Twice in a Lifetime (Zayn Malik)

Chapter 71. Message.

Chapter 71

Mia's POV

Should I listen? What was it that I had to listen to?

If it's that damn McKnight song again, I swear...

I plugged the earbuds snugly into my ears and pressed the play button on the small teal iPod.

"Hey, Mia," his voice echoed through the headphones causing to my heart drop. I even missed his voice. "Umm, I don't know how to start this..this is all very new for me," he nervously chuckled. I haven't heard him chuckle like that in what seemed like ten years.

There's no shuffling in the background, only silence as he drew in a deep breath.

"I know I screwed up. I know what I did hurt you and you probably heard me say this a million times but I'm sorry. I don't have any good way to put it. I'm not good at apologizing. Saying sorry was always hard for me because I hate being sorry all the time and especially when people say it to me and don't mean it. But with you .. I can tell if you're being sorry just by looking in your eyes. Those dark eyes that I trusted. That I couldn't help but fall for. I don't care if you won't forgive me because I am going to do whatever it takes to win you back. I am going to fight for you. You told me before that I never fought for Perrie, or Lindsay, or you. But I'm fighting now and I'm not gonna give up. I am not going to give you up," he sounded almost angry at the end. "Do you know where I am?"

I knew he wasn't asking asking but I shook my head as he paused for an answer.

"I'm sitting in your hotel room maybe a wee bit drunk, waiting, hoping that you'd walk through that door. If you don't, that's why you're probably listening to this right now ... When I realized that you left me, in that room, and I didn't run after you, I wanted to punch myself. History was repeating itself all over again and you were slipping out of my fingers just like you had before. That was the last time I saw you..the last time until I saw you again in London."

There's a long silence before he continued again.

"At first I didn't believe Harry when he told me he had found you. I thought he was joking because he knew how much you've been on my mind. I was looking for you to explain so many things. I wasn't sure if I was ready to tell you but right before we boarded on the plane, Harry got your text and when he told me you'd stay there all night, I knew you would, when I saw that you were sitting with that other guy, I assumed you had already moved on," he sighed. "I regretted those things I said to you that night. I told you to basically get lost when the past two years, I couldn't rid my thoughts of you. I thought about you .. every day. Every day. I thought about you so much that I began painting again to get my mind off of you. Just random things... Nothing special. Only those things were somehow all related to you."

He must've painted the boomerang in Harry's home in Yorkshire during that time.

"I still I have so many things to confess but I can't tell you like this. I'd have to tell you in person. You deserve that. I'll tell you everything. I'm only scared you're going to run away if I tell you. What I did, what I was a part of, I deserve all the pain in the world. I just want -- you need to know, I never intended for any of this to happen. None of this would have happened if I hadn't kissed you first on that bus..but I don't regret anything. I don't want you to think that I felt forced to fall for you. You are no replacement. You are you. You will always be my Mia," his voice was so soft and tranquil as he said my name. I always loved it when he called me his Mia.

"Whether you want to trust me ever again, it's all up to you..But nobody's perfect right? I'm allowed to make at least one mistake. Humans make mistakes and I'm human, Mia. Even though I'm not a fairly decent one, I'll try my best to learn from it. I will never be the one to hurt you again. Mia....I don't want anybody else but you," I could hear the subtle sniffs he was trying to conceal. Was he crying. He was, there's no doubt. "I love you...You're it. There's nobody else who I could love as much as I loved you. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that but if you let me, I'll tell you it every day. If you let me, I'll show you every day. I'll shower you with flowers, I'll give you all my love, every last ounce of it. I'll even give up smoking, if that's what you want. I would do anything to have you back. I would promise you the world, I would promise you my soul, but since we're both terrible at keeping them, I won't. I won't promise you anything anymore from now on. I don't want to repeatedly disappoint you. And ... If you no longer want to be with me, just let me know, just tell me you've fallen out of love and I'll let you go. But until I hear those words, I won't let you run from me again. I can't risk losing the only woman who I've been secretly hanging onto. I've been in love with you for three years, and I will understand if you won't believe that. But despite all the time that has gone by, I am willing to make up for the lost time with the rest of my life. If you would just give me another chance ... Please .. Please let me..." His voice was beginning to crack and I knew that he had stopped recording...

As I heard the subtle sound of the conclusion of his message, a tear escaped from the building moisture I was trying to hold back in my eyes. But as that one fell, other tears followed, each stroke on my cheek flowing endlessly. And they wouldn't stop coming. I wasn't sobbing loudly, I just sat in silence as his words replayed in my head.

He had recorded this a week ago and I knew nothing about it until now.

He poured everything he felt into this one message.

He always knew the things to say to make me feel .. Lost. I felt lost.

What was it that he needed to confess.

Why would he think I would run away after he told me the things he needed to say to me.

All these mix of emotions confused me.

Everything he said .. Why did have to act opposite of them. Why did he have to go and kiss her.

Ultimately, when it came down to it, if I laid out all the cards on the table, Zayn was the only person who I wanted to be with.

But was that enough?

Was my love enough to overpower my lost trust in him.

Relationships don't work without a foundation and that foundation is built on trust.

And if I couldn't trust Zayn, there was no chance of a relationship for us.

Nothing. We would be nothing. Not even friends.

We could never make it work. No matter how hard we would try, what he did, even if it was a mistake, I knew, deep inside, I would never be able to recover. No matter how much I loved him, I wasn't confident whether my feeble love was enough for us to be together. Love could not be the only reason to hold us together.

We would break again. We would fall apart, crumble like a fragile piece of glass, and I couldn't risk hurting not only me, I would hurt him too. And hurting Zayn was the last thing I needed to do.

It's obvious what I had to do. I just didn't know how to approach it. How could I contact him when I didn't even have a phone. I wasn't even supposed to make any phone calls in the first place.

Suddenly the door bell rang and I immediately jumped to my feet. Who could be here. Please don't tell me. It couldn't be him.

I quickly dashed over to the window to see who it was and as if it came out of some romance film, Zayn's Rover was parked right in the driveway.

Oh god. He was here.

I know it's a short chapter .. (;

Did y'all think seven days was long enough or too short of time for Mia to think??