My Beautiful King

Chapter Thirty Four Part 1

Was I dreaming?

Zayn stared up at me, eyes vacant yet pained. I stumbled to my feet, hoping to leave, praying that he hadn't recognised me. His slumberous demeanour gave me enough time to register his own face, a sight different to when I had left.

His hair was longer. He had a piercing in his left earlobe now and a tender-looking mauve bruise by his right eye. Paired with a running red cut that trailed from his ear downwards. I winced. Somehow, he was still impeccably beautiful.

There was no way I could get wrapped up in his confusion again, there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do...

"A... Ashley?" His voice croaked as he suddenly focused onto my face. I dabbed against my cheeks and felt wet. Was I crying again? Fuck! Zayn just had to say my name once and then I instantly spouted waterworks.

How had he followed me all the way to London?!

Without warning, Zayn rolled over partially and started to cough up vomit and blood. I nearly screamed again. Horrified, I couldn't help but take a few hurried steps away. At a more meticulous, yet further away, inspection, I could see dried smatters of the substance on his white t-shirt.

This obviously wasn't the first time he'd roughly emptied his stomach like that.

The sounds of retching, coughs and spits softened as Zayn shakily sat himself upright on the grass. I watched on, silent and transfixed. It was as if he was a type of unknown specimen with a familiar face.

I had to be dreaming. I had to be...

A cool breeze licked against my shoulders, but I still didn't move. I couldn't move. I was almost too pissed off, angry and scared to move. He had been genuinely fading from my concious thoughts for a while... And now he had simply turned up around the corner from where I lived.

How? Why?

Amongst the whispers of wind, creaking swing sets and weak splutters, there was a deafening silence of some sort. There was no one in the park except for Zayn and I; it was an area intended for toddlers and pre-teens, those who would all be in their electrical-fan cooled homes at this evening time.

I wanted to be at home. I didn't want to be anywhere near the boy who sat curled up by a pile of sick. The boy who had ruined everything for me... My feet shifted towards the gate of the park, ready to close my eyes and leave. Maybe I could go back to Finn, get him to forgive me, let him help me forget the sight before my feet. I could even date him if it would help us both. But that wasn't going to happen. Zayn had heard my shuffles and was now looking up at me with an air of disorientated confusion.

"Ashley..." He whispered softly as he furrowed his thick, dark eyebrows. "I didn't know you moved to Bradford."

My head swam woozily. Balance seemed to shift. "This isn't Bradford, Z-Zayn." I croaked. "This is London, you're in London."

"London?"

"Yes."

The revelation seemed to hit him hard. Zayn clutched at the crown of his head and groaned gutturally. "Why? I'm so lost, Ashley." When he spoke his voice sounded thick with tears. "Help me, please. I'm bleeding. I think I'm going to die. I'm going to die in this park."

Zayn had left me to die in a park earlier within the year. He'd left me soaking wet in a winter chill... Would it only be fair if I walked on and deserted him? Besides, if I left him he'd be fine in the smug evening warmth... With evident, unattended to bruises... Lying in a pool of his own sick and blood.

Dying in a pool of his own sick and blood.

Unable to answer those questions that had plagued my mind. He owed me an apology and an explanation. Words of closure that I deserved.