Heartstrings ➳ z.m.

nine - zayn

Chapter Nine – Zayn

            Cold. Zayn feels cold when Skylar picks her head up from his shoulder, and he wants to put it back.

            Because she is warm and nice and she is color while Zayn is just the opposite and cool and grey.

            Something about Skylar’s embrace feels nice to him.

            He chooses not to dwell on why.

            But now Skylar’s running her fingers over his tattoos, and he can’t help but tense because her touch is so light and soft and sweet.

            Zayn can’t remember the last time that he’s been touched so gently.

            He glances at her, as she looks so enchanted, and he lets a small smile slip before realizing what he’s doing. He can’t let Skylar get close. She’s just going to leave him, and he can’t have that.

            He can’t let her in.

            But when he looks at her again, she’s tracing her finger along his ZAP! tattoo and her touch is so light that it feels like little butterfly kisses on his skin.

            And he decides that one day he’s going to tell her all about his love for comic books and exactly why he got that tattoo and in fact, he’s going to tell her about every single one of them. He’s going to explain what MSG means, and all the Arabic, and he’s even going to explain Earl.

            If she’s still here.

            Which she won’t be, he tells himself, and it’s the first thing that he’s told himself in a while, and so he has to listen to it.

            Even though he kind of doesn’t want to.

            Another week. Another 9 days goes by before Skylar returns, because she’s been so caught up in school and work that she has had no time to visit.

            She still keeps in contact with Louis though, and Zayn knows this for the sole fact that the lad won’t shut up about her.

            He goes on and on and on about what Skylar texted him about work, and how ‘nobody will believe’ what Skylar saw a guy wearing in class today. Half of the time Zayn wants to ask Louis if Skylar ever brought him tea simply because he was crying, or if she ever laid her head on his shoulder and watched him draw, and the other half of the time Zayn isn’t listening.

            Without Skylar there, it gets easier and easier for him to fall back into his old self, and by that Saturday, he’s almost back to how he was; brainwashed.

            He’s eating his breakfast, which is really brunch to most people, when there’s a knock on the door.

            Louis’ face lights up, and he looks up from his phone, and he announces that it’s Skylar.

            She blushes and gives the Doncaster boy a hug when he answers.

            Zayn says nothing, but then Skylar’s coming to him too, and she throws herself onto him even though Zayn’s eating, and she’s not supposed to do that when he’s eating.

            He can’t bring himself to mind though, especially when she presses a light kiss in his hair, thinking he wouldn’t notice.

            He did.

            She slides a sketchbook to him then, distracting him from what he thought was a kiss but could very well have not been. She tells him that she noticed that he hadn’t gotten one in a while—that’s because Zayn has been putting detail into his work now, instead of just random pieces—but he says nothing.

            He does give her a grateful look though, because she at least deserves that. She’s the only one that had considered the fact that he may have needed a new book.

            Not even Louis had cared enough to realize.

            Zayn can’t help but resent him for that.

            Skylar sits next to Zayn, and she traces his tattoo again, around the curved edge of the P in ZAP. She tells him that she likes this one, that it’s really, really her favorite, and that she could definitely see it filled in with yellow or red.

            Zayn freezes. Not red, or yellow, or any of those colors. No.

            He could never ink himself with anything other than black and white.

            Skylar feels him pause, even though it was only for a millisecond. She tells him that even though she thought it would look nice with color, it looks just fine now and it’s still her favorite.

            And somehow that makes him relax.

            But then there’s Louis coming over now, and he sends Skylar spiraling into a gooey mush of love, and suddenly her hands aren’t on him anymore, and he hates Louis for that.

            And Skylar is a blushing, fumbling mess beside him, and she doesn’t exactly know what to do when Louis jokingly pokes her in the side, and she squeals, and twists, and suddenly, Zayn’s cereal isn’t that filling to him anymore.

            Now he has a weird feeling in the bottom of his stomach, and he knows exactly what it is but he refuses to acknowledge it, because that’s what makes it real.

            And it can’t be real. He can’t deal with it being real.

            He can’t deal with this insistent tugging on his heartstrings and he can’t deal with the way that his heart speeds up like a little rabbit when Skylar touches his skin, and he definitely can’t deal with the burning electricity that she leaves behind and the absence of her warm.

He already knows what it means, except it can’t mean that, because not only is he not allowing her near him, she fancies Louis and it’s nothing short of obvious.

Zayn finishes his bowl of cereal and puts it in the sink for Liam to wash later.

Louis asks Skylar if she’d like to do something today, and she answers him, telling him that Saturday was one of her few completely free days, and if he didn’t mind, she’d like to watch a movie. At the flat.

And she turns to Zayn and asks him if he wants to watch too.

Except he doesn’t want to watch a movie with them, because he kind of hates Louis right now, and he told himself that he wouldn’t let Skylar near him and obviously he has a hard time controlling that when she’s in the same room.

So he doesn’t answer, and instead pushes past her, heading for his room.

He closes the door before she can say anything, and he locks it, and he grabs his sketchbook like it’s his last lifeline.

And as he’s drawing, he glances at his ZAP! tattoo, so blank and black and white.

And though Zayn really doesn’t like colors, he decides that if he ever was going to fill it in, it wouldn’t be red, or yellow, or anything like that.

It’d be an azure blue.

The color of Skylar’s eyes.

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Sorry for the late update, blame my mom. She wouldn't leave me alone, ugh