Stars Leave Black Holes Behind [HS]

6

Her heart was pounding in her chest, her hands were shaking, and stray hairs were sticking to the side of her face. Her breath was ragged and her eyes darted over the canvas in front of her.

It was Harry. Of course.

"It's beautiful," Zayn came up behind her and smiled sadly at the image she'd created; at the hurried strokes and frantic swipes that had managed to form something so sad it was painful.

It was the eyes- it was always the eyes.

Valerie hummed and edged closer to the painting and away from Zayn. She didn't mind being touched, but she was scared that if he came closer right now she'd cry and tear the canvas up, which, to be honest, she was probably going to do anyway.

"It's him?"

"Yeah."

That's all Zayn said before returning back to wherever he was before. Valerie couldn't really care, her eyes were stuck on the painting. She couldn't move them away.

It was beautiful. Undoubtably so. But it was so sad, so desperate, so miserable. Her pain oozed out of it. Her pain of missing him, of losing him, of just fucking wanting him back.

She could barely stand to look at it. The way she'd painted his lips and his cheekbones and his eyelashes scared her. Terrified her. Because oh yes it was one fucking year and oh yes she was still falling apart, and oh no he wasn't back. He wasn't lounging on their sofa with his outrageously hipster vinyls playing in the background, he wasn't making her black coffee on slow Sunday mornings, he wasn't whispering his I love yous into her ear while she fell asleep breathing in the crook of his neck.

He was out, living, with other people, with new people, without Val.

She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She didn't understand how she could still ache like this, how she was still bruising her knuckles breaking down invisible walls of his words, how she was still yearning, hoping, wishing that he'd just come back.

And she hated it. Despised that this was the way she was feeling, so hopeless and lonely and unsatisfied.

Valerie opened her eyes and stared at the image of him. She hated him. Hated that he could make her feel like this after all this time. Hated that he had unpicked the strings that wove her together. Hated that he had to be the one to hurt her.

But, even as she sat there, hating him, she knew that she still loved him.

Still loved him with all her heart.

__

Song: TOO GOOD by Troye Sivan

"Too good to be good for me, too bad that that's all I need."