THORN

chapter five

Alexandria Green

It's been about two hours since Zayn walked through my front door with me. His company has been such a relief tonight and he's actually the only person who's been inside my apartment aside from Niall.

I'm sitting on my black leather couch, my hair pulled up into a ponytail so it won't irritate the bandage covering my ear. Cleaning up my ear was the first thing Zayn helped me with tonight.

He insisted on cleaning the dried blood off, putting on the anti-bacterial cream, and placing the white bandage over it. I told him about ten times that I could've done it myself, but to be honest he really helped more than he thought.

Now we're both laying on my couch, after I changed into some sweatpants and brought some blankets downstairs. The third movie we've put on tonight is currently playing, it being some kind of comedy movie Zayn picked out.

My legs are positioned in a criss cross position, his own laying straight in front of him. My leopard print blanket is thrown over the two of us, while our shared bowl of popcorn is laying on top.

My fingers are coated in the oily salty mess popcorn leaves after eating it, my face bare of makeup and Zayn's head on my shoulder.

Yeah, that happened halfway through the second move and I've been too terrified to move him. The second his head touched my shoulder, my whole body uncontrollably tensed. He was too tired to notice thankfully, no one usually thinks putting your head on someone's shoulder would hold any sort of reaction but here we are.

I really wish I was better at showing and receiving affection. It's struggle I've had since I was kid, only somewhat being able to show that side of myself to Niall. Watching the two main characters on the tv in front of me hug and kiss each other makes my whole body cringe. A bang coming from outside my front door interrupts my focus on the movie playing in front of me and causes a slight jump to my body. I choose to ignore it, being too comfortable to get up and not wanting to wake up Zayn.

I get through at most, another ten minutes of my movie before the noise appears again. I huff out into the silent room around me, looking over to Zayn's head next to mine.

His eyes are peacefully shut, the breaths coming from his nose running down my arm. A few strands of his straight black hair crawl their way onto his forehead and tickling my shoulder. I take my arm furthest from him and delicately move his cheek up.

Once his face is lifted from my skin, I hold his face in my two hands, his eyes still peacefully shut. I lay his head down onto the pillow next to him and cover him with my leopard print blanket. He's in such a deep sleep you'd assume he hasn't slept in years.

I grab the half empty popcorn bowl myself being the one person who ate it, carrying it into the kitchen sink when the loud noise appears again. My face scrunches up in confusion, not knowing what or who it's coming from. It's not a knock on my door, it sounds like a repeated slam of something into my wall.

I look over at Zayn to see if he's still sleeping, his closed eyes answering my question. I unlock my door and as quietly as possible walk myself out to the dimly lit hallway.

Directly in front of me is a body, slumped against the wall across from mine, with a green tennis ball in hand.

I squint my eyes to try and distinguish who this is, walking a couple feet closer. My eyes are met with green ones, my stomach dropping at the unexpected familiar person in front of me.

The body in front of me is Harry, his back slouched against the wall of his door, his curly hair covered by a black hoodie and his legs wearing matching black sweatpants. If it wasn't for the emerald shade in his eyes it would be extremely hard to recognize him in this state.