Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 40

It’s getting dark when Harry finally gets to the hospital, his heart still spinning at what Charlotte said. He demanded that he keep the photographs, but when she didn’t put up a fight, he didn’t bother to take them because he knew she had copies. The thought makes his heart spin again as he imagines the front page of The Mirror.

MALIK AND THE RENT BOY.

He has to stop halfway across the Square leading to the hospital entrance and suck in a breath as he thinks about it, his breath clouding in the cold air when he pictures his mother trying to hide from his grandmother and the crack in Gemma’s voice when she asks him why he didn’t tell her. Then he thinks of Zayn and what it would do to him, of the weeks he’d be on the front and back pages of the newspapers, his whole life splashed across them for everyone to read. Harry’s too. Every bloke he’s spoken to for more than ten minutes selling his story to pay for a trip to New York. And he realises then that Peter was right to end it when that girl saw them kissing around that not-so-quiet corner because she’ll sing like a canary. He’ll lose his job three months and he just had a baby (not that Harry’s checking Facebook to keep track of these things) and he can’t.

He can’t.

But then he thinks of Zayn, of waking up next to him this morning, his breath on the back of his neck, and it’s all Harry can think about. It’s all Harry thinks ever about, Zayn. Zayn. Zayn. Zayn. The curl of his mouth and weight of his hands and the way he says his name, like he’s trying to learn it. And he can’t, but it’s not fair.

So he doesn’t go up and see his father and sits in the canteen until he’s the only one left in there. Then it’s so quiet, the only thing Harry can hear is the hum of the fridges and pages turning as the woman behind the counter reads a Catherine Cookson novel. So when a nurse rushes in to grab a can of Diet Coke, the sleigh bells on her Santa hat jingling as she does, it sounds almost sinister in the deserted canteen, like something from a horror film. But then she’s gone and it’s so quiet again that he it reminds him of the poem his mother used to read on Christmas Eve.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The thought of it, of he and Gemma putting a mince pie by the fireplace for Santa (and a carrot for Rudolf) then fidgeting with excitement when their mother came to tuck them in, makes him smile. But then it fades as he thinks of all the children that will wake up here tomorrow, their stockings hanging from the ends of their beds by their charts and their parents bringing them toys they won’t be able to play with until they get home. Then he thinks of Ash and has to press a hand to his chest as he remembers leaving the hospital without him. He didn’t want to leave him there by himself and stayed long after his mother left, wandering from corridor to corridor as though he might find Ash at the end of the one of them, flirting with a nurse. But he didn’t and now Harry needs to leave someone else.

At least he can say goodbye this time.