water’ jokes from the other neighbours), they became even closer. Yaser and Des bonded over what video camera to film the happy event on (not that Anne and Des had time to even think about bringing the video camera in the end, they barely had time to put on shoes), while the women bonded over birthing plans and what vitamins to take.
Tricia laughs about it now, about how calm Anne was back then. Even towards the end, when Tricia was miserable and shuffling around in odd shoes and one of Yaser’s kurtas, Anne looked immaculate. She was sure that Anne never forgot to feed the cat and couldn’t imagine her lying on the sofa while Des fed her Maltesers. Even the morning she had Harry she looked perfect, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright as she handed him to Tricia. And of course Harry was perfect, too, plump and pink with a froth of dark hair. When they brought him home, Tricia would hear him wailing through the walls and she would press her hands to her belly and walk around their big old house. She’d pace back and forth over the worn carpet in the hallway and around the bedroom at the back, the one overlooking the garden that smelt of drying yellow paint and baby powder.
The house had never been so quiet and it was unbearable. But a month later Zayn was born and it was never quiet again. The house would shudder with noise, the constant churn of the washing machine or the chirp of the Winnie the Pooh mobile that turned over Zayn’s cot while he stared up at it with his father’s frown as if to say, Don’t you know another song?
Tricia was constantly out of breath. She never seemed to have enough time – or hands – but to her consternation, Anne was just as useless. Gone was the immaculate Anne who wore neat white shirts and pearl earrings. The new Anne would bring Harry around at midnight, convinced he had a fever, or she’d call to say that she and Des were ordering pizza and ask if Tricia and Yaser wanted some.
Tricia liked the new Anne. She liked the sneaky glasses of wine they’d have when the boys were asleep and the way she stroked Zayn’s cheek with her finger when she went to check on them. It was the same way she stroked Harry’s cheek and if Tricia didn’t already love Anne Styles, she did then, because she wouldn’t have got through those first few weeks of motherhood without her. Neither of them had a clue what they were doing, but they worked it out and eventually they weren’t so scared of how tiny the boys were, with their heavy heads and delicate fingers. They didn’t cry when the boys cried or hesitate when they changed their nappies, just wrapped them up then kissed their warm bellies when they were done.
Whenever she was over, Harry would sleep in Zayn’s cot, not that Harry slept or Zayn noticed. The first time Harry was tall enough to pull down the Winnie the Pooh mobile, on tip toes, his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth as he reached for it, Zayn was asleep. And the first time he discovered the box of tissues in Yaser and Tricia’s bedroom and pulled out each one, Zayn was asleep. And the first time he climbed out of the cot, Zayn was asleep.
For a while, Tricia was worried that there might be something wrong with him, until one day, when he was playing on the living room floor with Harry. He handed her a red wooden block and said, Mama with such assurance it was as if he’d known the word all along but never had cause to use it before that afternoon. Then, the first time Harry pulled himself to his feet and walked across the kitchen floor (to follow the cat out of the cat flap), Zayn copied him, tottering unsteadily behind him as if to say, Where we going, Harry?
That was it then. Harry passed over the whole walking thing and went straight to running and before they knew it, Harry and Zayn were tearing around and fighting over whose turn it was on the swing that hung from the tree in Yaser and Tricia’s garden. And when they weren’t doing that, they were sitting at the kitchen table gulping down glasses of milk and divvying up a plate of custard creams like pirates with their spoils.
Birthdays passed, bones broke, healed, then broke again and that’s how they grew up, running in and out of each other’s houses with earth under their fingernails and cuts on their knees. They made mud pies and buried treasure in the garden and built cities out of cardboard boxes in the living room when it was raining.
‘They’re trying to kill me,’ Yaser muttered at Tricia at least once a day, usually when he was called upon to retrieve a kite from a tree at the park or a ball from the roof of the shed. But it was something he got used to. At least once a day he’d hear, Daddy! and run into the garden to see two pairs of trainers dangling from the tree. Then Zayn’s little face would appear. Daddy, help! We climbed too high!
The cure for a fear of heights, Yaser Malik discovered, was a son who liked to climb trees.
+++
When Harry was seven, he broke his arm twice. The first time he did it, it was at he and Zayn’s joint seventh birthday party. It was January, so why he wanted to climb the tree in Zayn’s garden, no one knows. But for reasons known only to Harry, it had become his white whale so, after opening all of their presents and pushing Zayn over to win a game of Musical Chairs their parents had rigged so Zayn would at least win something, Harry retreated to the garden.
It had been snowing on and off since the New Year so he left little footprints on the lawn as he ran towards it, the red cape tied around his neck fluttering as he did so he looked like he was about to take flight. It was so cold that the fountain, the one in the corner of the garden with the pie crust edges and moss coloured water, had frozen over and icicles fringed the roof of the shed. But if Harry was cold, he didn’t care. Nor did he care that he didn’t have an audience, which he usually demanded when he did something like that. Look, Zayn! he'd call out as he scuffed his school shoes trying to find his footing. But that day everyone was huddled inside, the parents eating the cheese sandwiches that Tricia had cut into uneven triangles and being kind about the wonky cake while the kids charged around the house, trying to avoid Yaser as they played Escape the Monster.
‘Wait for me, Harry!’ Zayn called out, slamming the back door and tearing after him, leaving another set of footprints in the snow.
When he got to the tree, Harry was halfway up the trunk, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he looked up at the first branch.
‘Be careful of your new jumper!’ Zayn warned, but it was futile. Harry was climbing the tree and he wasn’t going to let the fact that he was wearing his birthday jumper deter him. He didn’t even want to wear the stupid jumper, it was an ugly too big thing that his grandmother had knitted, but she had pleaded with him. ‘I don’t know how many more birthdays I’ll be here to see you in one of my jumpers, Harry,’ she’d said with a sad sigh. And while Harry was too young to grasp the concept of emotional blackmail, he was well versed in bribery, so when his mother promised him the biggest slice of birthday cake, he reluctantly agreed. But later, when Harry had devoured it (and the icing on Zayn’s), he realised that his agreement with his mother had expired so if he climbed the tree he would succeed in two things at once: he’d defeat the tree while at the same time ruining the jumper so he never had to wear it again.
Even at seven-years old, Harry was smarter than all of them.
‘I hate this jumper!’ he shouted down at Zayn, stopping to rub his chest against the trunk, just for good measure. Unfortunately, he was a little too enthusiastic and that’s how he broke his arm the first time: he lost his grip while rubbing himself against the tree.
‘You tore your jumper!’ Zayn gasped when he landed at his feet.
Harry punched the air with his good arm. ‘Yes!’
+++
The second time Harry broke his arm, the day before his eighth birthday, he was doing exactly the same thing: trying to climb the tree. Again, it was January and again it was snowing, the garden cotton white apart from the footprints that led from the back door to the tree. And again, no one knows why he did it, other than that was what Harry Styles did when he was bored, he climbed trees.
It was 7 a.m. so Yaser and Tricia were in the kitchen. She was trying to persuade him that taking the boys to Blackpool wouldn’t be that traumatic while he made choc chip pancakes. Harry, who’d slept over, had requested a smiley face in his and got bored of waiting, so slipped out the back door while Yaser pointed the spatula at Tricia and reminded her how much stuff they had to sort for the birthday party the next day.
Zayn was desperate for a choc chip pancake, but was more desperate to know what Harry was up to, so snuck out after him. When he saw that Harry was climbing the tree, he went after him. He caught up quickly and when Harry realised that Zayn was about to overtake him – in Buzz Lightyear slippers, no less – he was furious. So, determined not to let him make it to the top of the tree before he did, Harry reached for a higher branch and missed.
Zayn didn’t see Harry fall, but when he heard a yelp he looked down to see him sprawled on the snow and the shock of it made him fall, too. And that’s how Harry broke his arm the second time, not from the fall, but when Zayn landed on him.
Yaser saw from the kitchen window and ran out, the spatula still in his hand, to find the boys in a heap under the three. ‘I can see his bone!’ Zayn said, his eyes wide, as if it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
+++
Thanks to Harry’s various antics, they were frequent visitors to Leighton Hospital. Harry even had a favourite nurse, a tiny Filipino woman called Nancy who would smile when he saw Des carrying him in and ask who won this time, Harry or the tree.
The main reason he liked Nancy wasn’t that she let him pick which bed he wanted in the children’s ward, which, with it’s green floor and brightly-coloured walls, was much more cheerful than the main A&E, but because Nancy would bring him a jam sandwich while he waited for the doctor. (Harry’s favourite people were decided exclusively by how often they brought him food, which is why he loved his mother the most.) Zayn always went with them to the hospital, not out of any real concern, but because he knew that Nancy would bring him a jam sandwich as well, something Harry would object to saying that Zayn hadn’t injured himself so hadn’t earned a jam sandwich. It was an argument Tricia usually tried to avoid, so when she ran out after Yaser that morning, her heart in her mouth as she prayed to every God that she could think of that Harry was okay, and found them bickering, she relaxed.
‘I’ve definitely earned a jam sandwich this time,’ Zayn said with a solemn nod as Yaser lifted him off Harry, inspected him for breakages then scooped Harry up.
Harry winced as he did, then scowled at Zayn. ‘Why?’
‘I fell out of a tree,’ Zayn scowled back while Tricia took his hand and led him across the lawn, his Buzz Lightyear slippers caked in snow.
‘Yeah, on me!’
That was true, but Zayn still got his jam sandwich.
+++
That was the last time either of them fell from the tree. As soon as they got back from the hospital, Yaser declared a tree amnesty, much to the boys’ horror, but all was forgiven when, as soon as the weather improved, he started building them a treehouse. Zayn and Harry helped. Harry was in charge of measuring things (he was actually supposed to hold the bottom of the ladder, but wandered off after ten minutes, distracted by a squirrel) and Zayn picked what colour they were going to paint the walls.
When it was done, the pair of them practically moved in. If they ever went missing, Tricia would go looking for them up there, ushering them out for dinner or to school as she picked up empty cans of Coke and the pillows they’d stolen from the sofa.
They had their first kiss in that treehouse. They were fourteen and it was Zayn’s second kiss, actually. He’d had his first with Katie Sewell the night before at a party – his first proper kiss anyway, with tongues and a not so accidental brush of Katie’s right breast – and Harry had been beside himself since he walked into the living room to see Zayn and Katie against a wall. He kept asking Zayn what it was like, over and over, Zayn’s nonchalance as he shrugged and said, ‘It was a kiss’ making him more hysterical.
‘Show me,’ Harry said eventually, kneeling in front of him and snatching the comic book out of Zayn’s hand. When he slung it across the treehouse, which was so small it flew out and fluttered to the lawn like a broken bird, Zayn frowned.
‘Show you what?’
‘What it was like.’
Zayn laughed, but the corners of his mouth fell when he looked at Harry kneeling in front of him and realised he was serious. ‘You’re joking?’
‘What if I do it wrong?’ Harry said, a hand in his hair. ‘What if I bite her or lick her nose or something.’
‘You won’t do it wrong.’
‘What like Indesit Andrews?’ Harry arched an eyebrow at him and Zayn chuckled as he thought about poor Mikey Andrews who kissed like a washing machine according to Melanie Munro. Zayn was sure that Mikey had improved his technique since then, but the nickname had stuck.
‘Alright,’ Zayn conceded with a sigh. ‘But if you tell anyone.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’ Harry grinned, his cheeks suddenly pink. ‘Just don’t try and feel me up like you did Katie.’
Zayn laughed and leaned in to press a kiss to Harry’s mouth. When he sat back again, Harry stared at him.
‘What the fuck was that? I’m not your nan.’
‘You kiss your nan on the mouth?’
‘She kisses me.’ Harry closed his eyes and shuddered then shook his head. ‘Never mind. Just do it properly, Zayn.’
‘I’m not putting my tongue in your mouth.’
‘Why not?’
‘Have you even brushed your teeth this morning.’
‘Just do it.’ Harry whined, pointing at Zayn when he went to object. ‘I’m taking Mel Munro to the cinema tonight and I’m not going to be Indesit Styles.’
Zayn rolled his eyes, getting on his knees as well. ‘Fine.’
‘Yes! Okay. What do I do?’
‘I dunno.’ Zayn shrugged. ‘You just kind of do it.’
‘That’s very useful, Zayn. Can you imagine if Mr Summers said that? How do you work out a quadratic equation, Sir?’ Harry tilted his head and put on his best Brummie accent. ‘I dunno, Styles, you just kind of do it.’
‘Alright. You’re on your own, Indesit,’ Zayn told him, but when he went to sit down again, Harry laughed and grabbed his wrists.
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Just tell me what to do.’
‘You can start by shutting up.’
‘Okay.’ He didn’t take the hint, though, and pointed at his mouth. ‘But what do I do with my tongue? Swirling’s bad, I know. Is flicking acceptable?’
‘Flicking?’
‘What about up and down?’ Harry stuck his tongue out and squinted as he moved it up and down so it touched his top lip then his bottom.
Zayn stared at him. ‘Never do that again. Especially in someone’s mouth.’
‘Tell me then!’
‘Oh Jesus. Alright.’ Zayn sighed theatrically. ‘Just don’t stick it in straight away.’
‘Yeah but how do I know when to open my mouth?’
‘You’ll know.’
‘But what if I don’t?’
‘You will.’
‘But what if I don’t?’
‘You will, I promise.’ Zayn put his hands on Harry’s shoulders. ‘And when you do, don’t just shove your tongue in there. Be gentle.’
‘I can be gentle.’
Zayn thought about Harry’s poor guinea pig, Rocky, and frowned. ‘Really gentle.’
‘How gentle?’
‘Just slip your tongue into her mouth slowly. Just the tip.’
Harry nodded. ‘Show me.’
Zayn leaned in, his right hand shaking suddenly as he moved it from Harry’s shoulder to cup the back of his neck. ‘Lick your lips,’ he breathed as Harry leaned in, too, his hands reaching for Zayn’s hips. He did as he was told and Zayn did the same before he closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Harry’s mouth. He waited a beat then did it again and again, Harry’s breath shallowing as he did it once more. Then he parted his lips and sure enough, Harry knew to do it as well, his head tilting ever so slightly as Zayn slipped his tongue into his mouth – just the tip, just for a second.
‘Do it again,’ Harry breathed, fingers digging into Zayn’s hips when he pulled away. Zayn obliged, but this time Harry dipped his tongue into Zayn’s mouth first, the tip of it moving over Zayn’s for a moment before he slid it back out again.
‘Like that?’ Harry asked, eyes half-closed as he pulled back to look at Zayn.
He nodded. ‘Like that.’
So Harry did it again, slipping his tongue into Zayn’s mouth as soon as their lips touched. Zayn couldn’t help the sigh that he breathed into Harry’s mouth when their tongues met again, but if Harry heard, he didn’t say anything, just pulled back to look at him.
‘That’s so nice,’ he said with a loose smile. ‘Was it even better with Katie?’
Not at all, Zayn thought, his whole body shaking as he reluctantly licked the taste of Harry from his lips.
+++
After his date with Melanie Munro, Harry found Zayn in the treehouse.
‘How was it?’ Zayn asked as he clambered in and he was surprised at how hard it was to smile.
Harry shrugged and sat next to him, his back to the wall that he’d helped Zayn paint red that unusually sunny day in March. ‘I didn’t kiss her.’
‘Why not?’ Zayn asked, his heart suddenly beating like it did when they were on their knees in front of one another a few hours before.
Harry turned his head to look at him, his eyelids suddenly heavier as he held up a finger. ‘I just need you to show me once more.’
+++
The kissing became a regular thing after that. Zayn didn’t know what they were doing, just that he didn’t know why they’d never done it before as they sat in the treehouse and kissed until they heard Tricia calling them in for dinner. Then they started doing it in Zayn’s bedroom, bunking off lessons so they could lie on his bed and kiss all afternoon while his parents were at work. And it should have been awkward – awkward and confusing and maybe a little scary – but it was Harry and Harry wasn’t scary.
He was his best friend.
So the first time Harry pulled back and asked if he was hard, too, Zayn nodded.
‘Can I?’ Harry asked, a little breathless, eyelashes fluttering.
Zayn nodded again and looked down as Harry lifted the hem of his grey school jumper to undo the unbutton of his trousers. He was as clumsy as he always was, all hands and fidgety fingers, but it wasn’t his usual heavy-handed impatience. Zayn could tell that he was trying to be careful, the skin between his eyebrows pinched as he struggled to tug down the zip so Zayn helped him, rolling onto his back on the bed and opening his trousers, then hesitating for a second before hooking his fingers into his underwear and pulling them down enough to free his erection. Harry watched utterly rapt as it bobbed for a second or two before settling, warm and heavy on Zayn’s stomach.
‘You know what to do,’ he breathed, a finger turning in one of Harry’s curls.
He nodded, straddling Zayn so his knees were on either side of Zayn’s hips. He leaned forward, pressing one hand to the bed, and lifted his chin to look at Zayn before he curled his other hand around him. Zayn’s hips bucked off the bed as soon as he touched him, his eyelids stuttering shut as he pressed himself against Harry’s palm. Harry took the hint and stroked him once then stopped. Zayn opened his eyes with a whimper, watching as Harry licked his palm and touched him again. He did it properly this time, working his hand up and down with long, warm strokes that got quicker and quicker as his breathing got heavier. And Zayn couldn’t help but think of Harry in his big blue bedroom that Zayn knew so well, lying on his narrow single bed, doing that to himself.
‘Do you think about me?’ Harry asked, reading his mind, and if Zayn wasn’t already about to come, he almost did then.
‘Yes.’
‘Look at me.’
It was an effort, but Zayn lifted his eyelids. Harry had never looked so beautiful, all pink cheeks and curls, like something from a Waterhouse painting. More beautiful than Katie Sewell with her mascara stiff eyelashes and push-up bra. More beautiful than Zayn had ever seen him and so delicate, like he might break if he tried to touch his face.
‘Do you think about me?’
‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ Zayn breathed, and he didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t worried about what Harry would say. If he’d laugh and go into school the next day and tell everyone that he had a small cock or that he came too quick because it was Harry.
Harry.
Harry.
Harry.
+++
It went on for weeks. Weeks and weeks. Each time they went a little further, they’d kiss for a little longer or take off another item clothing until there was nothing left, just them and however long it was until Zayn’s mother got home from work. And it wasn’t just about that – about touching each other, about seeing how much of each other that they could touch – it was like Zayn was getting to know him all over again. Harry, who he’d known his whole life. It was like having another person in his room, in his bed, this stranger with perfect pale skin and tea-coloured nipples he liked to circle with his finger. Zayn didn’t think there was anything he didn’t already know about Harry, but he didn’t know that – that Harry liked it when he circled his nipples with his finger – and he didn’t know about all the sounds he made, the sighs and moans and sudden gasps that he probably hadn’t made for anyone. That Zayn hoped he hadn’t made for anyone.
Zayn had never felt that before. It was the sort of thing people wrote books about and sung songs about. They talked about everything. Not just the silly stuff they always talked about – school and homework and what film to watch – but the big stuff as well as they sat in Zayn’s treehouse, the day dying around them, in that way you only can when you’re fifteen and have the whole world at your feet.
Harry found an old pickle jar in his kitchen and brought it up to the treehouse one afternoon after he school. He emptied the loose change from his pockets into it then made Zayn do the same. When he did, he took the Sharpie Zayn had been doodling in his notebook with and wrote TOMORROW across the jar. Every night they did the same thing, they emptied the loose change from their pockets into the jar and talked about what they were going to do when they left school. They wanted to do everything, to move to London, to hitchhike to Glastonbury, to buy a car and drive across America, living on hamburgers and apple pie. One more year and they’d be free, Harry would say, as though they were a couple of birds considering breaking free from the flock to fly North instead.
Zayn thought they’d do it, too. It didn’t occur to him for a second that the jar they were hiding in the treehouse that was getting heavier and heavier each week wouldn’t get emptied eventually. He’d pick it up and look at it sometimes, try to guess how much was in it as he imagined what their flat in London would be like. Somewhere near the tube with posters on the walls to hide the water stains on the wallpaper and a battered Chesterfield sofa. But one night, they were at a party, Harry giving him a smile that told him that he didn’t know what they were doing there, and as Zayn smiled back, he was aware of Melanie Munro next to them, flicking her hair in Harry’s direction.
‘Who Harry? Don’t bother with him,’ she said to the girl she was talking to, making sure she said it loud enough for Harry to hear. ‘We went out last year and he didn’t even try to touch me. I think he’s, like, gay or something.’
Zayn watched Harry go rigid. He said that he was okay when he asked, but when Zayn suggested they get out of there, he looked relieved. So when Zayn managed to get his jacket from under the couple shagging on the pile in the spare room and walked back into the kitchen to find Harry trying to kiss Melanie through a wall, he knew Harry well enough not to be surprised. It still hurt, though. Hurt like his heart had snapped in two.
+++
When he got home, Zayn waited for Harry to find him in the treehouse. He didn’t. He didn’t come over the next day, either, so Zayn sat there, his back against the red wall as he looked at the blanket they were hiding the Tomorrow jar under. He sat there until it got dark and when it did and he poked his head out of the treehouse to see that Harry’s bedroom light was on. He knew then, but he still went over.
His mother answered the front door and looked thrilled to see him, asking if he could smell the macaroni cheese she was making for dinner. It was Zayn’s favourite so she frowned when he shook his head and pointed to the stairs.
‘I just need to talk to Harry.’
Zayn could hardly get his name out and she must have heard because the corners of her mouth fell as she stepped back to let him in.
He took the stairs two at a time and when he looked up to see Harry’s bedroom door, he almost turned and ran back down them again. But he knocked.
‘Come in,’ Harry said over the chorus of a song Zayn didn’t recognise.
When he opened the door, Harry was rooting through his chest of drawers.
‘Mum, have you seen my Hollister hoodie?’ He lifted his head and stepped back when he realised that it was Zayn. ‘Oh. Hey,’ he said, suddenly breathless.
He was shirtless, a pair of black jeans slung low on his hips to reveal the band of his underwear, and when he realised, he grabbed a t-shirt out of the drawer and pulled it on as though Zayn hadn’t already seen it all, as though he hadn’t already seen everything. Zayn knew for sure then and he didn’t think anything could hurt more than walking into the kitchen at that party to see Harry kissing Melanie Munro, but that did.
‘Did you shag her?’ Zayn said. He heard the crack in his voice so Harry must have as well, but he didn’t look at him, just looked down into the open drawer and nodded. ‘Well, you’re definitely not gay now.’
+++
That was a year ago. They haven’t spoken since and the sad thing is, apart from their family, no one at school even noticed. They asked, of course, in the weeks after, when Harry sat with Melanie and her friends at lunch while Zayn lingered in the art room, painting between bites of whatever sandwich his mother was experimenting with that day. (Her favourite being cream cheese and strawberry jam, which she insists tastes like cheesecake, because who wouldn’t want a cheesecake flavoured sandwich, right?) But then they’re sixteen and no one really cares that he and Harry aren’t friends any more. They relish the drama of it, of trying to guess why, but it was nothing more than a distraction from a tedious Wednesday afternoon. In the end, they concluded that he and Harry fell out because they were both in love with Melanie and Zayn didn’t correct them because as hurt as he was, it would hurt Harry. Which was kind of pathetic given that Harry clearly couldn’t give half a shit about how Zayn felt.
Their parents tried, but after several awkward Sunday dinners, they gave up as well. And as Zayn watched Harry at school, mucking around with his new friends in their skinny jeans and plaid shirts while Zayn hung around with the kids in his art class, listening to the Beastie Boys and smoking too much weed, he wondered if their parents were right to. If all of this was somehow inevitable. That’s what Zayn says now, if anyone asks, he shrugs and says that these things happen, that they grew apart. And maybe they did, because that’s the metamorphosis of life. Friends come and go. People change. We aren’t kids forever. We all become butterflies one day. Some sooner than others.
It’s not that Zayn forgot, forgot about Harry’s dirty laugh and all those plans they made between kisses in the treehouse, it’s that he had to forget. He had to hide those memories in the shadows of his chest, behind his heart and in the spaces between his ribs because that Harry was gone. Now this Harry – the Harry who wears skinny jeans and plaid shirts – walks into parties with a huge smile and when he sees Zayn he frowns as if to say, This isn’t me, don’t tell anyone. What can Zayn do? Whatever’s happened, secrets are secrets and it doesn’t matter that Harry doesn’t look at him when they pass in the corridor at school any more, Zayn will never tell.
Is that growing up? Zayn thinks maybe it is. Or maybe it’s just admitting defeat because he looks at Harry sometimes and wonders if they ever had anything in common. ‘He’ll come back,’ his mother tells him whenever they hear Harry and his friends laughing over the garden fence. Zayn just smiles because he can’t help but wonder if they hadn’t been living next door to each other whether they would ever have been friends, as though they were some sort of accident. An imbalance the Universe corrected eventually.
+++
On the last day of school, Zayn manages to get out with the contents of his locker and his shirt covered in felt-tip promises without seeing Harry. It doesn’t occur to him until he’s walking down the path towards his front door that maybe Harry was avoiding him, too.
Zayn sees him that night, though, at another party that everyone in school makes an effort to go to because they know it’s their last. And with that, as they realise that they’re scattering in a hundred different directions, like confetti at a wedding, they’re suddenly all friends. Survivors of a five-year war drunk on supermarket vodka and swapping war stories about supply teachers and poor Indesit Andrews. He and Harry don’t talk, though, just move around each other like ghosts, something they’ve perfected over the last year to the point that they don’t notice each other any more. Except the do. Zayn does, anyway. He always knows when Harry’s in a room and when he isn’t. He feels the absence of him every day, like a fucking hole in the sky.
When he gets home, he sees the light from the television flickering against the living room curtains and knows that his parents have stayed up, his mother no doubt struggling to stay awake through whatever film they’re watching so he doesn’t think that they stayed up. He should go in, he knows, let them know that he’s okay so they can go to bed, but he’s had too much to drink and he doesn’t care how old he is or if he’s moving out in a couple of days, he can’t be drunk in front of his parents. So he climbs up to the treehouse and almost falls back out when he sees Harry in there.
‘I suppose we should split this,’ he says, holding up the Tomorrow jar.
‘Keep it,’ Zayn mutters, looking down at his feet on the rope ladder unsure what to do, whether he should climb back down or crawl into the treehouse.
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘Do you want to go?’
Harry shrugs, the change in the jar shivering. So Zayn crawls in because this is it, he knows, it’s taken them a year but it’s time to say goodbye. It isn’t easy - especially in the dark – there isn’t enough room in there, not now their limbs are longer and their feet are bigger, but Zayn manages to squeeze himself in so his back is to the opposite wall to Harry’s, his legs stretched out next to his so they’re almost touching, but not quite.
‘So you’re going to Manchester?’ Harry says when he does, watching Zayn as he takes the lighter out of the pocket of his jeans and lights the church candle that’s sitting on the saucer his mother keeps asking him if he’s seen.
‘Yep,’ Zayn says, opening his box of cigarettes and sitting back.
Harry still knows him well enough to push it. ‘What are we going to do with this, then?’ He shakes the jar, the sound of the coins hitting the glass making Zayn's nerves jump.
‘I couldn’t give a fuck.’
‘Why’d you keep it then?’
Zayn doesn’t look at him. ‘Just take it, Harry,’ he says, lighting a cigarette and turning his face away to blow the smoke out of the door to the treehouse.
Harry looks at the jar again and when Zayn sees that his eyes are wet, he lets his head tip back against the wall as his useless, traitorous heart misses a beat.
‘Do you think people can change, Zayn?’
‘I know they can, Harry.’
‘I don’t think they do.’ Zayn can’t look at him, the tops of his ears burning as he listens to the money shifting in the jar. ‘I just think they forget who they are. They get distracted by stupid shit. Like my dad, he wanted to be a footballer when he was a kid, but everyone told him that he’d never make a career out of it so he stopped playing because he didn’t know that you don’t need to make a career out of football to be able to play it. Sometimes you just are something even if you’re the only one who sees it. Like Dad, he never played for England, but every time he kicks a football, he’s George Best.’
Zayn doesn’t say anything, just looks at the ceiling of the treehouse as he listens to the leaves rustling in the breeze around them.
‘But if you’re lucky,’ Harry goes on, ‘someone else sees it, too.’
Zayn closes his eyes because he knows what he’s trying to say and he can’t.
He can’t.
‘I think I forgot, Zayn, for a second. I think I forgot who I was.’
Harry waits for Zayn to look at him and when he doesn’t, he slips his hand under the cuff of Zayn’s jeans.
‘I can’t remember who I am,’ he says and Zayn doesn’t know if it’s the way he says it or his fingers curling around his ankle, but something in him gives way.
‘You’re Harry Edward Styles and you were born on January 7th 1993, two weeks earlier than you should have been because you’re an impatient asshole who can’t still. You’ve fallen out of this tree so many times that I’m pretty sure that’s why you speak so slowly. You’re scared of clowns and you tell people that you’re allergic to peppers, but really you just don’t like them, and you killed your guinea pig, Rocky, when you were six, trying to give him a bath and cried for four and half hours until your dad got home from work and buried him under the rosebush in your garden. You sang Angels by Robbie Williams at the funeral. My mother still can’t hear that fucking song without crying. You have four moles on your back and a six-inch scar on your left forearm from when you caught it on a nail on my garden shed when we were nine. Your favourite colour is green and your favourite song is The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra because it’s the song your parents danced to at their wedding and it’s going to be your favourite song until you fall in love and get a favourite song of your own. You once shoplifted a pair of free sunglass from a copy of GQ then took them back the next day because you felt so guilty. You have a recurring dream about drowning but you want to live in a houseboat in Paris with a ginger cat that follows you whenever you leave,’ he can’t catch his breath, but he has to say it, ‘and you broke my fucking heart.’
Zayn shakes his head, but it doesn’t stop Harry crawling into his lap.
‘I’m sorry,’ he breathes, taking his face in his hands and peppering it with kisses. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Zayn shakes his head again, turning to stub his cigarette out. ‘Me, too, Harry.’
‘You have to forgive me.’
'Don't, Harry.'
'Please.'
‘I can’t.’
'Please.' When Zayn turns his face away again, Harry follows, pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘You have to.’
‘Why?’
Harry presses his forehead to Zayn’s. ‘Because if I forget again, who’s going to remind me?’
'But what about me, Harry?'
'I know. I'm sorry. I got scared. I got scared and I fucked up.'
'Scared of what? It's me, Harry.'
'I got scared because it's you, Zayn.' Harry lifts his chin to look at him, his hands on Zayn's face. 'I lose you and I lose everything. I lose every memory I have. I lose my past and my future, the future I'm putting pennies in a jar for, and then what am I gonna do?' He frowns. 'What am I gonna do?'
Zayn kisses him then because he doesn't know how else to answer that question other than to hold him and not let go. And when Harry kisses him back, an imbalance in the Universe corrects itself.
+++
There’s £42.67 in the jar, which is barely enough for one ticket to Paris, let alone two, but they find a way. It’ll be a few years – and several more jars – before they can afford a houseboat, but until they can, a weekend in a hostel in Montmartre will have to do.
They walk everywhere, Harry taking photographs of everything he sees and insisting on speaking French to everyone, even when they respond in English. But it makes him happy and it’s been a long time since Zayn’s seen him happy so if he has to pose for another photograph and listen to Harry order another thé au lait (which he makes sound Spanish, somehow) then so be it.
The first time they see the Eiffel Tower they’re on the other side of the Seine and Harry jumps up and points to it. ‘There it is!’ he gasps, eyes wide, the July sun catching on the top of his hair like a halo. ‘Do you see?’
And Zayn nods because he sees.
He sees.