badlands // zayn malik

chapter seven

→ selfish, taking what i want and call it mine.
i'm helpless, clinging to a little bit of spine.
they rush me, telling me i'm running out of time,
they shush me, walking me across a fragile line.
- hold me down, halsey

&&

VII. Zayn

I could finally see why Serena was so attached to her bike and why she was keen on riding it everywhere she went. There's something about the way that the off-shore breeze flows through your hair that makes you forget about all of your troubles.

She had insisted that we rented the city's bikes as our mode of transportation. I obliged, though unwillingly, because I didn't really know how to ride a bike. Yes, I know, shocker. But it didn't take me long to get a hang of it.

Riding through the city gave me a rush, but a totally different type of rush than the rush I got when I had just committed a crime, or when I was high on euphoric drugs. It was different. I felt different.

When a faint gust of wind runs along the hairs of your body and the rays of the sun kiss the skin on your back, it makes you feel like you could conquer anything and everything.

She took me on our own little adventure around the city, starting from the highway that led into to the Roseburgh, all the way through the picturesque seaside towns and villages and past the little hipster museums, cafes and art galleries.

I could definitely see the appeal. It was like I was in unexplored territory, a completely different place to what my old city had given me. It was hard to believe that the badlands were only a few miles away from here.

Living in Ashmont, it seemed as if the people around us created distorted images of the place in our minds and we were forced to believe in it. We were wired like machines to tell everybody about how great it was, but in reality, it was far from that.

Our final stop was the famous Roseburgh Pier. It was the site that everybody had been telling me to check out since the first day I arrived.

By checking the time on my watch, I only just find out that the clock was nearing eight p.m. I hadn't even noticed the hours that had passed, only using the sun as a rough indication of what time of day it was.

Serena and I walk along the pier out to the marina, the wood underneath our feet creaking as if it could collapse at any second. Her footsteps indicate she's been down this route a thousand times before, softly humming a tune that I did not recognise.

The thin material of her dress flows ever so slightly as her hips sway to the ballad playing inside of her brain. Her every move indicated to me that she truly belonged here; this was her home. It reminded me that I was yet to find my own.

I shut my eyes for a bit, listening to the tidal waves swish gently against the beams of the platform and the seagulls chirping away in the distance.

"Here's the spot," Serena stares out to the water, the glimmer of the moonlight reflecting patterns into the sea. "Not many people come out this far. In my opinion, it's the best part of the pier."

She swings her legs over the edge of the pier and gestures for me to do the same. "I always come to this place when I just want to escape from everything. Been spending time here since I was young."

I imagine Serena as a child, her dark hair bundled into cute little pigtails with a sweet, innocent voice to match, sitting in the same spot, overlooking the horizon.