So, you know my hometown of Holmes Chapel. But, I don't think I ever told you about how, after my parents split up, my mum and Gem and I moved briefly to Cheshire proper. And how, while we lived there, I was bullied terribly by the other kids. So terribly, in fact, that we had to move back just a few years later.

The serious problems didn't really start until I was about eleven. I was smaller than most of the other boys, a bit weird, a bit flamboyant, especially compared to the posh, wealthy popular kids. My best friends were girls; I sang in all the school musicals; I was experimenting with different styles of music; I wore lots of friendship bracelets; I wore a lot of pink. And for some reason, all of that added up to gay for the guys at my school, which just showed how small-minded they really were, buying into and perpetuating stereotypes.

And behaving as if being gay is a bad thing.

So, when they called me gay and ripped some of my beaded bracelets off my wrist, I said, "Gay isn't an insult. Try again."

"Fucking poof! I knew it!" One of them shouted, kicking dirt in my direction.

"Love is love," I shrugged.

My mum had taught me to be calm. When people try to rile you up, be calm. It was hard. It was really fucking hard. The calmer I seemed, the angrier they got, and the taunts and attacks only escalated. A couple of times, I came home with a bloody nose. I never hit them back. I had never hit anyone until I hit Jonas, defending you.

Finally, the last straw, was when the group of them together held me down and taped my hand to the desk in the back of the classroom while the teacher had his back turned to the room. The idiot left without noticing that I was back there, still stuck to the desk. Gemma found me about thirty minutes later when I didn't turn up to walk home with her.

She peeled the tape from my mouth, her mouth hanging open in shock. "Haz, what happened?"

I sniffled, humiliated to be found like this. "Nothing. It's nothing. Can you just," I pulled my arm against the tape holding it in place, "it's so tight. Can you just get me out? I just wanna go home." The word turned into a wail, and I was sobbing on the floor of the classroom. I hated myself for crying. I hated myself for letting them make me cry.

Gemma's voice turned stern. "Who did this, Harry?" I just shook my head, covering my face with my one free hand. "I will fucking murder them. Tell me now, who did this?"

"Gem, please. Please can we just go?" I must have really sounded pathetic, because she gave in.

"Yeah, yeah all right, Haz." She grabbed a pair of scissors from the teacher's desk and cut away the tape, then helped me to my feet. "I've got you," Gemma reassured, pulling me into her arms. I held on for dear life, clinging to her like a kitten who is too high up a tree. I was definitely up too high. Taking the high road wasn't working.

As we walked out of the classroom, a chorus of giggles rang out behind us. Gemma turned sharply.

"Oi!" She shouted. They froze in their tracks, still laughing. "You touch my brother again, I'll tape your hands to your fucking cocks, ya hear me. I'll parade your naked asses through these halls--"

"Yeah right," the biggest douche of them all, Oliver, said.

Gemma let go of me and stepped towards them menacingly. "Don't believe me, eh? Let's find out right now, you little shits."

"What's the matter, Ms. Styles?" A teacher asked. Ms. Windover. She was Gemma's teacher, I think.

"I'm about to kill some kids, so you should probably call the authorities."

The kids widened their eyes that she would speak that way to an adult.

"I'd run if I were you," Ms. Windover said to the kids, who took the advice, running the opposite way. "Okay, come on you two, let's get your mum to pick you up. I don't think it's a good idea to walk home today."

Gemma nodded and took my hand, and we followed the teacher to the office. We checked out of that school the next day, and moved back home to Holmes Chapel that weekend.

It was a strange, dark time. It left me a bit insecure. I never quite feel like I belong. Especially in the world of the well-to-do. Even at times, my love, with you.

~~~~~

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