Rebuilding Zerrie

That Girl

ZAYN'S P.O.V.

DAY 4 (sigh)

Everybody lies. We often do it to avoid the truth we are ashamed of. Sometimes, we do it to protect others from getting hurt from the harsh reality. Other times, lies are used to get away with something that people wouldn't allow if he had been honest and come clean. But, this girl, she lied so that we can treat her as an equal.

It wasn't surprising to me that she tried to act okay. I knew a girl other than her who hid the truth through a smile. She'd forget about all the problems in the world and smiled just because she wanted to be happy and she wanted other people to be happy as well. She'd light up an entire room just by walking in.

For so long, she had lived like that, trying to hide what was dying inside. So long that when one problem came, she let everything out. Every pain she tried to hide, all the despair that was building up and the agony that was invisibly rotting her gradually.

If it was not obvious, that girl was Perrie.

Gosh, I missed her so much. As I was packing my things from the hotel room, along with the things Perrie left behind, I was thinking of the few days we spent here together. Although it was a limited amount of time, there were still memories that would last a lifetime.

Like when we watched her favorite drama series and I ended up falling asleep on her lap. Another time was when we sang to each other our favorite songs from each other's bands. My favorite, though, was when we stayed up all night in bed, just talking to each other as her head rested on my chest.

As I drove to their hotel, I decided to pick up the girl from her house in Henderson. When I arrived, there were several vans outside of her house, each from different gossip shows. I wondered if she was already getting her interview like the first girl. I wondered how much she was telling them and how much she was betraying us. I wondered how much they paid her to get the word out.

KLOE'S P.O.V.

"Eight hundred dollars," was Lara Spencer's fourth offer. Her first was two hundred but it was going to take way more than eight hundred dollars to cough up whatever they wanted. I wasn't going to disappoint the boys for another time. This time, I had to stick to them no matter how much money they gave me.

I shook my head without a hesitation, but sneezed right after. My body temperature had lowered but I still had colds and a slight fever. The interviewers were in the living room as my family watched. My father sat next to me on the couch, holding my hand and telling me to stay strong and do whatever my gut tells me. As the price increased by the hundreds, my siblings started to cringe.

"I'd do the interview for a thousand!" Summer blurted out after someone offered 1K for something worth more than money. I glared at her and she just shrugged back. I often felt sorry for Summer. She just graduated college as a poetry major and could not find any job in her field. No job means no money. No money means desperate for some cash.

The interviewer sighed as if he was already losing hope. "Miss Sutherland, you're making that awfully hard for us," he admitted to me. "We have crucial deadlines and we do not want to disappoint."

"And neither do I," I said with my head held high, sniffing in the snot a bit. Some of the celebrity news reporters were already starting to gather their equipment until Zayn walked in. They went completely bonkers and crowded over to him. They bombarded him with questions and tried to persuade him to comment about the current situation.

"Zayn, do you have any insights on if you and Miss Edwards will reunite?"

"All we're hearing from Edwards is 'no comment', 'no comment.' Do you have a comment?"

"Is it true that you are paying Sutherland to decline the press for information about the present status?"

Zayn stopped struggling through the small crowd. He wasn't constantly switching his eye contact anymore. He was standing completely still, looking right at me as if I were a treasure chest he'd sailed so long to find. A single nod was all I needed. I stood straight up while looking at Zayn.

I turned my direction towards all the showbiz people. "Thank you for all you generous offers," I told them as quickly and as politely as I could, "But I'm afraid I must stand firm to my first statement of not accepting any money. And I trust my family will not be of use to any of you so you all best be on your way to your boss to tell them that you do not have any confirmations for your leads."

Through the interviewers and cameramen, I made my way to Zayn. I gripped my hand in his and we ran to his car before any of them were able to catch up. Luckily, my body was feeling much better. I wasn't being a burden anymore. He stepped on it and zoomed past the stop sign and speed limit. I was almost positive he was a disturbance to my neighbors who liked it quiet.

We weren't talking but it wasn't silent. Mostly, we were just trying to slow down our heartrates and trying to breathe normally and evenly. When he was finally calm, Zayn finally spoke. "Thank you," he told me, "For not turning your back on us." It was hard for me to concentrate on the awkwardness of his voice when I was looking at him.

His hair, messy but in a way that worked for him. His eyes, so marble brown. His eyelashes, the way they fluttered as he spoke. His lips, when he bites it when he's nervous and licks it when they're dry. I wanted so much to feel my lips on his one more time. It wouldn't be the kind of kiss wherein you wanted to see if there would be spark or not. It would be the kind of spark wherein you wanted to kiss him so badly.