Hurt

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

It was finally Saturday. I was off work for the weekend. Zayn and I decided to celebrate by going to my favorite diner, Henry's, for breakfast.

"Use that to help stand it up!" I yelled. Zayn was barely holding the two waffle sticks together, he was laughing to hard. He grabbed the milk carton and put it under the sticks, sticking them on with gooey maple syrup and scarmbled eggs. It looked utterly disgusting, but in my mind, we were having the best fun. This was a tradition of ours, a "breakfast castle." Every time we went to Henry's we would make one. That's why it was my favorite place. The food wasn't good and the service was horrible, but we knew that we teachnically weren't wasting good food by making a breakfast castle here instead of at some fancy gourmet buffet restaurant.

"Excuse me, but what do you think you're doing, making a breakfast castle without me?" a low voice said. It was Harry. He was standing at the doorway of the tiny diner, black shades covering his green emerald eyes and a peacost was draped over his chiseled muscles. "Why don't you ever wear a coat like that?" I whispered to Zayn. He blew a puff of smoke in my face, making me cough and gasp and wave my arms around maniacally. "Stop," Zayn said as Harry walked over and sat in the seat next to Zayn. 

"Sorry, Harry," I started, still trying to recover from Zayn's cigarette smoke. "We weren't sure if you wanted to come or not."

"I'm always in the mood for a good breakfast castle," Harry said, giving me a wink. I turned a bright red, and Zayn punched him in the arm forcefully. "What's your problem?" Harry asked Zayn. Zayn laughed and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, setting it on a nearby napkin. "That's gross, Zayn. Throw it away," I commanded. He walked up and put in the ash tray, leaving the whole diner smelling like cigarettes and probably giving everyone in there secondhand smoke. 

Zayn paid the bill and the three of us were on our way back to my apartment. Zayn owned an apartment too, but refused to sleep in it. He kept his clothes there and that was it. I didn't even know if he owned a bed. So Zayn slept at my house. We would go to his apartment once in a while to feed his fish and do some laundry since I didn't own a washer and dryer (I went to the laundromat before I met Zayn). 

"Nice place you got 'er," Harry said, sitting on a bar stool near my counter. "Thanks," I said, cuddling up next to Zayn on the couch. "So Zayn told me about Niall the other day," I said to Harry. Zayn pinched me as Harry took off his coat, revealing a clean white t-shirt. He was wearing Chuck-Taylors and dark jeans. Both him and Zayn had a bad habit of not wearing belts in public, because he didn't have one on, either. "Did he, now?" Harry asked. I nodded and looked at Zayn's taught expression. 

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," Harry said, looking me straight in the eyes. "But it's not such a bad thing you know about it now."

"Except for the fact that he didn't want you to know," Zayn said. He was about to take another cigarette but I threw the pack on the ground, signaling that he already had his berakfast smoke and he had to wait again until lunch. "It's not that, he just didn't want her to..." Harry started saying, then stopped. "Yeah, I guess you're right, Zayn. He didn't want her to know."

I wiggled out of Zayn's grasp uncomfortably, getting up to use the toilet. When I got back, I saw Zayn light another cigarette and put it in his mouth. "Zayn Jawaad Malik, we are going to have a little talk about this later, if you don't mind," I said in my most matter-of-fact tone. Zayn just shrugged his shoulders and sat back comfortably on the couch, watching the smoke float above him. Harry invited me to sit next to him as I opened up a window.

Zayn excused himself to go outside and smoke for a bit. I let him and I was alone with Harry. After a couple awkward minutes, Harry said, "He loves you, you know."

"I know," I said. "He tells me everyday."

Harry shook his head. "Bella. He loves you like he wants to be with you for the rest of his life."

I blink hard and long. Zayn wasn't thinking of proposing to me yet, was he? "I'm not ready to make this sort of commitment yet," I started, closing the window. The cold air was nipping at my skin and I could feel my cheeks turn a light rose color. "And I'm not sure he wants you telling me this," I said.

Harry laughed. "You're wrong," he said, putting his coat and sunglasses back on. "You're too worried about what people think, Bella. You need to worry about yourself and believe what I tell you, because you never know what might happen to you in the future."

"What do you mean?" I asked him as he walkd out the door. But I didn't finish my sentence soon enough to listen to Harry's response.

That night, just as Zayn walked outside to take his midnight cigarette, I stopped him to talk to him about his issue... and what Harry told me.

"Zayn, we need to talk," I said. I followed him outside into the alley next to my apartment building. Zayn looked tired, his eyes drooping and his mouth full of smoke. He blew it out towards me. "You really need to stop doing that," I said.

"Doing what?" Zayn asked. "I'm only doing what I was meant to do."

"Which is what?" I asked him. "Stand here and and get freaking lung cancer?"

He started to walk dangerously close to me, his eyes a dark brown. He put the cigarette in his mouth as he pushed me towards the soggy brick wall. He pinned my arms against the wall as he inhaled another breath of tobacco. He let go of my left arm to take the cigarette out of his mouth and blew the smoke not in my face, but behind him. He let go of me and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, looking angrier than ever. "We're all going to eventually die, Bella," he said, dragging his cigarette in and out of his mouth. 

"Shut up and stop being so depressing," I told him. "I don't even remember what we were talking about anymore."

Zayn threw his cigarette on the ground and pinned me up against the wall again. He blew one last cloud of smoke into my face. "Make me," he said. "Make me shut up."

I try to wiggle away from him and almost make it to the door until he tackles me onto the bed and kisses me uncontrollably.