[Samuel x Roman]

e m m a - m a r i e​

She really had broken up with him. Emma-Marie's heart felt so heavy for her friend. She knew just how much Harper had liked Laila. He had liked her since last term, throughout the summer and just gotten the courage to ask her out at the beginning of the term and they had actually dated for a couple of months which was long for people their age, at least from what Emmie had seen. And she knew that was because Harper liked the other girls so much, and she had genuinely thought Laila liked Harper just as much. But then again, she had heard all details about his and Laila's relationship from Harper, and maybe he hadn't been realising what was going on.

"She did?" Emma-Marie said, sounding both sad and surprised even though she had expected it since the cafeteria, "I'm so sorry, Harper," she was, she was so genuinely sorry and she just kept hugging him for a bit before she decided to lead him over to one f the random benches scattered about the school, one that still was in a secluded place but a little bit away because she didn't want them to accidentally run into Laila.

Once seated, though Emmie still had an arm around her friend's shoulders, she asked, "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
 
h a r p e r
​
Not really, Harper thought. He didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted to crawl under this bench and hide for the rest of time. He was miserable. He knew that all the adults he may speak to about this would just say that this was his first relationship, there were a lot of fish in the sea, this was a growing experience, whatever. Harper didn't care.

Because even if he was thirteen and even if this was his first relationship, it had meant a lot to him. And now it was just over. Done. Gone. Terminated. Like it had never even happened.

"Sh - She just said she didn't l - like me anymore," Harper stammered around his tears. He was clutching the teddy bear to his chest, not caring how it looked to anyone else. He didn't know what he was going to do with it. He didn't want to keep it, because it reminded him of Laila, but it was still something incredibly special to him because it just meant so much, so it felt wrong to destroy it.

Harper let out another sob and leaned into Emma-Marie's embrace. "I d - don't understand wh - what I did wrong, I thought e - everything was going well. Why would she j - just stop liking me?"
 
e m m a - m a r i e​

"Well, you don't have to have done something wrong. I don't believe you did anything wrong either, because I feel like you would have known that then," Emma-Marie said. It was heartbreaking to see Harper this sad, and she knew there was nothing she could really do to fix it. In this instance, time would have to be the one to heal his wounds. But she wasn't going to let him believe he had done something wrong. She knew Harper, he wouldn't ever do anything to purposefully hurt someone or anything like that, "sometimes people's feelings just fade away."

She shrugged a little, that was just the truth of the matter. She couldn't know Laila's exact reasons, and maybe she'd find her and ask her about it later so she could really know why she had done it, because she had a feeling Harper just wasn't in a place right now where he'd be able to rationally realize why Laila broke up with him by himself.

"We're still kids and figuring all of this stuff out, I know you really liked her, but maybe Laila just haven't got it as figured out yet, so she thought she liked you but as you two kept on dating she realized she didn't. " Emmie tried to reason, "I know it still really hurts though, even if you didn't do anything wrong, and that's okay,"
 
h a r p e r
​
Harper was still just so confused. All he wanted was to know why Laila had stopped liking him. There had to be a reason. Even if he hadn't explicitly done anything wrong, there had to be some kind of reason, something about him that she didn't like or something that he didn't have.

But he didn't expect Emma-Marie to have the answers, so he just stopped talking. He sighed and leaned into her embrace even more. He was so lucky to have such a kind and supportive friend. He knew his male friends wouldn't have been this nice if he had come to them in tears. They probably would have made fun of him for being so upset about a girl.

Harper turned his eyes down to the teddy in his hands. It symbolised so much and was a token from one of the happiest days of his life. But now it just made him sad. He knew in the back of his head that one day he would get over this. But right now, that just did not seem like a possibility.
 
e m m a - m a r i e​

Harper was quiet after that. Quiet and so so sad. It was as if his tears were endless. Emmie was quiet too for a while, since Harper seemed to need it.

After a while of silence, Emmie properly noticed of Harper was looking at the teddy. She honestly thought it was kind of cruel of Laila to have handed back the teddy. Emmie suspected she hadn't meant anything mean by it, Laila was a very nice person even if she had broken up with Harper. But now Harper had to deal with what to do with the teddy, which was the same thing as dealing with his emotions and feelings for Laila, which would probably take weeks to begin with.

"If you want to we can go find a place to donate it to after school," Emmie suggested carefully, she wasn't sure if this was the best idea, but he looked so sad about the teddy and throwing it away would probably be equally as sad as keeping it. Especially since it was the one Laila had made, keeping the other one could maybe at least remind him of his first date, but this one was probably bound to remind him of the breakup now, "like a secondhand store or one of those boxes that collect things for people who needs them,"
 
h a r p e r
​
Part of Harper wanted to keep the teddy. He knew it was strange but it was true. It was a reminder of the breakup, sure, but it was also a reminder of the relationship he had shared with Laila. And it was incredibly personal -- she had made a wish upon it. They had matched their bears when they had made them. If they gave the bear away, then his bear at home would be without its pair for the rest of its life.

Just like how Harper felt in that moment.

But he didn't need the teddy, as much as it meant to him, and he knew that if he kept it all it would do is cause even more pain and suffering. And someone else, some little kid without a toy to hold while they went to sleep, needed the bear for more than he did. So he sat up with bleary red eyes and nodded his head.

"Alright," he said, his voice still hoarse from all the crying he had done. "Alright, I'll donate it." It would kill him to do so, but it needed to be done. At least he could go to sleep knowing that some small child would have a toy to love soon, and that at least one good thing had come out of this breakup.
 
s a m u e l​

Samuel was really worried about Harper. For the past couple of days he had just seemed really down and that just wasn't like him. They had always raised the kids telling them it was okay to be sad, as long as you talked about it so they could get help becoming happier again. And if something bothered Harper he would usually tell them, but not this time.

Samuel hadn't really approached him with it, both he and Roman hoped that Harper would come to them about it. Since it didn't seem like it was happening though they had decided to try to talk to him about it today. They had had dinner and all the kids had gone to do their own thing, including Harper who was in his room.

Samuel, standing with Roman outside his door, knocked on it twice before entering, "Harper? Do you have time to talk to us for a moment?"
 
r o m a n
​
It was killing Roman that he didn't know what was going on with Harper. Their son had said nothing to either of them, which just made Roman sad, because he though that they had raised their children to know that it was okay to express their emotions. Apparently, somewhere along the line, Harper hadn't taken that to heart.

But today they were getting to the bottom of things. Harper looked up from his bed, which he was just laying on, and saw who was there. "Oh, yeah, okay," he said quietly, his voice expressionless and dry.

Roman frowned but lead his husband in and took a seat on the bed beside their son. "Sweetie, what's been going on?" he asked the boy softly. "You've been so sad, but you haven't said anything, we're just really worried about you."

Harper was silent for a few moments. Roman watched as he sat up. He had bleary red eyes and a reddish nose -- clearly he had been crying. "I ... Laila broke up with me."
 
s a m u e l​

After Harper finally revealed what was wrong Samuel was quiet for a moment. As much as Harper probably would be mad about him thinking so it was a relief that it wasn't something serious. To him, it probably felt like the end of the world, and they still didn't know all of the details so there was still a possibility that something bad had happened. But it made sense that he was feeling down because his first girlfriend broke up with him, and eventually he'd get over it.

"She did?" Samuel finally said and he reached out to gently run his hand over Harper's hair, he was getting older so it was important to not treat him like a little kid in this, because he wasn't. This issue was a part of growing up and that was what he was doing. But to Samuel he was still his little boy so he was going to be as gentle and affectionate as they always were with him when he was sad, "Harper, I'm so sorry... What happened?"

He wasn't sure if Harper did want to tell them, and Samuel wouldn't force him, they didn't need to know everything, it was okay for Harper to keep certain things to himself because he was his own person, but they needed to know he wasn't feeling down because of some other reason, like Laila breaking up with him in a really mean way, because then they needed to talk about it.
 
r o m a n
​
Roman's heart dropped when they learned why Harper was so upset. He knew the relationship wasn't that serious, that it was just a silly thirteen-year-old romance, but to Harper it had been everything. They had seen how happy the boy had been when Laila had been around, or even when he had just been speaking about her. And now that happiness seemed to have completely exited his entire being.

"I ... she just said that she didn't like me romantically anymore, that she just thought of me as a friend." Harper's lip began to tremble and Roman carefully reached over to put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright to cry, honey. Just let it out. We just want to help you."

Harper nodded and sniffled, and then he just began to cry. "I - I really liked her, and I th - thought she really liked m - me too, but ... I just d - don't know what I did wrong? She said I d - didn't do anything, but there must have been s - something she didn't like or I didn't h - have."
 
s a m u e l​

"No, sweetie, you didn't do anything wrong," Samuel was quick to say. The way Harper was s quick to blame himself made Samuel wonder how much of his sadness came from Laila breaking up with him and how much came from thinking he had messed up somehow but not actually knowing how.

"look Harper, when it comes to dating it's not always that easy, sometimes there isn't a particular reason for the way things turns out, and as hard as this might be to hear, Laila might have seen you as a friend for a while but just started to realise it now and that's why she broke up with you. Not because you did or lacked anything, just because that is how she felt," Samuel told his son. It was heartbreaking to tell Harper that maybe Laila actually always kind of just had platonic feelings for him, but it was better than letting him believe he had somehow fucked up or done something that made her not like him romantically anymore.

"I'm sure Laila wanted to like you in the same way you did very much. But she just didn't. That doesn't mean either of you did something wrong. If she said you did nothing wrong you need to trust that."
 
r o m a n
​
Roman didn't like thinking that his son blamed himself for the breakup but he honestly understood why he thought that. It was only logical to assume that you had done something wrong, or that you lacked something your partner wanted or needed, when this sort of thing happened. But sometimes people just ... stopped liking other people. It was sad, but it happened sometimes, and that was just a fact of life.

Harper didn't seem to believe Samuel, Roman could tell. So Roman stepped in to say something too. "Harper, honey, I know this might not be what you want to hear at the moment, but you know that this isn't the be-all-and-end-all, right? There will be other people, because you're a kind, caring, handsome young man and there will be heaps and heaps of people who will like you. And one day you'll meet someone you really like and you'll stay together forever, like me and Papa. Nothing will tear you apart."

Harper stared at them both for a few seconds, before his lip started to wobble again and he burst into tears once more. He simply crawled over and wedged himself between his two dads and of course they showed him love and affection through hugs and kisses to the tops of the head. Roman didn't like seeing Harper cry but he could tell that it was on its way out, that this would soon be the last of it. And that made him relieved, because if there was one thing Roman hated, it was his children suffering.
 
e d e n​

When Edan and Stella had first started school Eden had been nervous. And so his daddies and brother had convinced him that he'd like it when he got there, when he gained some friends and got into the routine.

Only it hadn't.

Eden genuinely did not like high school. He liked that the classes were getting a little more challenging so he could learn more, though some days it was really hard for him to hold focus. But his main problem was that he never really properly gained those friends Daddy and Papa and Harper talked about. He mostly stuck to Stella, Stella was the person he wanted to hang out with and who he was friends with. But in the classes they didn't share she had gotten more friends, and Eden hadn't really. He'd mostly hang out with her and her friends when he was welcomed, which he always was because they were very nice, it was just clear that they were the people Stella wanted to hang out with and not him.

He could deal with that though. That would be completely fine if people hadn't been so mean when Stella and her friends weren't around. Not everyone were, but there were a couple of guys in their year who were terrible. They'd always poke fun at him because he had his hair long and was quiet and didn't like sports. They walk up to him and call him Stella and she. Eden knew he wasn't really the most boyish guy, he liked horses and thought his hair looked the best when it was long and he wasn't super tall either. And he knew there wasn't anything wrong with that, girls were just as good as boys, and things that were considered girly just as cool. But it hurt when people made fun of him for it.

It also hurt when people shoved him into lockers, which had started to happen recently. The same group of guys passing him in the hallway and shoving him discreetly but hard while laughingly throwing out an insult.

Today it had happened again and it had really hurt, and he had almost cried but he couldn't because boys didn't cry. He wanted it to stop but he knew he had to tell someone for that. He had debated telling people for a while. He could tell Stella but she'd flip out, and he didn't want to tell Daddy and Papa because he didn't want them to think he thought being girly was bad or something. Letha was too little to get it, which left Harper. Harper had been really sad for a while though, because his girlfriend had broken up with him, so Eden hadn't wanted to weigh him down more. He seemed a little better now though so that was why Eden found himself outside Harper's room that evening, knocking on his older brother's door.

"Harper? Can I talk to you?" he asked somewhat quietly, clearly not really sure of what he was doing.
 
h a r p e r
​
For quite a long while Harper had been really upset about the whole ordeal with Laila. Or, well, he had thought it had been a long while but had really been closer to a few weeks. But regardless, his sadness over his first breakup had left him doing almost nothing but playing soccer and completing schoolwork and had thus rendered him emotionally unavailable to anyone who may have needed his support.

But, while he wasn't perfectly fine yet, he was feeling a lot better. He had taken some time to get over what had happened and therefore was well on the way to getting over everything. He was mostly fine now -- the most he felt was a touch of sadness every now and then when he thought of Laila. But all in all, he was a lot better.

He had been playing on his phone when Eden had knocked on the door. Harper at once sat up and beckoned his little brother over with a smile. "Hey, Edie, come in! What's up?" he asked his brother in a chirping manner, completely oblivious to the idea that anything could have been the matter with his brother in that moment.
 
e d e n​

Eden entered Harper's bedroom and sat down at the edge of his bed. His brother actually sounded really happy, which he hadn't done a while back and suddenly Eden wasn't sure if now actually was a good time to talk to Harper about this. But the idea of going back to school made knots form in his stomach. He was genuinely scared, because if he didn't tell Harper, or anyone now, it would probably continue, and since it just keåt getting worse he didn't want to know what it would be like for the rest of high school.

So, after a moment of silence that clearly indicated something was wrong, Eden took a deep breath and said, "I just wanted to talk to you about a school-related thing," he had asked Harper for help with his homework plenty of times but this clearly wasn't it. It was hard to get the words out though, and Eden was quiet again, writhing his hands for a moment trying to think of what to say.

"I guess I just wanted to ask you what you do when if people are mean to you for liking girly things?" he said carefully avoiding eye contact, not quit ready to really spell out what had happened yet.
 
h a r p e r
​
Harper frowned, not expecting such a question from Eden at all. Was he getting picked on for being too feminine or something? Harper would hate it if that were the case, since Eden was easily one of the sweetest and kindest people in the whole world and he definitely didn't deserve to be treated in such a fashion.

But Harper, as sad as it was, wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. It was not the Middle Ages anymore and yet so many people were still quite backwards in their views. Many people thought that there was something wrong with guys liking feminine things and many guys who liked such things were bullied because of it. Harper just thought that that was sad.

"Well, you kind of just have to learn to not let it affect you," Harper said honestly. It sucked that he had to tell his little brother to just be so casual about people being mean to him but there was honestly no way to stop what was going on. "I know it sucks but you're never going to be able to change the minds of people like that. They're just so set in their ways. Why? Has something been happening at school?"
 
e d e n​

The idea that he couldn't stop it made Eden feel horrible. He didn't want to always feel afraid of being alone in school... Maybe it was better if he just told Daddy and Papa that he wanted to have his hair short from now on, and if he stopped liking horses even though he loved them, and never told anyone he had a pet bunny.

But that sounded horrible too and Eden couldn't help it when the tears started to burn. Which just made him feel worse because it was the exact reaction that he would be made fun of in school. And that caused the tears to well over. He hadn't wanted to cry, had had just wanted to get Harper's help, but Harper was saying they couldn't do anything about it. So what was he supposed to do?

He stubbornly rubbed his eyes and looked down on his knees as he said, "there are just some people being mean and acting as if I'm a girl, but I guess I'll try to get over it,"
 
h a r p e r
​
Harper's eyes widened when Eden started to cry and immediately he felt terrible. He hadn't mean to upset his brother and he had had no idea that the words of other people were affecting him so much. But Harper probably should have guessed. Eden was quite a sensitive boy — he was too, but in a different way. He could get upset because of the words of others but it was usually built up after a long time. He had stopped getting super upset when people made fun of him for being feminine a while ago.

But this was one of the many times Harper failed to realise that he and Eden were not the same person. It had been especially bad when they had been younger and Harper had always gotten upset when Eden hadn't wanted to play soccer or do the other things he wanted to do. Harper just hadn't understood that he and his brother liked different things. He grasped that better now but, as shown, he still slipped up from time to time.

Determined to remedy his mistake, Harper wrapped his arms around his brother and held him close. "Edie, I'm sorry, I didn't realise things were this bad," Harper said sadly. "Are people bullying you? If you're being bullied you don't have to just live with it."
 
e d e n​

When Harper pulled him into a hug Eden just kind of let go and let his tears flow. At least he said he didn't have to put up with it if it was bullying. The thing was though, that Eden wasn't even sure if it was. Even if he didn't like what was going on, being a girl wasn't a bad thing, being called a girl wasn't even technically that bad even if it hurt. The shoving probably was though.

"I hate high school it's the worst," Eden said weekly and sniffled, his tears weren't really sobbing or anything, they kept coming because he was sad, but he was so lost and unsure that they were slow and quiet. At least it made it easier to talk, "Stella is like my only friend and Zeke and his friends have been mean to me since I started. I hate it," He kept saying he hated it, even though Daddy and Papa told them not to hate things. He didn't really hate high school maybe, but he kind of hated Zeke and his friends and they were part of high school.

"As soon as Stella or you or Papa isn't there they pretend to confuse me for Stella and call me her sister and I hate it and they shoved me into a locker today and it really hurt and if I can't get them to stop I don't wanna go to school anymore,"
 
h a r p e r
​
Harper was horrified by what he heard. He had had no idea that Eden was having such a tough time and immediately he felt terrible, even if it was in no way his fault. No one expected him to take care of his brother all the time, no one expected him to play babysitter. But still, Eden was his little brother, and it was his job to protect him.

"Edie, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I had no idea this was happening," Harper said, clearly upset by the revelations of this conversation. He tightened his hold on his brother and rubbed his back. What Eden had described was terrible -- how could people be so cruel?

"I know you don't think there's anything wrong with girls, but you're not a girl so you're allowed to be upset that they call you that. And for them to push you into a locker is just terrible, no one deserves that! Have you said anything to Daddy or to Papa?"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back