Hurt

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

I put on my headphones and started to fall asleep. Frank Ocean's "American Wedding" rang through my ears, the sweet sound of his voice causing me to become drowsy. I slept until 7:30. Harry was sleeping when I woke up, but next to me, and Zayn was on the floor. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, still a tiny bit tired. But I was awake now, and I was almost positive that I couldn't go back to sleep.

I walked into the bathroom so I could take a shower and found Perrie sleeping in the tub. "What the fuck?" I said. I didn't seem to surprised to see her, since I kind of figured Lionel was going to dump her. She didn't have a place to stay, so she probably asked Zayn if she could stay with us for a bit. He probably happily exclaimed "yes" and didn't even think twice about what I was going to think or say.

"Go away," Perrie grumbled. Her voice sounded broken, almost like she was screaming all night.

"I wanna take a shower," I said, pulling the shower curtains back even farther so she could leave. "Get out."

Perrie sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine," she said.

She stepped out of the bathroom and sat on my unmade bed. I walked over to her again before I got undressed to take my shower. "I mean get out. Of the room."

She gave me a stern look and bit her top lip. "Let's take this slow," she said. "You can't tell me what to do."

Before I let myself get into a full-blown fight with this girl that a barely even knew, I stomped into the bathroom and started to take off my clothes. I turned on the shower and made the water cold. I stepped in without closing the curtains and started to sing. I sang quietly to myself, thinking about what I was going to say to Zayn when he woke up. Maybe I would try to apologize. Maybe I would try to tell him that he could smoke. That he didn't have to try and keep impressing me. I was hard to impress, but Zayn always managed to impress me.

But I knew that he didn't want to hear any of that. He didn't want another apology from me- he already got many of those in the past couple days.

I stepped out of the shower and put on the same clothes I had on. They weren't dirty- I had cleaned them before the party so I could wear them when I got home that night. I put my hair in a wet ponytail and stepped into the room to see Zayn was still sleeping on the floor, but Harry was awake. He was talking on the phone, and Perrie was sitting on the arm chair in the corner of the room, picking at her nails.

I walked over to Zayn and looked at him. His hair was floppy and lifeless, his face surprisingly clean-shaven and his eyelashes were so long that they rested on his cheek.

I sat next to him and started to play with his hair. His mouth pulled into a grin. "Bella," he said. "Whenever you do that, you always wake me up."

His eyes fluttered open.

"Hey Zayn," Perrie said. I didn't even want to look at her. "Hi Perrie," Zayn said back. But his eyes were on me. "Can we talk?" he asked me. I nodded and he took me outside. Last time we had a "talk" was last night, and it didn't really end up well.

"I'm really sorry I kissed Perrie last night," he said.

This seemed a little surreal to me. Almost like he just expected me to tell him it was all going to be okay and we were just going to move on. Me kissing Harry was a mistake, but Zayn kissing Perrie was definitely not. I wanted to tell him so bad that I would just take him back as easy as that and we would be all okay again. But something else told me I couldn't. Zayn wasn't known for being absolutely and completely faithful to all his girlfriends. At least, that's what Harry told me one night back in the summer when Zayn and I started dating.

"He has a girlfriend," Harry said. Zayn had gone to the bathroom, and Harry and I were sitting together on a bench outside of a gas station. We were heading to meet Liam and Louis at for lunch, but Zayn had been sick for a couple days, and he need to use the bathroom because he had a pretty bad stomach ache.

"What?" I said with a surprised face.

"He. Has. A. Girlfriend."

I sat on the wooden bench, not looking at Harry. I could feel him staring at me, waiting for a response. "I don't believe you. Zayn wouldn't cheat on his girlfriend."

"How do you know that?" Harry asked. "You guys have been dating for two weeks. And didn't he show up to your house drunk?"

I nodded wearily. I felt as if I was going to cry. "Why won't he break up with her?"

"We don't know," Harry said. He stuck his hands in his pockets and took out a flask from his back pocket. "Today we are going to confront him about it. We all like you a lot better than the girl he's also seeing."

"What's her name?"

"That's confidential," he said. He took a swig of some kind of alcohol. "We don't want any cat fights, now, do we?" He smiled me and handed me the flask.

"Bella?" Zayn asked me, snapping me out of my thoughts. "I said I was sorry. What else do you need from me?"

"You know that I knew you had a girlfriend when we first started dating, right?"

Zayn answered me immediately. "Bella. That was in the past. Can we please just forget about it?"

"How can I forget?" I said. "I was the 'other girl!'"

Zayn shook his head. "Do I have to apologize for that too?"

"You may have to do a little more than apologize!"

Zayn walked closer to me. We were outside, and it was surprisingly very bright out. I backed away from his oncoming steps until I was up against the wall again. He took my face in his hands and whispered in my ear. "I can do that," he said. He walked away and I chased him before he could go back inside with Perrie. Anyone but Perrie.

"Don't go in there," I said. But I didn't look him in the eyes.

"Why?" Zayn asked. Then he looked me in my green eyes and knew what I was thinking. He smirked. "You're jealous. You don't want me in there with Perrie."

I nodded, still not looking him I the eyes. But he picked my head up and kissed me.

"What was that for?" I asked. He smiled.

"Bella, the reason I do all these things is because I love you. Remember last night when I set all those cigarettes on fire? I wanted to show you that I could quit. I could give up. And look-" he pulled up his shirt- "-I'm wearing a belt for once."

I laughed and hugged him, throwing my arms around his muscular waist. He kissed the top of my head and we got packed the small amount of stuff we had, told Perrie to go home, and we were back on the road again.