Drown [z.m.]

8.

The only other funeral Patricia Malik has been to was that of her own husband. She is not prepared to attend one for her son.

All she remembers is blurry vision and an inconsolable heart. She feels selfish for crying, selfish for hurting. She, after all, was left behind, while her husband was not.

So why is her heart trying to break through her ribcage and leave her empty inside?

She's dressed in black, from head to toe. She clutches Zayn's hand with her own, and Charlotte's with her other.

He was only seven, and she was only ten. They didn't deserve it, they really didn't.

He pulled at his dark black tie, scrunching up his face. "Mum, s'too tight," he whispers, tugging on her hand. "Can I take it off?"

She looks down at her son, and tears well up in her eyes when she sees his vexed expression.

Angry at himself, at her, at his own father. For leaving them behind.

"Can I?" he asks again, and she shakes her head, because she knows it's not the tie that's hurting him.

He's being suffocated by his own grief.

"This is stupid!" Zayn says, and Charlotte now looks over and frowns at him.

"It's not stupid, you're an idiot. It's like saying goodbye, Zayn," she mumbles, and Patricia sometimes wishes she wasn't so mature, because it just hurts her some more.

"We'll do this together, Zaynie," Patricia whispers, bending down the slightest bit so she can hold his gaze.

But Zayn looks away.

Because he doesn't love me as much as his father, Patricia thinks.

Because I need to hide my tears, Zayn thinks.

"Dad's stupid, you're stupid Lottie!" Zayn goes on, oblivious to the silencing stares being shot at him by the other mourning family members gathered around his father's casket. "Why'd he have to go? If he loves us so much, why'd he go?" the grief-stricken boy inquires, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

Charlotte goes over to try and take his hand, but he pulls it away.

"No! I want to know! Where did he go? Why?"

Zayn is full on crying now, and he hates it, because he looks like a snivelling little child, but he's forgetting that's all he really is.

"Why did he go, mum? Is it my fault?"

There's no response. Just silence, except for his own uneven breaths and sniffling.

"He left us behind!" Zayn yells, and his nose is running and his eyes are so so wet, but he won't stop. "Why?"

Unfortunately, death does not answer what's and why's and how's.

It just is.

But Zayn is now sobbing, and he pulls himself out of his mother's grip, running to the massive doors of the funeral hall and running outside as fast and as far as he can.

And as he runs, feeling the rush of wind cool his teary cheeks, the little boy realizes something.

He may never know what actually lies beyond, but he does know that, sometimes, to love means to let go.

He will think of that day one autumn morning, when the last traces of life escape his body and when he is ending. Zayn Malik will remember that letting go is not necessarily a bad thing. And then he will inhale deeply and let the water fill his empty insides and allow him to disappear from a world he wants to love so desperately.

//

1.7 k freaking heck guys wow :o x

ilysm :D and stick around bc now the next chapters tell you more about zayn and answers all the why why why questions c:

thank you so so so so much for reading!