A race to your heart (Zarry AU)

21.- Three is a crowd 🏁

Zayn's POV

My life has felt like an endless circuit lately, a relentless cycle of highs and lows. Nights were sleepless full of anxiety, tossing and turning just staring at the ceiling of my hotel room. The anxiety has crept into my every waking moment, making it hard to breathe sometimes, as if I'm constantly on the edge of a crash.

I never thought it would come to this with him. When we broke up, he left me bereft and reeling. The thought of him with someone else, laughing, touching, being touched, was unbearable. I was lost, spiraling down a pit of despair and self-doubt and there were nights when I considered ending it all just to stop the pain.

But Nicky saved me, she found me in a state where I never wanted anyone to see me. She didn't need me to explain, she just held me when I was breaking down, and for that, I'll always be grateful. In that dark time, she became more than just a PR partner; she became a lifeline. She saw me at my lowest and didn't walk away, and that's something I couldn't ignore.

Maybe it was the desperation to find stability, or maybe it was the fear of being alone, but I began to see Nicky as a real partner, someone who could give me the normalcy I craved.

The first few weeks were hell. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and Nicky was there, holding me together. And in that month, I started to see that maybe she loved me in a way that was different from Harry—more mature, more stable. It was calm, steady, predictable.

She suggested I see a therapist, and though I've always been skeptical of that kind of thing, I went. I needed to talk about him with someone. And well, the therapist made me realize we had an unhealthy relationship, that the love we had was more like an addiction, something that consumed us rather than lifted us.

"Can you share me?" I asked him earlier, my voice barely above a whisper, but the weight of those words was enough to bring the room to a standstill.

Silence.

"Share you?" he echoed disbelief and hurt coloring his words. I tried to justify it to him, to myself.

"Babe, I want you in my life, but I just can't end things with her now. Can we... find a way to make this work?" My words felt hollow, even as I said them. I knew what I was asking was impossible, unfair, and selfish. The fear of that emptiness, that loneliness, was too much to face than being a hypocrite and a cheater.

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the weight of everything I wasn't saying. How do you tell someone you love that you need them, but you have no balls to let go of the other life you've built? It felt like I was asking him to accept only part of me, the part that's chaotic and unpredictable, while the rest of me stayed hidden away, trying to live a life of stability with someone else.

He finally spoke, and his voice was filled with resignation.

"I... I heard a little love is better than none and, part of you is better than not having you at all. I don't want to lose you," he said lowly.

His words broke something inside me. I could see the tears welling up in his eyes, and it was like looking at a mirror of my pain.

"I don't want to lose you either. I just got you back," I said, my voice thick with emotion, feeling the deep-seated guilt of what I was asking of him.

"Is she more important than me?" He said.

"No... that's not it," I replied quickly, my heart pounding in my chest. But I could see the doubt in his eyes, the way his mind was racing to piece together what I wasn't saying.

When I admitted to him that I had asked Nicky to marry me, the look on his face was one of pure shock.

"What? Why?" he finally managed to ask, his voice filled with disbelief. "And you didn't think to mention this earlier?"