No Fear of Falling (Zarry AU)

Chapter 11

On the last day of school, Zayn manages to get out with the contents of his locker and his shirt covered in felt-tip promises without seeing Harry. It doesn’t occur to him until he’s walking down the path towards his front door that maybe Harry was avoiding him, too.

Zayn sees him that night, though, at another party that everyone in school makes an effort to go to because they know it’s their last. And with that, as they realise that they’re scattering in a hundred different directions, like confetti at a wedding, they’re suddenly all friends. Survivors of a five-year war drunk on supermarket vodka and swapping war stories about supply teachers and poor Indesit Andrews. He and Harry don’t talk, though, just move around each other like ghosts, something they’ve perfected over the last year to the point that they don’t notice each other any more. Except the do. Zayn does, anyway. He always knows when Harry’s in a room and when he isn’t. He feels the absence of him every day, like a fucking hole in the sky.

When he gets home, he sees the light from the television flickering against the living room curtains and knows that his parents have stayed up, his mother no doubt struggling to stay awake through whatever film they’re watching so he doesn’t think that they stayed up. He should go in, he knows, let them know that he’s okay so they can go to bed, but he’s had too much to drink and he doesn’t care how old he is or if he’s moving out in a couple of days, he can’t be drunk in front of his parents. So he climbs up to the treehouse and almost falls back out when he sees Harry in there.

‘I suppose we should split this,’ he says, holding up the Tomorrow jar.

‘Keep it,’ Zayn mutters, looking down at his feet on the rope ladder unsure what to do, whether he should climb back down or crawl into the treehouse.

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘Do you want to go?’

Harry shrugs, the change in the jar shivering. So Zayn crawls in because this is it, he knows, it’s taken them a year but it’s time to say goodbye. It isn’t easy - especially in the dark – there isn’t enough room in there, not now their limbs are longer and their feet are bigger, but Zayn manages to squeeze himself in so his back is to the opposite wall to Harry’s, his legs stretched out next to his so they’re almost touching, but not quite.

‘So you’re going to Manchester?’ Harry says when he does, watching Zayn as he takes the lighter out of the pocket of his jeans and lights the church candle that’s sitting on the saucer his mother keeps asking him if he’s seen.

‘Yep,’ Zayn says, opening his box of cigarettes and sitting back.

Harry still knows him well enough to push it. ‘What are we going to do with this, then?’ He shakes the jar, the sound of the coins hitting the glass making Zayn's nerves jump.

‘I couldn’t give a fuck.’

‘Why’d you keep it then?’

Zayn doesn’t look at him. ‘Just take it, Harry,’ he says, lighting a cigarette and turning his face away to blow the smoke out of the door to the treehouse.

Harry looks at the jar again and when Zayn sees that his eyes are wet, he lets his head tip back against the wall as his useless, traitorous heart misses a beat.

‘Do you think people can change, Zayn?’

‘I know they can, Harry.’

‘I don’t think they do.’ Zayn can’t look at him, the tops of his ears burning as he listens to the money shifting in the jar. ‘I just think they forget who they are. They get distracted by stupid shit. Like my dad, he wanted to be a footballer when he was a kid, but everyone told him that he’d never make a career out of it so he stopped playing because he didn’t know that you don’t need to make a career out of football to be able to play it. Sometimes you just are something even if you’re the only one who sees it. Like Dad, he never played for England, but every time he kicks a football, he’s George Best.’

Zayn doesn’t say anything, just looks at the ceiling of the treehouse as he listens to the leaves rustling in the breeze around them.

‘But if you’re lucky,’ Harry goes on, ‘someone else sees it, too.’

Zayn closes his eyes because he knows what he’s trying to say and he can’t.

He can’t.

‘I think I forgot, Zayn, for a second. I think I forgot who I was.’

Harry waits for Zayn to look at him and when he doesn’t, he slips his hand under the cuff of Zayn’s jeans.

‘I can’t remember who I am,’ he says and Zayn doesn’t know if it’s the way he says it or his fingers curling around his ankle, but something in him gives way.

‘You’re Harry Edward Styles and you were born on January 7th 1993, two weeks earlier than you should have been because you’re an impatient asshole who can’t still. You’ve fallen out of this tree so many times that I’m pretty sure that’s why you speak so slowly. You’re scared of clowns and you tell people that you’re allergic to peppers, but really you just don’t like them, and you killed your guinea pig, Rocky, when you were six, trying to give him a bath and cried for four and half hours until your dad got home from work and buried him under the rosebush in your garden. You sang Angels by Robbie Williams at the funeral. My mother still can’t hear that fucking song without crying. You have four moles on your back and a six-inch scar on your left forearm from when you caught it on a nail on my garden shed when we were nine. Your favourite colour is green and your favourite song is The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra because it’s the song your parents danced to at their wedding and it’s going to be your favourite song until you fall in love and get a favourite song of your own. You once shoplifted a pair of free sunglass from a copy of GQ then took them back the next day because you felt so guilty. You have a recurring dream about drowning but you want to live in a houseboat in Paris with a ginger cat that follows you whenever you leave,’ he can’t catch his breath, but he has to say it, ‘and you broke my fucking heart.’

Zayn shakes his head, but it doesn’t stop Harry crawling into his lap.

‘I’m sorry,’ he breathes, taking his face in his hands and peppering it with kisses. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Zayn shakes his head again, turning to stub his cigarette out. ‘Me, too, Harry.’

‘You have to forgive me.’

'Don't, Harry.'

'Please.'

‘I can’t.’

'Please.' When Zayn turns his face away again, Harry follows, pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘You have to.’

‘Why?’

Harry presses his forehead to Zayn’s. ‘Because if I forget again, who’s going to remind me?’

'But what about me, Harry?'

'I know. I'm sorry. I got scared. I got scared and I fucked up.'

'Scared of what? It's me, Harry.'

'I got scared because it's you, Zayn.' Harry lifts his chin to look at him, his hands on Zayn's face. 'I lose you and I lose everything. I lose every memory I have. I lose my past and my future, the future I'm putting pennies in a jar for, and then what am I gonna do?' He frowns. 'What am I gonna do?'

Zayn kisses him then because he doesn't know how else to answer that question other than to hold him and not let go. And when Harry kisses him back, an imbalance in the Universe corrects itself.