In This World (Harry Styles)

3

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

I swore that I'd become a better man for you and I tried

I tried to change my ways and walk the line you follow

I bore a flame that burned a thousand suns for you but it died

I told you I could never love somebody else but I lied

I Lied – Lord Huron

Five Months Later

September 2020

New Hope, Pennsylvania

ZAYN

What...had I done? I hyperventilated, flinching awake. I shot up from the recliner in the bedroom where I'd been dozing, then darted down the hall and out the front door like a fire had been lit under my ass. I hoped I hadn't startled them awake too. That fucking dream was horrendous. The worst one yet. Him...always him lately. This time drowning after a swan dive off a cliff in Big Sur in the dead of night. He wouldn't have been heard, and thus, never found. Since Malibu, there had been an abundance of variations in which his demise had presented itself to me, each more darkly illustrative than the last. Stalking my thoughts the moment I closed my eyes. Fuck, I just needed a bit of untainted air. The fumes in this place were killing me. Everything smelled like G. Horrifyingly so, like she'd been disemboweled and sprayed everywhere. The walls, the floors, the sheets. The pool where she'd given birth, which still sat in the center of the living room waiting to be drained by professionals the following morning.

And it had been cooked because it was unseasonably warm in PA. Reminiscent of Indian summer. The central air was out of commission. It worked whenever it wanted, and on the one occasion it would've been of critical importance, it had predictably crapped out on us. No matter; I was positive Yolanda would've found some way to complain about its use during the birth anyway. A birth I hadn't been comfortable with taking place at home anyway, overseen by some witchy lesbian midwife who shot way too many snide remarks my way whenever I wasn't running around like a chicken with my head cut off, waiting on all the women hand and foot, and kissing G's ass.

The cloud-cover was breathtaking today. Enormous white banks surrounding the property for miles, some filled with a fiery aura whenever the sun slipped behind them in passing. Just enough clear skies to bathe the property in golden rays as far as the eye could see. The clean, late summer air filled my lungs, its heated caress placing me in the mind of Italy, 2018. When I'd gingerly entered his suite in the treatment facility, only to find he was in the toilet. Terrible timing, as usual.

The whole room smelled like chamomile and lavender. His things were neatly set about. I'd picked up a cardigan from the sofa and inhaled his wanning cologne and natural fragrances before approaching the bathroom. The door slammed shut. I didn't know what would await me behind it. Panic, fury, repulsion, hatred? Or a whimpering, sobbing mess like the one I'd left behind in LA after the failed proposal. Even worse, a nutcase. That place was a hop, skip and a jump away from the looney bin. That day, I feared he was already over the cuckoo's nest and it was far too late to save him.

After wandering the lawns a bit, my white shoes lost beyond the green, and at times amid the chest-high yellow reeds, I sat on the front porch and lit a Marlboro, letting the nicotine coat my lungs before carefully expelling it. Faint hints of fertilizer reached me from afar. They were treating a neighboring farm. Dusk had settled around the cottage in slate tones. A calm had overcome the property, a touch different than the night before and morning too, when everyone was caught in an uproar once her water had broken. T and Yolanda barking orders nonstop. G screaming in agony like we were butchering her. A few too many of her friends calling from New York and asking a thousand and one questions. She'd been fielding calls for hours. Once I saw it was bothering her, I'd taken her phone and hid it until the whole ordeal was over.