For Lovers Only - [A Zarry Stylik]©️

II-EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL

LONG BEFORE THE HEARING

L,

My eyes were adjusting to the natural sunlight coming in from the window. I blinked once, twice, until my brain understood I was looking at the bookshelf in his office. Fuck. Another night working late.

I sat back on the chair, looking around my office. I had decorated it myself, so it reflected who I was: clean, sober, and modern. I spent most of my time here, working on the business so I needed it to be perfect. For a moment, I didn't recall coming home. I didn't even remember coming to the office. I was so absorbed by everything that most things flew past me.

Fuck.

I promised I would stop doing this - bringing work home wasn't healthy. I could've finished this work at the office, but there were too many distractions and my attention kept getting dragged to management issues: "Liam, we need this"; " Liam, remember this topic;" "Liam, we have a call in a moment." Too much information and noise. Working at home was quieter, I could focus and could get more things done. Of course, it was not ideal.

After centring myself, I remembered arriving soon after dinner time, saying I'd be out in a minute and locking myself in the office. Terrible habits. I noticed the blanket over my shoulders and felt worse. Zayn had covered me, so I wouldn't be cold and turned the light off. It would've been a kind gesture, at its core it was, but I knew that behind it was resignation and frustration.

Officially, we were married for four years. Unofficially our story went back to when he was a teen in school. It was a beautiful story. A simple story. Zayn occupied my mind and soul from the moment I understood what it was like to be loved and adored.

It is said that the odd numbers in a relationship were a symbol of crisis: three years, five years, seven years...I'm not sure any of those had any depth of truth, but the four-year mark was a great candidate to destroy all those rumours.

For a while now, I have been feeling him moving away from me, slowly. It had happened once in the past, a few years ago - two years. He moved away from me, and I lost him for a month. Now, it was happening again. Slipping through me like a ghost.

I held the blanket between my fingers. This gesture was mechanic, a duty, not out of love - I sensed it. Everything was mechanic now. Lacked the sparkle it had in the beginning, and I couldn't figure out why. It drove me anxious, and it created a path for my darkness to flow freely. I was going mad. Afraid. Zayn was my everything. The anchor that held me to sanity and, without him, I was lost. Without him to steady me, my anger took the best of me, and my destruction was nuclear.

We dated in school, on and off, full of teenage angst and drama.

We separated before university due to logistics - we chose different career paths, and that distance destroyed me. To a point where I have no idea how I finished University or what happened throughout. I was navigating through the world without logic. Blowing in the wind like a lost leaf without him. I sank so fast and so deep.

Who knew a first love could ache like this? My darkest moments were without him beside me. I found solace in all things bad: alcohol, sex, drugs, fights, and excess. Anything to fight the anxiety of his absence. The thought of him away from me, loving someone else or being loved by any other, broke me. I walked the fine line between desperation and insane love that would take me to do dangerous things.

One afternoon, he found me. The look of despair in his eyes told me he cared. Showed me the love was still there, numb, but. I held on to that with all my might. In the end, he chose me.

I made him choose me.

I couldn't let him go. I knew he wanted to fix me or save me. I took that as my trump card. We reconnected. We loved each other.