faded

66. endless

We walked back into the party hand in hand. All the confidence and sudden openness I had earlier slowly started to disappear with every step I took by his side. As we entered, I noticed many surprised faces. This made me feel better, knowing I wasn't the only one who was essentially blindsided. Except that their surprised stares were followed by sympathetic grimaces. And I knew what everyone was thinking.

How could I be with him?

They all knew.

With every step we took together, I felt him getting further and further away. His hand was cold in mine, my own sweating from nerves and the angst I had been holding in for months.

He found our table. We sat down and I scanned the room looking for Cara and Kristen, but they were busy taking pictures with guests. They looked happy and occasionally I could see Cara wiping tears from her cheeks. She swore she wasn't going to cry, but I could only imagine how she felt. Everything had turned out perfectly and she had married the woman of her dreams. It almost seemed too good to be true, but for some people it was true. And it wasn't too good because they genuinely deserved it.

It felt like time was moving so quickly but every second felt like an eternity. It seemed so long ago that he had just popped back into my life.

I felt so happy for them at first. But the more I watched them together, I realized that I didn't belong here with these people. I loved them but they were not my family. My marriage with Zayn would never make him actually care about me enough to actually be my family.

He had abandoned me like nothing had happened and that's the same fashion in which he had returned. But it felt like he didn't return to me, he returned to his family.

He smiled the kind of fake, forced smile you do when you know a lot of people who don't like you are watching. I knew him. There was something he wasn't telling me and with every anxious glance around the room, I started to feel like maybe I was suddenly an unwanted plus one. It was obvious a lot of guests were surprised to see him, but it started to feel like once again it had become all about him. 

"Zayn, how are you?" Lizzy asked, beaming at her familiar friend.

He stood up to hug her, still on edge and scanning the room immediately after she released him from her tight embrace.

"I'm good, just enjoying the party."

She looked like she expected him to say more, but he just sat down and looked at her as if he wasn't sure why she was still standing there. So she sat down next to him and much to my surprise, and his, she began to ask a lot of questions.

"So what have you been up to? It feels like forever since we last spoke."

She shot me a puzzled glance, almost as if asking me what was going on. Of course Elizabeth could tell something was off. She knew him so much better than I did.

But a lot of people did.

"I've been fine, just working."

Lizzy raised brow, taken back by his answer. "Working? That's interesting. On what?"

Zayn looked at me with a troubling look in his eyes I couldn't understand. Then I realized it was because he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at someone else.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he got up abruptly, almost knocking the chair back behind him. "I need to make a call as well. Lizzy, why don't you tell Ana about the time you traveled to Dubai? I'm sure she'd love that story."

He dipped off before either of us could think of a response. Lizzy looked confused as ever and we couldn't figure out exactly what was going on.

"Well? Aren't you gonna follow him?"