Storms {z.m.}

Chapter 25

Chapter 25 - Zayn

“Liya,” I announced as I opened the door to her bedroom. She was on her bed with her phone to her ear. Her brows were furrowed in distress. As soon as she saw me she hung up the phone.

“Ever heard about knocking?” she said rolling her eyes as if everything was alright. But even though I had become estranged from my sister recently, I still knew her better than that.

“We’re going to have a talk when I get back,” I told her sternly. I understand she doesn’t want to talk, but I’m her older brother and my worry for her trumps whatever discomfort she might feel talking about whatever it is that’s going on.

Liya’s face was neutral as she tried to counteract the image of her I had seen just seconds earlier. She was back to normal. Or at least what she wanted me to think was normal. “Where are you going?”

My nervousness came back like a boomerang. 

“I’m going to grab a cup of tea with Christine,” I say slowly, gauging her reaction. She looks completely shocked, but not in a bad way.

“You’re what?” she gets up off her bed and walks to where I am standing under the door frame. Her big eyes become even bigger.

“She wants to ‘catch up and that’ so we’re gonna go for a cuppa,” I explain trying to sound as blasé as possible in this situation. I really shouldn’t be this nervous, but I am. I don’t know how much anger or resentment she holds toward me for forgetting about her and for coming back unannounced. I don’t know what could possibly happen tonight, and it scares me.

“You’re acting shockingly cavalier about this…” she says searching my eyes, clearly seeing through my façade. Turns out she knows me just as well as I know her. In the midst of my worry for my upcoming catch-up date with Christine, I feel a pang of nostalgia for the times when Waliyha and I used to be so close. Even though, I wouldn’t have admitted it then, she was one of my best mates. Of course I could never admit that to her when we were younger, but now that I’ve gone through so much it seems like a waste of time to pretend like I don’t care about her deeply.

I am broken from my flashback by Liya flicking me on the arm, “Earth to Zayn.”

I lose my composure and make my way to the bed where I plop myself and stare at her ceiling fan.

“I’m freaking out, Liya,” I say to the ceiling fan more than my sister.

I feel her lay down next to me.

“Why are you scared?” she asks me.

The filter between my mouth and my brain is gone and I confess to Liya all my fears and guilt that I’ve been feeling since our last talk.

“So you’re afraid that you hurt her feelings?” 

“Yes.”

“Don’t be. Because you did. That’s done.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s no use worrying about the past.”

“There is when it’s clearly jeopardizing her future.”

Liya stands up on one elbow and looks at me, “How do you mean?”

“Christine is this out of control party girl and if I wouldn’t have been there the other night she could have been…” I say.

“Like I said, no use worrying about what could have been. You know what is worth worrying about?” she asks looking into my eyes inquisitively. I’m silent while I wait for her to continue.

“What ifs. More importantly, making sure you don’t have them in the future,” she tells me. I know she’s right. If I leave Bradford again without talking to Christine and I find out something happened to her, I’ll always wonder if I could have helped. If I could have saved her.

I stare at the ceiling of my sister’s bedroom. It’s getting dark outside and I start to notice that Liya has the same glow-in-the-dark stars as I do glued to her ceiling. 

“As much as I would love for you to catch up with Christine and have a little intervention, I’m still worried about you,” she says. She’s standing in front of the bed now looking through her tray of accessories.

“Why are you worried about me?” I ask.

“Have you been keeping up with the story?” she asks looking back at me.

My nervous sweat turns to cold chills and she doesn’t have to say her name for me to know who she’s talking about.

“No,” I say flatly.

“Well you might want to, there are, um, new developments,” she says trying hard to word the confession in the best way.

“What?” I ask sitting up in her bed.

“Have you talked to her?” she asks me and I can’t tell if she’s elaborating on or changing the subject.

“Yeah,” I muster because it’s all I can get out at the moment.

“What did she say?” she asks me slowly, as if she’s walking on eggshells.

“Apologized. Said she wanted to see me. Told me she loved me,” I say in broken sentences. All of the pain I felt that day is seeping through the walls I’ve built. I can’t keep talking about it or I’ll…

“What did you say?” she asks.

“I told her I didn’t want to see her yet,” I tell her, feeling my emotions rise to surface with every word.

“Did you tell her you love her?” she asks sitting next to me on the bed. I avoid her eyes and focus on the tattooed bird on my hand. It’s a nervous habit I have. I look down and outline the shape with my index finger. The ink is already not as black as it used to be.

“I did. I do,” I say as a lone tear escapes my eye. I look up at Liya and her eyes are watering too.

She looks like she wants to say something but all she does is hug me. She hugs me really tight and I let a few more tears escape. I haven’t give myself time to evaluate how I feel about all of this and what my next step is going to be, mostly because I’m afraid to. I thought me and Perrie were going to be happy forever. I didn’t think we would be a tabloid relationship with public scandals and a divorce. I still love her but I really need to talk to her to see if we can work past this.

But the more I think about it the more afraid I become that the outcome may hurt more than this interim I’m in right now. Bradford is a neutral ground where I don’t have to think about Perrie, or the band, or anything. Christine sure has given me a hell of a distraction, but sooner or later I’m going to have to face the music.

Just not tonight.

 

(I want to thank everyone for reading!! Please be sure to comment and vote, it really keeps me motivated to keep writing and things are about to get really good so you're going to want to add "Storms" to your library (; Thanks so much for getting me to 1,000 reads, now let's keep spreading the word guys!! I love hearing from you on Twitter because you guys give me some really good ideas! xx -F)