Shudder

17. Thick Skin

Song for Chapter: Elastic Heart- Sia

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ZAYNS POV

She lays on the hospital bed her small hands draped across her chest that rises and falls signaling that her little heart is beating.
She's been asleep for 3 hours after the ambulance came, beckoning Carly and her both side by side as they drove off. Harry and I road behind them, silence, the only thing heard on the ride there.

I stand here, my hands in my pockets, my eyes burred in her skin waiting for her to take me back, begging her to take me instead of him.
How can you want something so much even though you barely know what that something is? How can you describe the burning in your throat every time you look at her sleeping body? I can't love her yet, I won't let myself. It's been a week and a bit and simply falling in love this early is irrational; I know it is but how can I stop the desire to fix every single part of her. Every stitch, every burn, every scrape. I'll fix her up and I'll make her whole again before Harry can even think of fixing himself. And she'll pick me because I am the stable one. I'm the one that can support her forever. Maybe even love her forever.

I step forward, the words already spilling from my mouth as I hold her cold hand in mine, "I guess I'm doing this again hmm? Speaking to you in your sleep so I don't have to say it to your face. I'm a coward for it, but I know if I told you all of this while you were conscience I would probably cry, and you'd probably give me an answer I don't want to hear."

JESSIES POV

I'm awoken by Zayn's voice his slick raw accent pounding through my already pounding skull.
He's talking about how he could never say what he is about to say when I'm awake and how he's a coward so instead of waking up I keep my eyes shut making sure my breathes stay even and steady as the back of his thumb rubs circles to my temple, and his other to the back of my cold ones.

"Her name is Carly, and we dated for 1 year. The longest relationship I've ever had and it was amazingly horrible. She would come home every night at 3 in the morning telling me excuses that I would make myself believe because I loved her. I loved all of her, her hair, her eyes, her skin, her lips, her smile. I thought she was mine, I thought I'd graduate school and become a therapist, and we'd get a big house, married with two kids, because I loved her. It was the kind of love that made your knees weak and your head spin. But it wasn't real for her though, I was just another boy to screw around with. Sleeping with men behind my back and coming home to fuck me too. So maybe when she came back the flicker was still there because my scars she had torn haven't quite healed and maybe when she asked for one last kiss I wanted one more, but what does that really mean? She was my first love, and my first terrible heart break and when she left me with a note saying 'Keep the apartment. I'm sorry." My heart combusted into tiny pieces. It hurt so bad Jessie. And it took me 6 months to be okay again and another 2 to be fine."

My eyes are shut as his words sting into my chest making it harder for me not squeeze his hand, or let a tear dip down my cheek.

"I'm going to make you fine you know? I've said this already to you but I'm going to making you so happy if you let me. I'm going to get an internship after graduation, then a full time job at a clinic. We are going to buy a house, and you're going to decorate it the way you want. I'm going to come home and help you make dinner and we're going to watch family channel with our kids. You have to trust me on this, because if you let me I can help you, I know I can. All the pain you feel from things you're not telling me are going to go away when you realize you love me and mine will follow yours. So please Jessie. Pick me. Pick the person that's going to love you the way Carly never should be, because I'm afraid that if you don't I'll realize that I'd love you a lot sooner than I care to admit."