Drown [z.m.]

15.

At precisely 5:32 p.m., one bitter November evening on Monday, Zayn Malik interpreted that he had undeniably ruined Liam's Payne life within the six and a half years they'd known each other.

It was just him and Harry wrapped in coats and scarves, sitting on the steps below Liam's apartment complex. Liam had left, claiming, 'I've got something to do, wait here.' So they did.

"What's he got to do right now?" Harry asks, his words taking on a slightly weary cadence. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and he makes a show of shuddering to prove it to Zayn.

"It's kind of obvious," Zayn answered him, licking his very-dry lips and then proceeding to rub his very-cold hands together. "He's getting his weekly supply."

Harry's eyes go a little wide, and his heartbeat seems to pick up. "Oh. Oh. The drugs, of course."

Zayn looks out into the distance. It's not a very nice area, where Liam lives. It's the haunt of drunkards and drug-dealers, and almost every building has dark, greasy windows and faded, washed away paint. They show years and years of wear, from rain and snow and sunshine, until the entire complex just looks like it's the epitome of gloom.

Especially on that bitter November evening, when two cold boys sit rubbing together their hands and trying, but failing, to warm up despite the biting cold.

Zayn feels a slight prod on his thigh, and he looks down to find he's partly sitting on a notebook. It's Liam's notebook, the black leather one he seems to carry everywhere. It's dusty from years of use, but it just screams Liam Liam Liam, because Zayn can't fathom a single instance where he hadn't seen Liam with it.

Liam, Liam, Liam.

He's never once wondered what Liam wrote in there. He claimed it was 'poems and stuff' but Zayn's never actually read them. Or thought to read them.

"Hey, Harold," he says, glancing to his side to look at his Harry, who's curled in on himself. "Look."

Harry straightens up with some discernible difficulty, and his eyes settle on the Liam's notebook. "L- Lovely," he murmurs noncommittally, blowing into his hands. "What?"

"Don't you want to know what he's written inside?"

And Harry knows it's a bad idea, but he also knows that Zayn doesn't care much for what other people think, especially when it involves moral values. So he shrugs his shoulders.

Zayn takes it as a sign to open the book--

And then he's flipping the pages, thumbing through them, running his hands over them, turning the book upside-down.

Because there is not a single word in Liam's notebook.

There's just scribbles and more scribbles, elongated lines and more scribbles.

It's all meaningless and unintelligible, like Liam has grown to become.

"Oh my-" Harry's eyes are wide, and he's leaning close enough so Zayn feels his warm breath stir the hairs on the back of his neck. "No words? What the hell?"

But that evening in November and for a long while to come, the two boys never realized that Liam was afraid of words, their power and what they did to you. They changed you, they shaped you, they patched you up and they tore you apart.

Footsteps and a familiar whiff of cocaine cause Zayn and Harry to look up and find Liam staring at them.

He doesn't look ashamed. Or upset, for that matter. He's just empty and devoid of all emotions.

"The words." His voice shakes. "The words stopped making sense a long time ago. I tried, I did. I caged them in my mind until they withered there. I wish they didn't exist, words. I wish they didn't exist, because then I would belong. But now I don't."

There's no more conversation between the three boys, just heavy silence and uneven breathing.

What Harry and Zayn missed was that, the same night, Liam grabbed all the books he owned and threw them into his fireplace. He watched the flames lick and eat up every printed letter, and it felt good, so so good.

Although of course, he kept the black leather notebook by his bedside, hoping the words would find their way back to him some day.

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guess who has a physics exam tomorrow and is rebelliously updating (,:

i'm so tired and done rn ugh 

but what do y'all think of liam and zayn's relationship now? :o <3 xx :)