Malefactor [H.S.]

15

I've barely been able to focus all day, the only thought on my mind being the meeting Harry and I are having with Colin.

Meeting. What an odd way to describe it. I have meetings with my advisor at school to help me figure out what to do after graduating from the community college. I attend staff meetings that Zayn occasionally holds for the store. Those are meetings. This unknown thing that Harry and I are walking into later tonight? I don't know what it would be classified as, but it sure as hell isn't a meeting.

I have a tendency to be slightly scattered-brain every now and then, but it's never to this extent. I often fall victim to my obsessive thoughts and can't push them out of my head, hyper-fixating on them until they're resolved. Clearly. Today's thoughts have gotten so bad that my coworker Eric asked if I was alright multiple times throughout the shift, noticing how uncharacteristically spacey I've been. I had no choice but to shrug him off, insisting that I was fine. He eventually left it alone but I still caught him looking at me when he thought I couldn't see.

It only got worse when Zayn showed up at the store to bring me out to dinner like he promised. We ended up at some fancy restaurant with dim lighting and a menu filled with prices that made my eyes bulge out of my head. I was thankful I woke up early this morning and forced Niall to drive me to different stores until I had a presentable enough outfit, ignoring his tired pleas to have me wear some of his clothes and say it was good enough. I'm sure if I showed up at an expensive restaurant in a pair of black men's dress pants and a man's fitted t-shirt, they would never have let Zayn and me in—which, of course, would just open up a whole can other of worms as to why I'm dressed that way.

Even as Zayn and I sit in his car now in traffic on the way back to his building, I can hardly focus on what he's saying. My right leg bounces up and down rhythmically, my body's own way of attempting to calm me down. Sitting still makes me anxious and I need to constantly be moving in some way when these feelings begin to take over. Like right now.

"Camden," Zayn says, breaking me away from my internal monologue. My head shoots over in his direction, the street lights and car head beams illuminating his features. We were at the restaurant for almost two hours so it's past eight o'clock now, meaning it's pretty much entirely dark outside.

"Hm?" I hum, my fingernails picking at the skin on my bottom lip. His eyes trail down to the bad habit, a soft sigh leaving his now-parted lips.

"What's wrong?" he asks, the hand that's been resting on the center console moving to my knee. He squeezes my skin gently through my sheer black tights before placing his hand back on the console.

"Nothing's wrong; what do you mean?" I ask, even though it's pretty obvious that something's up with me. I can't exactly tell him the truth about it, though, so it's better to act oblivious to it all.

He shrugs, inching forward with the car ahead of us. We're almost back at his building, the doorman and valet standing under the awning visible from where we are. So close, yet separated by traffic at a standstill and a single red traffic light.

"You just seem... out of it," he admits. He scratches his chin nervously, eyes flickering over to my face before darting back to the road the second we make eye contact. "Eric and I were talking when I came in while you were getting your stuff out of the back room and he said you were out of it at work, too."

I internally groan, wanting so badly to punch Eric right in the face. Sure, he doesn't know why telling Zayn about that is so bad for me, but even if it wasn't, it's still obnoxious for him to do. He and I don't really know each other that well since he's only worked at Luminary for a few months and I'm almost always scheduled with Niall and sometimes Zayn.