Where Is My Mind (Larry/Ziam AU)

04.

CHAPTER 04.

 

For the next three days, Zayn stays shut in his room. His phone remains turned off, and he doesn’t even email his lecturers or classmates for the notes he is missing. At first he  expects Louis might come looking for him at some stage, but Zayn doesn’t realise that Louis is too busy caught up with reading, school work, and helping Liam move in to notice his friend’s absence all that much. Louis just assumes that Zayn is sick and that if he hasn’t let Louis know then maybe it’s better not to disturb him.

He picks up his phone and contemplates turning it on for a moment, but puts it back down again a few seconds later. If anyone wants him, they'll come and get him. He internally groans as he hears the door open and the obnoxious laugh of one of his roommates fills the air. Zayn flips over onto his stomach, lying with his face squished into the pillow so he doesn’t have to look at either of the people who have entered the room.

“Still there, ya lazy arse?” his roommate sneers.

Zayn briefly takes a moment and appreciates how much tone can change the meaning of words. If his roommate had said that with a slight laugh (much the way Louis usually did when calling Zayn lazy), then Zayn may have peaked out and grinned, knowing that it was all good humored, but with the sneer in the words, all Zayn does is raise his hand and flip his roommate off.

“Mature,” someone else mutters. Zayn assumes it’s whoever made his roommate laugh before.

A very large part of Zayn wants to get up and leave now that he is no longer alone, but the strong-willed part forces him to remain still; he’s too scared that if he goes out, he’ll run into Liam and he can’t take that chance right now.

 

~

 

“Louis!” Josh shouts at Louis when he drops a heavy box on Josh’s foot.

Louis shrugs, “Sorry.”

“That’s the last one.” Liam points out, trying to break up the bickering before it starts.

Louis takes that as permission to stop helping and plops himself down in front of his laptop. Josh rolls his eyes at this and bites back a snarky remark. Liam ignores them both and pulls open the draws that are beneath his bed and begins to pile his things in. He’s been putting off bringing the last of his things because that makes it all official. Now, everything he owns is either here or back at his parents’ house.  

Josh leaves for a class a few minutes later and Louis is already absorbed in his story again. Liam has a jumper in one hand, which he is halfway putting in the storage drawer, but his action pauses when he hears Louis’ phone go off, and the sound is followed by a thought that now has him frowning at his duvet. Liam wonders if it might be Zayn messaging Louis. The past three days Liam has been trying to keep busy by distracting himself as best he can, but his mind keeps straying back to that afternoon with Zayn, to the words written in the sky, and to the way he simply walked away.

Once he left, Liam had felt awfully guilty. He knows it was a dick move to give no response to Zayn, and even though he has imagined many times how it might have made Zayn feel, he has no way to know for sure. It wasn’t as if the words Zayn had spelled out for him were meaningless or empty, so Liam knows that there is a reason Zayn hasn’t been around here since then - and that reason is because Liam hurt him. Another emotion mixes with Liam’s guilt and it takes a moment for him to recognise it. He misses Zayn - he misses the sound of his laugh and his teasing manner. An involuntary sigh passes between Liam’s lips as he lets his mind wander back to that afternoon and what might have happened if he had done things differently.