Innocent Until Proven Guilty: A Zayn Malik Love Story

(3)

             I shouldn’t be thinking about him, but I am. He shouldn’t have been racing through my mind, but he was. After all; he wanted nothing to do with me – and he made it very clear. Still, that didn’t stop me from thinking about him constantly these past two days.

            “Joey?” I blinked twice, staring down at the source of the voice. “Were you listening to me?” It belonged to Bristol; my father’s business partner’s four year old daughter. Don’t underestimate her for her age though – I learned that the hard way. Bristol knew about more things in the real world than she could count with her fingers.

            I bent down onto my knees so that I was on eye level with her. “Of course I was, sweetie.” I half lied. Alright, so maybe I was lying completely, but after what happened with Zayn, wouldn’t your thoughts be somewhere else too? And that’s when I realized that I was being irrational and delirious for thinking about someone who didn’t give a damn about me.

            Shaking thoughts about Zayn away from me – hopefully for the last time – I focused my attention on the adorable four year old in front of me. Unlike her father, Bristol was an absolute darling. Even though her mother passed away due to childbirth, she never failed at going at least one day without smiling.

            I think that’s the reason why I can relate to her so much, because we both know what it’s like to grow up without a mother. Even though her father mostly kept to himself and only talked to me when necessary, there was something about him that got my blood boiling. Thankfully, the last time I had an encounter with him was when he ate my last KitKat bar during the trial, two days ago.

            “I’m just a little confused,” I said, standing up and taking her left hand in mine. In her right hand, she was clutching onto her puppy, Tiger’s, leash. “Why don’t you explain it to me again?”

            Bristol breathed out a sigh, but carried on nonetheless, happy to continue our conversation. “Like I said before, I don’t think the Tooth Fairy is real.”

            “Why?” I asked, pretending to gasp in surprise.

            Bristol bit her lower lip nervously, as if she were afraid to tell me something. “Well,” she mumbled, holding eye-contact with the floor.

            I swung her hand around playfully, motioning that it was alright for her to continue. “Last week, my tooth fell out. If this Tooth Fairy was so big and bad, I wanted to catch her in the act for myself. So I stayed up that whole entire night.”

            “Then what happened?” I asked, nodding along to her every word.

            “I heard my door creak open. At first, I was really excited, but then that all went away when I saw my dad come into the room. I shut my eyes real tight,” she said, “like this.” I held back a giggle as she closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

            “Mhm.” I said.

            “I felt my pillow being lifted softly, then after he left I checked under, and sure enough – I found five bucks!” She cried, dropping Tiger’s leash and waving her right arm around frantically for emphasis. “Can you believe it?”

            I shook my head, biting on my lower lip as I played along. “That’s crazy,” I said, “but maybe he was doing the Tooth Fairy a favor.”

            “What do you mean, Joey?” Bristol asked, using one of her all-time favorite nicknames for me.

            “What I mean is –“ I began, “your dad and my dad are always doing a bunch of business we don’t know about, right?”