The art of love | ziam!het au✔️

46 | Zayn

46 - trying to move on from the pain, but it still hurts too much to just forget

Zayn's room was a complete mess. All of his and Liam's stuff were sprawled on the ground, empty and half filled boxes were standing around the bedroom as the man tried to organize everything, taking care of the chores his fiancé wanted to take care of months ago. He was sitting on the floor, going through one of the foto albums that Adam and Natasha had made for him with all pictures they took over the past two years.

His cheeks were red and tear stained, a soft smile spread across his lips as the memories flowed back piece by piece, his heart fluttering. He sniffled, wiping away another tear that managed to slip down his tanned cheek.

His eyes darted up when he spotted snowflake squeeze her way through the mess, meowing as a call for help. Zayn chuckled at that and reached over, picking up the small cat that was getting older but still stayed small. "Hey snowflake." He smiled down at the cat who purred when her owner ran his long fingers through her soft fur.

"You wanna help me get mommy's stuff ready?" The British man asked and kissed his cats head softly, scratching behind his ear. Snowflake just meowed in respond, rubbing her head against his chest and nuzzling her small nose in his neck.

"I'll take that as a no, you'd rather like to cuddle with daddy." Zayn chuckled and smiled softly. Snowflake purred once more and snuggled against Zayn's chest, obviously too lazy to do anything.

The dark haired man let the kitten cuddle, continuing to organize the bedroom as well. His eyes landed on a box underneath the bed, reaching over to get it. He placed it on his lap after, slowly opening the top.

His eyes watered a little when he realized it was the red dress Liam wore to the banquet two years ago, a week after they met more like it, the dress she wore the first night they made love together. Zayn brought the red fabric to his face and buried it in it, the sweet scent causing memories to flow back into his mind of their first night.

Zayn's eyes began to water, his heart clenching and clutched onto the dress, not realizing that he was squishing snowflake in his arms until he heard a choked meow coming from her. He sniffled and quickly pulled away, the kitten jumping out of his lap and onto the floor while shaking around a little to get her fur back straight.

"Sorry baby." The man chuckled and wiped over his eyes, sighing sadly. He rubbed at his nose and looked around the room.

He didn't know why he was stuffing everything into boxes and stashing them away for safe keeping. It would be better if it all just stayed the way it was, made Zayn at least feel like she was still here with him. Sometimes he would even feel her touch when he would fall asleep, feel her kiss his face away every morning. He could just feel her presence around him. And packing all of the items up wouldn't be right, not to him at least. These were all memories of her. All the albums, all the clothing. It all made him feel as if she was still here with him.

So the next thing Zayn did was put everything back into place, making sure it went back to the place where it belonged. He looked around the once again clean bedroom and slowly slumped down on the soft, freshly made bed.

His hands grabbed the fancy dress once more and he inhaled the sweet scent of Liam's favorite perfume, smiling sadly at it. He was trying his best to move on, but he knew it was too challenging for him. Liam would forever be his one true love and he couldn't just walk away from that. This wasn't some relationship where you could just say it was time to move on. No. It was more than that, Liam was still his everything. The one girl that showed him true happiness. And knowing she was gone for good was killing him, not only on the outside, but mostly on the inside. He tried and tried but it was no use. Zayn wanted to be with Liam again, so badly. He wanted to hold her in his arms, kiss her passionately and never let her go.

He licked his lips and sighed softly, placing the dress back into the box. His finger tips brushed over the top and he stood up slowly, bringing it back to the closet. He placed it on the shelf, rubbing over his puffy eyes.

He decided to head back to his studio where Watson was resting, wanting to get his mind off of things by drawing and ordering some take-out for dinner.