He is nervous, for sure and scared, that one too but happiness is something he is unaware of. There is warmth of joy in his chest somewhere near his heart but he is still unsure about this warmth. The wrist watch is still hanging from his fingers in front of her chocolate brown eyes which widens as she realises what it is, giving him a clear view of her irises even through the reflective lens of her glasses. Chocolate brown melting to a dark coffee towards the pupils, he thinks. But it is not actually one of those thoughts that results from a keen observation, it is natural, a thought born in his mind without any thinking.
"Where did you find it?" She asks him, in a soft tone filled with surprise and a hint of joy. Her eyes distracting him, making it hard for him to frame a relevant answer. "Found it in the bus after you left." He manages to lie in a thick voice, probably due to his throat that is suddenly dry.
"Thank you." She expresses her gratitude, her voice softer, like a feather of a small bird. That's how he describes her voice, but he is not a poet. He smiles and steps back when she has finally grabbed the watch from his fingers. It felt like he should hold on to it for a little longer but he lets go, feeling the cool metal slipping off his fingers.
She steps back and turns around, walking away with her shopping cart leading her way. And he is still standing exactly at the same spot, frozen, hoping for that moment to replay in front of him. He is brought out of his trance as another customer passes by, giving him strange looks.
Zayn walks back, straight away out of the store. He can't stand meeting her once more, not when he is a walking danger to everyone he keeps close. His steps, hasty but heading away from her presence, her twinkling gaze and her soft voice.
It was a bad idea to stop and stare at her when she was unaware, he scolds himself. He is a little mad at himself, no scratch that, he is totally angry on his mistake. He just had to drop the watch near her and disappear from the scene but destiny had different plans. Damn destiny! It was his mistake to stop and stare, her delicate actions towards that piece of jewellery. He is thinking about her, again.
"If I would have left sooner, she would have never stumbled into me." He yells in anger, standing in front of a mirror in the same old place he calls home. Obviously, that's the only way he knows to fight himself. Who else is going to listening to his pathetic whining about a girl? His reflection is the only friend he has, it does betray him, sometimes, because reflections are not always available. "But you liked it." He whispers, again to himself.
He is lost in the flashbacks from the previous event. The way his arm wound around her waist so easily; the way she had fit perfectly in his arms, just beneath his chin and the way his heart had pounded on his ribcage by her simple touch. He comes back to his senses and pushes the thoughts, crowding his mind, away. "You are soon going to end up in a mental asylum." He says, pointing his index finger to his reflection in the mirror.
He lays in his bed all knackered up due to his self-conflict along with his job of tracking out details of one more target given to him, he is the best in his job, you see. Tonight, he is giving up on the night shifts of his, he needs his bed and a lot of thinking. He needs to push out all her details from his head and heart.
It is a long night for him and it surely is going to be. He is restless again, his cigarettes not helping a bit because right now, even they are reminding him of her features, her fragile figure walking in the crowded streets and that voice of hers. He knows he is going mad and he cannot stop himself.
"That's it!" He yells in frustration and pull his jacket on, slips into his shoes and kicks the door to get away from his home. He is in need of a long tiring walk, desperately. As he reaches the staircase that will lead him down and away from this place, something strikes in his brain.
He rushes back inside, pulls out his gym bag and leaves his apartment. He is driving to the same gym he goes to get himself some saneness whenever he loses his mind. That's really a strange place to be looking for sanity but he is strange too. His life is stranger than he can imagine and he is still living it instead of ending his life like his partner. He drives impatiently because he can barely wait to let his frustration out.
"Hey!" Max calls out to Zayn, who is surprised to find him here. Actually, both of them are. "What about your night shift?" Max questions him, moving away from under the weights he was about to lift. "Ditched it." Zayn keeps it short, probably trying to avoid a conversation because he is so much consumed by his own thoughts that he might speak something irrelevant. "Something's bugging you, isn't it?" Max tries to get his troubled thoughts out of him, he is all ears. He is, every time when Zayn needs someone.
"Let's not discuss it." Zayn successfully turns his offer down as Max shrugs, knowing very well that he will come around if the problem is too big. He walks away with a last glance at an angry Zayn, who is looking everywhere but him, with a lowered gaze.
Zayn changes into his gym trunks and finds the punching bag, suspended in the air from the ceiling with a thick rope like string. That's where he wants to be now, all alone, him and the bag. He wraps his thick white bandages on his hands before he begins and heads for the gloves. There is a weird stirring feeling in the pit of his stomach when he is reminded of her, surprisingly at this moment. This only adds fuel to his rage and he throws the gloves on the floor, deciding to only keep his bandage.
He punches and punches and punches but the rage pulsing in his veins is not the one that will diminish easily. He has been off the track since the past week and he can't just lose his focus from his aim. Not now.
He is not here for a girl, he is here for his own business and his own job. He is almost there, this is not the time to lose everything that he has built up since the last one year.
He stops abruptly, holding the punching bag with both his hands to stop it from swaying back and forth. His heavy breathing and his pounding heart are the only sound he can hear. Even after all this, he remembers the same event, the same accident, at the supermarket.
One punch, he doesn't know who she is. Another punch, he doesn't want to know who she is. One more power packed punch, he doesn't care who she is. And before he can continue with his mental list of reasons counted with each punch, the bag lands on the floor with a thud. Seems like the bag is exhausted too but not Zayn, not a bit. Maybe, his body is but not his mind that can still think about million things yet it will still end up with thoughts of her.
He sits down in a corner, hydrating himself with a bottle of water and trying to push any thought related to her away. Last week, he had been reckless enough to let her take control over his mind so easily, now he knows that he is better off alone and she is better off without him.
He tries to take as long as it can to reach back home, taking the longest possible route and driving at such a slow pace that he had never done before. At least he has something to concentrate on, to divert his mind.
Back at home, he doesn't know where to direct his anger at. Yes, he has some anger issues and anger management can't help his case. That's one of the reasons, he has ended up here, in a life that he hates. A hate of such an intensity that he can't get rid of it, even if he separates every single fibre in his body and squeezes it hard to drain the hatred, there still would be some of it left in them. So how can a feeling of love for any person exist in his body's system?
All this weird feeling is stupidity, not love, it doesn't exist. Love can only exist in movies or books where even the tough times don't matter to them, the characters. But Max found his girl, in the darkest time of his life and surely, this relationship of his would end soon with all this happening around him; Zayn thinks to himself and laughs without humour.
Such destructive thoughts have resided in his head since the start, since he was smart enough to understand how to drive. No one can change that fact in his mind, not a single one. That's what he has finally concluded from the war between his head and heart.
It is just a waste of time, even if it exists. Not meant for him, never will be. It’s a ceasefire, a treaty signed between his warm feeling heart and his logical thinking brain.
*****
Regards,
A.R.
YOU ARE READING
Trapped
Fanfiction"She will be the death of you, Zayn" "She already is...", He whispered back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alisha, a simple average girl, working on normal salary and leading a normal life is pushed deep into a different world that she has only heard about...
