ᴛᴏᴏ ʏᴏᴜɴɢ » ᴢᴀᴄʜ ʜᴇʀʀᴏɴ

Chapter Twenty-Three

June 4, 2018

The gorgeous day in Europe had been spent exploring Amsterdam, and after hours full of sightseeing, photoshoots, shopping and eating, one would think the tour group would be ready to head back to the hotel and sleep before the show the following evening. However, as they were winding back idly through the streets together, they came upon a park that had cleared out due to nightfall, and they couldn't help but go inside.
   
Everyone started to split off from one another, Zach and Maeve finding themselves alone. Not that either of them minded.
   
The park was strangely beautiful enveloped in darkness, rocky hedges rising up at neck-craning heights, trees swaying gently in the shadows. The pair walked—actually, Zach was running most of the time—laughing loudly and hanging on each other's shoulders and arms jokingly.
   
"What's that?" Maeve said, breathless from all the yelling she'd done while racing Zach across the small field behind them. She was looking towards a huge stone formation in front of them. Zach let out a snort of a laugh when he followed her gaze.
   
"It's a rock, you—"
   
She cut off his sarcastic comment with a nudge of her shoulder, and since he was already in the mood, that sent him into another spiral of laughter. She moved forward so he couldn't see her smile, eyes scaling the sheer size of the rock.
   
"Hey, look," she said lightly, pulling at some of the brush that had grown up around the base. Zach, who had managed to compose himself, came to her side.
   
He didn't have to ask to know what she was thinking. In fact, she was already fitting her foot in the crevice of the stone that would give her a step up to start climbing to the top.
   
"Hey," he said, seriousness laced into his tone as he caught her arm, "be careful."
   
"Aww," she smiled, "you worried about me?"
   
She hoisted herself up as Zach muttered, "Yeah, kinda," under his breath. She didn't hear him.
   
With arms burning, she made it to the top a few minutes later, taking a satisfied deep breath. The view was spectacular, extending beyond the entrance of the park to the streets and buildings of Amsterdam beyond.
   
Zach sat by her side not long afterwards, smiling a little as they made eye contact briefly.
   
And then there was silence, the two simply sitting there, legs and elbows touching occasionally.
   
Finally, when Maeve had completely lost track and sense of time, Zach spoke.
   
"What happened about three weeks ago?" he asked.

Maeve's heart dropped before it spiked again, hot blood rushing to pound in her ears as she realized that this was it.

"I mean, it wasn't long that something was bothering you, but still. I was worried about you. I just didn't want to pry then."

If he had looked at her then, he would've seen how she was shifting around, swallowing nervously. He would've seen the whirlwind of her thought process evident in her eyes.

Her heart pounded, her mind screaming at her because this was it. To explain why right now would be to explain her feelings for him.

Unaware of how her body was reacting to the feed of panic in her head, she began taking shallow breaths. That's when Zach noticed.

"Woah, are you okay?" he said gently, leaning down a bit to will her to look at him.

She did eventually, and she didn't look away. Though she felt a strange buzz in her hands, as if they would start shaking if she allowed them to, her racing heart slowly leveled out and the rushing sound in her ears settled down to nothingness.

All that was left was insects chirping in the brush below and Zach's patient gaze, never wavering from hers. And though she was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, she knew she had to tell him then.

Her mouth hung open limpy as she searched for how to begin.

"My sister," she started, slowly, quietly. Her eyes drifted away from his; she couldn't bare to look at him.

"When I met up with her weeks ago... s-she...."

Maeve tried to calm herself, watching a couple of trees swaying silently below her.

"She told me that I'm too young... to be in love."

Out of the corner of her eye, Zach went rigidly still.

"And... she saw my interest." It took several seconds for her to add, "In you."

She didn't dare meet his eyes, voice now barely above a whisper.

"She said that I don't know what love is, really. That I shouldn't—" she fumbled for words— "jump in, right now."

Her exhale was shaky, her entire body tense with nerves.

"And that's...." she shook her head. "And that's why I couldn't tell you. Because it was you." 

A breeze shifted the stray hairs framing the sides of her face.

"I was so messed up that week because... what my sister had told me and what I was feeling—what I... am feeling—weren't matching up."

She tried to focus her attention on one area below her, but her mind was in overdrive, causing her eyes to dart back and forth.

This is it.

"I... I don't know if I know what love is," she got out, bracing herself for the sentence that would lay everything out on the line. "But you make me think I do."

She swallowed, breathing in through her nose.

"Grey," she said softly. "When Greyson tried to kiss me, I didn't want him."

The silent world surrounding her sucked everything into itself, as if it were a black hole.

She uttered out, "Because he wasn't you."

And there it was. Everything that had been churning within her for four months, spoken aloud and laid in front of him.

With painstaking slowness, she looked at him. 

His features were relaxed but frozen, unmoving. He stared right at her, unblinking, with something in his eyes that she couldn't place. He was unreadable, and every second that passed stretched out into a tension so powerful, she couldn't move, sitting numbly with baited breath.

Then his eyelashes moved, as if he was going to blink, but didn't. It happened twice. The corners of his mouth pulled up, so indistinctly that if she didn't know him as well as she did, she wouldn't have noticed at all.

His chest rose and fell with a visible breath. Then, in the slowest manner possible, he moved his hands to flatten against the ground, pushing himself up so he could move to sit even closer to her. He never broke eye contact.

Heat flared along her cheekbones.

He did the half-blink again, this time breaking to allow his gaze to flit over her face.

And then, all at once, he was moving forward.

Just as his lips ghosted over hers, a calling voice shattered the atmosphere that had built up around them.

There was noise behind them, coming from the way they climbed up.
   
Zach pulled away from Maeve. She caught sight of him clenching his jaw, eyes dark with emotion as he scooted away. He didn't look at her.
   
Eben's head appeared, his usual grin plastered on his face.
   
"This is pretty cool. How'd you guys find this?"
   
Neither answered him. They could both feel the biting chill forming between them.
   
Eben didn't notice their lack of response, occupied with looking out over the view. He nodded after a few seconds, throwing a smile at Zach.
   
"Well, we're heading back now. Come on."
   
He disappeared from sight.
   
With her heart in her throat, Maeve watched as Zach moved toward the edge, his back facing to her. He dropped his legs down on the first descending ledge and was gone, never meeting her eyes.
   
She was left staring after him, alone.