Stars Leave Black Holes Behind [HS]

20

Valerie couldn't describe how she felt. Couldn't quite put her trembling finger on why her nerves were screaming and why her hands had gone numb.

She cleared away the plates silently, focusing on the quiet calamity exploding in her mind.

She was a peaceful disaster. A bloodless wreckage.

In the living room, Zayn sat watching as Harry picked at his jeans. Brown eyes looked at distant green, knowing and hoping and wishing.

Zayn was not stupid. He had seen Valerie paint enough portraits of the boy to know he hurt her. To know he fucked her up and put her in the state she was in, to know he put her in this agony.

He wasn't ignorant to that type of feeling. In fact, he knew it all too well. Like Val, he had given his heart to a beautiful creature and had watched as she crushed it in her fists, letting the broken pieces ooze out between the cracks of her fingers and drip silently to the floor.

It was a sweet torture he had put himself through. A torture he still would if ever Elizabeth came back knocking on the door.

He hated her for it. Despised her. Yet she still owned him entirely.

It was a twisted type of irony, really. Just thinking about it made him sick.

Zayn coughed as he brought his thoughts back to Harry.

Thinking about it now, Val had never explicitly told him what he did to her. Had never explained the story step by step so he had a clear outline of her heartbreak. In fact, he didn't have much at all.

All he knew was that this boy sitting before him had broken her. Had somehow stopped her from eating fruit. Had stopped her from smiling. Had consumed her thoughts so that the only thing that flowed from her fingertips was the colour of his eyes and the curve of his cheeks.

But Zayn knew enough. To him, it was obvious that she still loved him. He didn't need to be told, only needed to observe. Only needed to notice the look on her face when she saw his, the one she had painted onto canvas and ripped up too many times to count. It was in the way her hands shook by her sides, the way she looked like she was suffocating whenever he spoke.

To be honest, the love was fucking palpable in the air. There was an alien electricity that filled the flat for the first time since he had known Val. For the first time in a year.

It was sparking from Valerie's eyes, the light blue now alive with something, some kind of feeling that he couldn't quite locate.

And, oddly enough, Zayn sort of thought it was coming from Harry as well.

He barely knew the guy, but Zayn saw bits of it, these sparks, shooting out of him. It was the way his green eyes focused on Valerie, not only watching, but dancing. Learning. Remembering. Zayn recognised that look. It was the way Elizabeth used to look at him, so, so long ago.

He coughed again, his dark features pulling tight as he focused on the boy.

Zayn was still unsure as to why he had made a visit- he guessed he had told Valerie from the stifling awkwardness he had been bombarded with when he interrupted their discussion. He didn't particularly want to know either, because that was not the point. The point was: he came back.

It struck Zayn as odd. Surely, if you didn't care about someone, you wouldn't make the effort to come back and see them after a year of nothing? You just wouldn't. It made no sense.

So he sort of had a feeling, a strange and peculiar alternative to the bland nothingness that usually filled his head. It was a small feeling of hope.

Hope for Valerie. For Harry. For their happiness.

A fool could tell you that Valerie was still endlessly in love with the man. And Zayn was willing to bet Harry felt the same way.

It was only a small feeling of hope, a little flame of light that pushed through the darkness that had settled, but it was there.

He just needed to get Val to see it.

"Harry?" He broke the silence, clearing his throat and leaning his elbows forwards onto his knees.

"Mhm?" Harry looked up suddenly, almost surprised that he had spoken.

"Where are you staying?"

"Staying?"

"Yeah, staying. Like, are you going to be at a hotel while you're here, or what?" Zayn paused. "Or are you going back to London?"

Harry's eyes flickered to the kitchen, and Zayn smirked to himself. Oh yes. There was definitely something he wasn't saying.

"Um, yeah. I think I should probably go, to be honest."

"Go? To a hotel or London?"

"To-"

"Because if you're staying, you should stay here. I'm going to sleep in the dorms anyway 'cuz I have to be up early tomorrow, but yeah, you're welcome to stay here," Zayn offered, smiling warmly.

Harry suddenly looked confused. His eyes were darting from where Val was rummaging around in the kitchen, purposely taking longer that usual, and to Zayn's inviting smile. "Oh. I-Is that okay? Like, with Valerie and stuff?"

"Yeah. It should be fine. She can't really say no, can she. She's helping out an old friend- I'm sure she'd love to."

"Um, yeah. Well. If it's alright with you, a-and with Valerie, then yeah. Yeah I'll stay here."

"Sick."

Zayn grinned, and leaned back in his chair.

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Song: re:stacks by Bon Iver

"This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realisation, it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away."