20 Years

“Eleanor, please! We can sort something out; you don’t have to do this!” I exclaimed, unable to stop myself from reaching out to grab her arm, to stop her and shake rational sense into her. She merely pushed me away again, busying her shaking hands with the zipper of her suitcase which refused to comply with her attempts at shutting it.

“I can’t! I just can’t!” She responses, her voice shaking as she tries to hold back the tears I can see threatening to overfill her large brown eyes. I want to reach out and wipe them away, tell her that everything would be aright but I knew deep down I’d simply be lying. Again.

“I can’t do this to him anymore Zayn. I can’t do this all. I just need to leave, I need a clean slate.” She continued, her voice quaking as she says my name and my heart breaks just a little more.

“So you’re just going to leave? Like this was all nothing?!” I shoot back, unable to stop the toxic edge that leaks into my tone. However I knew I was angrier at myself because she was right. This really was the best thing for everyone. I could fix my relationship with Perrie, my friendship with Louis. I wouldn’t have to feel pressured to lie constantly, hide the messages or the evidence that Eleanor and I were more than merely friends. I could go back to how it was before.

But I also knew I could never go back to how it was before. No one knew the truth and with Eleanor leaving it would erase any evidence and stop prolonging the pain but it wouldn’t mean that it wouldn’t change the fact that it happened to begin with. That a portion of my reserved, closed heart would always belong to the brunette who stood before me, tears in her eyes. That the very same heart would most definitely break when she walked out the door that loomed a few steps away, like an oncoming storm.

She’d finally managed to do up her luggage and it was sitting at her feet in the otherwise empty room which had been cleared out in the previous days. I focused my gaze on the closed bag at her feet, unable to meet her eyes. I wanted to, I really did, but I knew the moment I did I’d beg for her to stay once more.

Louis didn’t know she was leaving, no one else did. She’d brought a one-way ticket on a flight set to leave later today to a destination she wouldn’t tell me. She knew if she did I would come find her again.

“I guess this is it.” She hesitates, her tone soft. Before I could stop myself I found my gaze trailing up to meet hers. I felt my eyelids flutter, in an attempt to release the tears in my eyes.

“I guess it is.” I replied in a voice that sounded foreign and cold even to my own ears.

Eleanor gazed at me the tears that she’d been fighting finally sliding down her cheek and glimmering in the afternoon sunlight.

“I’m sorry.” She murmured her voice barely above a whisper. She seemed conflicted, half turned to go but half watching my gaze for something I couldn’t quite give her. Maybe she wanted closure, maybe she wanted redemption. I didn’t know what, but I knew I couldn’t give it to her either way. My mind was screaming in protest telling me to stop her from leaving, to kiss her lips one more time and just hold her for another moment longer. Just once more.

But I couldn’t move. I just stood there, frozen.

Eleanor sighed in defeat, before lifting up her luggage and beginning the journey to the door. I knew it was merely feet away from us, but it seemed like an eternity until the echoing squeal of the door hinges sounded. I was still staring at the spot where she had been standing.

“Zayn?” She hesitates in the doorframe and it takes all the strength inside me to turn and acknowledge her.

“Yes?” I ask my tone husky from the lump that seemed to be growing with every passing second at the base of my throat.