Waiting For This Cough Syrup to Come Down (this version discontinued)

Chapter 8

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?" - Mary Manin Morrissey.

Saniya could honestly say that she didn't care. She could swear to God that she'd never wanted kids. She could bet her first edition Harry Potter book collection and all eight DVDs that she was content with never getting married and just living on her own in an apartment in New York, working in the best hospital in the city.

Then Zayn dragged himself into her life, and well, you know the rest.

She realised how difficult he had made her life. She thought that simply being followed every other day was bad, but now she remembered that she had secrets she desperately needed to keep. The public didn't know that her parents were dead; they didn't know she was born infertile. If they caught wind of any of the two, she would be seen as some hopeless charity case - and everyone who had met her knew she was exaclty the opposite.

A voice in the back of her head brought another thought in her mind: their marriage was sort of an obligation. Correction - it was an obligation. How embarrassing would it be for ayn if they called the whole thing off? 

He shouldn't have done it the way he did, she thought. I could've said no, I still wanted to move to America but I couldn't tell him no.

This wasn't entirely the truth - Saniya wanted to move away and live on her own but she couldn't deny the full truth that she liked him. Thing is, she had this awful nagging feeling that they weren't meant to be anything further than friends and that Zayn made this mistake again. Proposing in fornt of an audience...she didn't think Zayn had that in him. And the fact he did it? It sort of shocked her.

They had got themselves into this mess - now they had to put up with it. They had to make it work.

The pieces of film were sharp and the corners cut into her palm as Saniya crushed them in her right fist, her elbow ontop of her knee as she situated herself on the step of the unsheltered porch. The rain pounded her body as it continued to shower like a monsoon on the equator. Her recently cleaned hair was plastered to her head once more and raindrops streamed around her bare forearms. Saniya liked the rain. It let her think.

She sort of scolded herself, knowing fully well that she wasn't able to control her defect, but who else was she meant to blame? If, of course, she should blame anyone. Zayn looked like he'd been punched directly in the heart. After what Saniya had done for him all those years ago, it was ironically her that had brought this new sort of pain. His face made it seem like she had ruined his life, and though Saniya knew he would get over it soon enough [because you just have to move on from these things], she wasn't overly fond of their current situation.

 She sighed and placed her arms on her knees, right hand gripping left wrist. The film poked her left hand and she removed her right temporarily to chuck the balled up film somewhere among the flooding potted plants.

She remembered the rest of the world then - not just her and Zayn, but quite literally, everyone. A fifty-kilogram weight rested on her shoulders and [as though this wasn't a metaphor] she sagged forward in realisation. She'd had a go at Lana - for perfect reasons - but Niall? He didn't even  know half of what was going on. Saniya remembered from all those stupid chick-flicks Lana had made her watch [yet another reason to be mad at her, bear in mind] where everyone would turn on the main character and gang up on her, or ignore her or some other childish way to make her feel uncomfortable. Saniya realised that this could become her new problem - not that she cared all that much. She could be just as cold and unforgiving and basically the phrase two can play that game came to mind. However, if she ignored them simultaneously, it was a matter of time before the public  sensed the tension between Saniya and everyone else [minus Zayn, he could just sit there in the middle and ponder in his troubles].