My Beautiful King

Chapter Twenty Part 2

Miss Brookes took me to a classroom round the back of the school. I was sit there alone for a few minutes to "cool off" before she came to grill me for answers. As if that was going to happen. I snuck out the classroom within the first three minutes.

Miss Brookes was such a ditz.

I knew exactly where Zayn was going, he was off to the gap between the Art Department building and the small black painted hut for a smoke. By the time I'd hurried over, he was still walking there. I jumped up behind him and grabbed his arm.

"Fuck!"

"Zayn, it's just me, Ash." I grinned. "Haha, didn't mean to scare you-"

"Why are you so fucking thick?" He groaned. "When I told you to piss off, I meant it. Why do you feel the need to stalk me?"

My heart felt like it was being crushed slowly. "I'm not stalking you!" I whispered. "I'm your girlfriend and I-"

"You're not my girlfriend."

I felt winded. "Wh-what? W-what d-do you mean; I'm not your girlfriend! Of course I am!"

"No." He said simply. "You're not. And I'll definitely never get back with you after that stunt you pulled."

"Stunt?" I hissed. "What is this fucking stunt that people are talking about?" Suddenly, it dawned on me. "Is it because I couldn't swim?"

"You," Zayn explained as if I was an imbecile. "Deliberately jumped in the lake even though you knew you couldn't swim. You did it because you knew our relationship was failing and that I had eyes for Becca. So you tried to drown. It was attention-seeking, sick and twisted."

I was horrified. "What? Eyes for Becca? I didn't know... You don't have eyes for Becca; you have eyes for me, me and only me! And I didn't 'pull a stunt', that's not what happened!"

"What happened then?" He whispered his face only an inch away from mine.

"I can't swim because I'm scared." I lowered my head, ashamed. "I-I have a fear of water and-"

Zayn took a couple steps away from me while snorting. "You have a fear of water?"

"Yes."

"Bullshit!" He laughed openly. "You seem to drink water just fine."

"I'm not scared of drinking water" I tried to explain. "I'm just scared of like loads of it."

His voice got somewhat softer. "And you didn't tell me this because?"

I stayed silent for a while. "Because I knew you'd laugh at me."

Zayn said nothing. He simply folded his arms over his chest and stared at me with his penetrating hazel-green eyes. "Bullshit." He announced. "Complete and utter bullshit. You're an attention-seeking little bitch, just admit it."

I struggled to find the right words to say. "W-What?"

"Are you playing dumb or are you really that stupid? You heard exactly what I said."

I felt my face flush with defiant embarrassment. "I'm not attention-seeking!" I squeaked. "I-I can't believe you'd say that, I... I don't understand." My eyes began to fill up with tears. "Why are you going around telling people you broke up with me? You didn't do anything of the sort; you told me that I was beautiful. Beautiful, Zayn. Why are you acting like you don't love me?"

Zayn snorted again. "I don't love you."

"Don't say that!" I screeched, beating his chest with my fist repeatedly. The tears began to stream down my face. "Don't fucking say that, you do love me, I know you do-"

"I don't."

"Shut up!" I raised my hand with intention to hit him again, but he gripped my wrist and glared at me, anger in his eyes.

"I don't, okay?" He began to shake me. "I never fucking loved you, Ashley; I just said that to keep you running back to me like a stupid infatuated lovesick puppy. It was torture staying with you."

My stomach began to churn. "I feel sick," I whimpered. "I feel sick, stop it, this isn't funny."

"Does it look like I'm joking?" His chiseled face was serious with malice. I shook my head pathetically. "Exactly."

"Then why were you with me?" I hiccupped hysterically. "Why 'torture' yourself, huh?"

Zayn looked at me and smiled a sickening smile. "I just wanted to see what it'd be like to fuck a complete loser. I wanted to see if the sex was any good." I cupped my hands over my ears and shook my head manically. He simply seized my hands and lowered them to my waist so that I could hear everything he had to say. "But I couldn't get with you if no one knew who you were, that'd have no impact. So I moulded you into a new image."

"But w-wouldn't that contradict your whole genius plan?" I spoke quietly to stop myself from throwing up all over my patent shoes. "You moulded me into a new image that stopped me from being a complete loser."

"That's the thing about you, Ashley." Zayn continued to speak, unaffected by my loud sobbing. "No matter how much I shaped you, you were still a loser. It's like clay; you can mould it into a life-size model of the Statue of Liberty if you wanted to. But it wouldn't change into iron and copper; it'd still be clay."

He let go of my hands and stepped back to glare at me. It didn't feel real, I didn't feel real. How could we go from the world's most romantic teenage couple to a complete apocalypse of our relationship? His orbs were emitting stony hatred; his whole body was radiating a dark aura. I couldn't take Zayn hating me, I couldn't take losing my first love. It would mean relinquishing everything I had gained over the past couple months. There was no way I was going back to being insignificant and stupid.

"T-Take it, back." I blubbered as I tried to reach for the cloth of his jersey. "T-Take it back and I'll take you b-back. We can pretend this never happened, w-we can... We can..."

Zayn shoved me off and looked at me disgustedly. "You're so fucking pathetic. I don't want to be anywhere near you. I'm done playing with you, Ashley, you weren't even that great. I'm Becca's boyfriend, alright?"

"No, not her, Zayn, please-"

"Oh, shut up!" He yelled, causing me to flinch. "Don't think that you can fucking control me."

"Zayn, don't be like this, please, we can talk this out, I swear we can." I sobbed. "Zayn, you're everything, you're my everything, we haven't been together long enough! I love you."

Zayn simply held out his hand. "Give me your phone, Ashley."

I wiped my dripping nose with the end of my cardigan sleeve. "W-why? And call me Ash, Zayn, please-"

"Just give me the phone so I can make something clear."

Stupidly, I handed over the phone to him. He didn't even need to think to work out my password; it was so obvious that it was going to be 'zaynmalik'.

"What are you doing?" I croaked.

"I'm deleting my phone number-"

"Zayn, no!" I screeched, scrabbling for my Blackberry.

"-and I'm deleting myself off your BBM contacts too." He held the mobile in the air above my head. "I don't want you ever contacting me again, okay? Don't even talk to me during school."

"Zayn, don't be like this, please! Don't break up with me, oh God; if you have to we can at least stay friends. Can you at least stay as my friend?"

Zayn looked up at me and said nothing. He then chucked my phone for me to catch, which I did by fluke, and said:

"I'd really rather not."