The Brighter Side (Ziall)

Chapter 12

** Warning near end **

I replayed his words in my mind over and over. How was I? I was basically an orphan and there he was, calling out of the blue, and asking how I was. “What do you want?” I asked him, my words coming out harsher sounding than I intended.

“Is that any way to talk to your father?”

“What father?” I asked, this time sounding like I had wanted to. This man on the other side of the line was never a father. He was there for a short time and then decided that his job as my dad wasn’t worth his time so he left. He wasn’t my father. He hadn’t been for a while.

“Zayn. Please listen to me.” That was when I took the cordless phone and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Niall and Maura behind. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Niall wanting to come after me, but Maura held him back. “Zayn I heard about your mother.” He said softly, approaching on dangerous territory. “I’m so sorry to hear that she is gone.” There was a slight shake to his voice like he was on the verge of tears.

“You’re not sorry.” I spat. “If you were you would have been at her bedside like I was. Not off enjoying the comforts of life like you have been for the past ten years.” I was shaking by then and I couldn’t stay on the phone any longer. I just couldn’t. Hearing my father talk about my mother was too hard for me. He had no idea what I had been through and how much I needed somewhere with me when my mom fought until she died. “Don’t call again.”I said finally, hanging up the phone and trying not to through it at the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.

I set the phone down on the top of the couch and stood stationary for a few minutes. I had to collect myself before I did anything else. If I didn’t, I would destroy something for sure, the phone being the least of anyone’s worries.

“Zayn?” Maura walked up beside me. I turned to her and saw that Niall was popping his head out from the kitchen, watching his mother approach me. “Zayn, I know this is sudden- if you need anything-“

“I don’t-“ I choked, clenching my fists. “I’ll be upstairs.” I announced, quickly running up the stairway and down to my room. Once inside I slammed the door and locked it. I was heaving cries out by then. I ran over to my bedside table and tore through the drawer looking for my picture. The only picture that ever mattered to me; the one of my mother and I. I found it near the back of the drawer and when I grabbed for it, the brittle paper it was printed on ripped between my fingers. I gasped, holding a torn fragment in my hand. I carefully pulled out the rest of the photo and realized that I had practically torn my picture in half.

I shook terribly as I held the two pieces. I held them together to make a whole picture once again. The edges were jagged, a line ran through the center and the colors were faded. What I held in my hands was the only remaining piece of my past, and I had just ripped it. I was losing myself. I was losing the Zayn that I had worked to become and becoming this new person who was insecure, out of place, and out of mind. I hated it. I hated myself.

I sat on my bed with my torn pieces in hand and internally screamed at myself for letting my emotions run wild. I would have been fine that day if my father hadn’t called. I really wished he were dead all of these years instead of skillfully evading my mother and me. I wished he hadn’t called and thrown my world into chaos. I wished he didn’t exist. That would be for the best.