Zayn's POV- One Year Later
The events of the past year have been, well, fun. Spending a lot of time with my family, attending normal school functions for my sisters, just being with them makes me feel better about missing so much of their lives. I loved touring and meeting all these crazy fun people but it's exhausting. When One Direction split up, I was okay with it. I wanted to slow down. Move on.
But once it ended I didn't know what to do.
Perrie and I had married just two months after the split. I thought I was ready for that part of my life. I couldn't wait to jump from one thing to the next. But I didn't expect marriage to be so difficult. It wasn't a normal marriage. I was Zayn Malik of One Direction, she's Perrie Edwards of Little Mix. And her career skyrocketed. I was selfish. I was had assumed that we would lead a quiet life together. But our wedding was splashed all over the front pages, our life together started out way different than anyone could have ever expected.
I was still processing the break up of the band. I was prepared for it but I wasn't at all. It's like everything suddenly stopped. The writing sessions, the recording, the press conferences, the talk shows, the tours. Just all done with in the blink of an eye.
And then Little Mix blew up. Like One Direction did so many years ago. I never realized what it was like to be on the other side of things. To be the person that sits at home and waits for the other one to come home at night. I was selfish, Perrie had never asked me to give up anything when I was gone so much but that's all I wanted from her. I was ready for that normal life, she was ready for international stardom. Looking back I couldn't blame her.
Our marriage lasted fifteen months. Nine of those months she spent on tour. Whenever she called I'll admit I was bitter. I could have joined her whenever I wanted to but I just didn't feel up to it. Things didn't work like they usually did. I was the one used to being busy.
She didn't even show up to our final divorce hearing. We didn't have children, no one cheated, we had a prenuptial agreement so everything just went back to the way things were before. Except I had an ex-wife now, not an ex-girlfriend. Such an odd term, ex- wife. I didn't like it but that's how life was now.
When I came to New York last year I was still reeling with the divorce, even though we had divorced in March and by the time I made it to NYC it was already August. I don't know what I did in those months between. I had finally quit smoking, I'd been trying for years and one day I just didn't reach for my pack as soon as I got up. As the weeks grew longer my need for a cigarette just faded. I was finally free of it.
I was free from everything. One Direction, Perrie, smoking. Yet I felt lost still. I thought New York would help me, and it did for a little bit, gave me some hope when I saw Lucia on the train that maybe, someday a beautiful girl like that could fall for me. But she had already fallen for someone else. Salvatore. Someone I didn't even know but saying his name made my mouth taste terrible, like I had just drank sour milk.
To be creepy, I spent the last year making up ideas about her. That she was a librarian, she sat in the quiet and read books all day. She enjoyed afternoon tea, could speak French, she loved dogs, and spent many nights attempting to write a novel. Sometimes I would dream of her. We would take picnics in the park, she would laugh at my lame attempts to joke, we would watch the clouds together like Ellie and Carl from Up. But I have lost Lucia to the city.
I was back in New York, it's July so the weather is quite hot. I've never been one to wear shorts, my legs slightly resemble chicken legs. But it's so hot here, I must wear them. Black has always been my go to color so my shirt slightly resembles that of a homeless man, shirts with holes in it. It's one of my favorites so it's quite worn.
