Hidden Beneath Brown Eyes (A Zayn Malik Fanfiction)

Chapter 68 - Heart to Heart

It was impossible to wipe the smile off my face as I made my way down the hallway towards the guest room. Doniya had been so kind, so apologetic, so sincere. She had eased every fear I'd had about her family over the last five years, and even if the rest of the family felt different towards me than she did, then at least for the moment she made me feel safe.

There may have been some tension between all of us earlier in the morning, but at the moment, I preferred to write it off as nerves getting the better of us. If I was looking at it from an analytical standpoint, there was really nothing that anyone had done that should have made me feel unwanted. In fact, the family had only seemed to be extremely curious about me. I should have been flattered if anything.

Now that I had a chance to look it over, the upstairs was quite large actually. I guess I'd had a sort of tunnel vision when looking at it before, only focusing in on the hallway that I was walking down, but it turned out to be much bigger than I thought.

If you looked to your left at the top of the stairs, there was an entire open area, I'd say the size of my room at home, with nothing but a beautiful glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a darling little wooden bench pressed up against the cream colored wall. To the right of the bench was another hallway, that I assumed lead to the other bedrooms. Part of me was tempted to explore it, but I didn't want to snoop, considering those were probably the family's bedrooms.

As I turned back to the right of the stairs, prepared to go down the hallway towards my room, I was stopped by the sound of footsteps coming up behind me. They weren't heavy or loud, and they actually sounded like the person was trying their hardest not to make a sound, but it was too quiet in the room for me not to hear them.

"Psst. Ada." a familiar voice whispered before I could turn to see who it was.

I was nothing short of surprised when I turned around to see Paola, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, semi-crouched next to the bench. Her long, brown hair was tied in a knot on top of her head, and her usual thick eye-liner was nowhere to be seen. I'd never seen her so, so....natural before. She was always so dressed up, and always so perfect, and I almost didn't recognize her without her signature red lipstick.

I'd always seen Paola as my competition, and in my eyes, she deserved to be the winner. She had always been far more beautiful than me, in every concievable way. She looked like a celebrity, so she deserved nothing less than that. In all honesty, her and Zayn made a beautiful couple. They looked so right for each other, their looks both complementing the other perfectly.

Looking at her always made me feel so insecure, and now was no exception. It angered me that even in her most natural state, she was still more beautiful than me. She still had full lips, she still had her curves, she still had her stunning hazel eyes. Everything that made her beautiful didn't come from the makeup or the clothes; it was just her.

I was in the middle of feeling ragefully jealous when she got up, looking very quickly left and right, before tip-toeing gently over to me. I felt an anger boiling deep within me and an urge to smack her that was completely unjustified, but I held my breath and commanded myself to be civil at the very least.

"What are you doing up here?" Paola whispered, her thick Spanish accent filling my ears.

"I could ask you the same thing." I replied, shortly. There had been a thousand instances today when I had acknowledged, at least to myself, that Paola was here, but never once had I thought about why she hadn't joined us. It wasn't until now, that I was actually seeing her, did I start to question her absence.

She looked at me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion for about half a second, before she looked over the banister quickly and walked over to the hallway. Without thinking, I followed her, which I guessed is what she wanted me to do anyway.