Disguise♔ z.m

Forty six

She looks so peaceful. Her head rests over my shoulder as she sinks deeper and deeper into her slumbers, giving me enough time to trace the outlines of her profile, skin softer than feather, features brighter than the sun, lips as delicate as the insides of roses, the newly coated bloody crimson lipstick fading at the corners of her mouth.

“How long will you keep this up?” The foreign voice is introduced into the moment I thought I could pause forever.

I look up at Yves. “I don’t know.” I simply did not know, and that was the truth.

Yves shakes his head, a sigh escaping his parted lips as he takes a seat on the vacant side of mine (Nora and I were at the farthest end of the First Class.)

“You know this isn’t good for her.”

“What isn’t good?” My fingers brush faster against Nora’s cheek as I look to my side, trying to figure out her step brother.

“This,” Yves shoots up on his seat, “this relationship you’ve got.”

“I—“-of course this isn’t. Nora is living a lie-“I know.”

“And you’re here, travelling to Venice for the wedding.”

“I couldn’t say no!”

“It could have been as easy as saying yes!” Yves argues in hush tones, almost face to face with me as we both breathe heavily.

“Not for me.” I immediately answer, feeling a soft spot form at the bottom of my heart, slowing down the blood flowing in my veins.

“Why? You’re only hurting her.”

“Because I love her,” for the first time in years, the words did not seem incomplete. For the first time, I am not hiding in some messed up lie.

“Then why not tell her the truth in the first place if you really do love her?” The lad was young and foolish, what did he know about the light Nora and I could see?

“It’s not that simple...” I offhandedly say. Nora makes slight movements but I calm her down by rubbing her hand.

“Telling her that you did actually find me is not that simple? If that’s not simple, then I don’t know what is.”

“You better get back.” I fire, getting tired of his pestering. Nora did not have to know shit about me setting up their meeting. In fact, I did her a favor. I’ve done so many things for this woman in my arms, but I regret introducing her to Liam the most.

I regret taking her to the dance competition, I regret coming to that pub, I regret going to that concert she and Niall went to, I regret being Veronica, I regret ever bumping into her in the first place.

“Just,” he pauses for a long time, looking me in the eyes, “Watch out before shit goes down.”

“I will.” I confirm. He gets up and leaves, walking through the narrow space between the airplane seats.

“I love you.” I whisper to her as she latches onto my shirt. “So fucking much.”

My heart is literally beating for her. No one made me feel that way before. I don’t know if it’s the innocence in her mind that makes me love her so much. Maybe it’s the way she approaches life with her odd ways. Maybe it’s the way she talks passionately about things she loves and believes are perfect, when in reality, nothing is perfect. Despite her angry side, she never holds a grudge for too long. She’s the ‘forgive and forget’ type of person. Maybe it’s the crinkles that form at the ends of her eyes. Maybe it’s how confusing and careless she is.

I don’t know why I love her.

It’s just, like, it has become a part of me. A part I wish I could get rid of, but can’t.

She consumes my thoughts, she pulls on my heart strings and that drives me insane. Her hell of a boyfriend does not care about her, and it’s my fault. I spot the freckles at various parts of her face, joining them into lines. They finally make sense to me. Everything does.

I love her, and that’s all I should try to stand by or else, I would lose her, and I can’t stand losing her now. Yves is right, you know. I should try telling her the truth. I should tell her who I really am, and maybe, she’d love me then. Maybe she’d forget who Liam is and finally realize I’ve been the person she has been waiting for. I continue to trace her soft skin, cussing time for going by so quickly when I am having the time of my life just by examining every little feature of her body. I swear, even this smirk she got on during her sleep would make Mona Lisa jealous, and the thinking man to finally realize that-that small figurative has been the answers to all his problems.

I would build up a home for her, ask her the color of walls she would like to have, or number of rooms she would love to wander about in because I know she loves doing that. She’d probably choose blue ‘cause that’s her favourite color, or brown ‘cause it reminds her of nuts, and she loves nuts, especially the warm ones. She’d probably want to own a home of ten rooms, because she always dreamt of having a big home. Unfortunately, she stays in that crappy flat of hers. The only good thing about the place she stays in is the view. She particularly pointed out loving how bright the city lights and buildings shine during the midnight, making her feel alive again because that’s the only emotion she craved for but never got. Even if our imaginary home was not surrounded by buildings and city lights, I would build them up for her and make sure they shine brighter than her irises right now.

At first, she looked so surprised. She could not fathom why she was holding on so tight to me (not that I complained). She could not stick the pieces together on how she ended up cradled in my arms. She looked even slightly taken a back, since we had courtly ended the conversation on why I pretended to be her boyfriend (not that I did not know, but it felt so good saying I was hers when I knew she will never be mine).

“Had a good sleep?” I ask, slowly pulling away because I could feel the discomfort in her look.

“Yeah,” she holds tighter to me. “Don’t pull away just yet.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She answers back and we keep looking at one another, communicating through our eyes because we simply knew we couldn’t come to talk about what happened face to face.

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0mfg it’s been soo long since I’ve last updated and honestly im so sorry. I understand if I have lost most of my readers but I’ve had a horribly author’s block and I took a break from writing this story but I’ve missed zora and lora so much, I couldn’t stay away! Ilysm for sticking by me and the people who asked me to update bc u belong to ma clique