English Love Affair » z.m au

22. "I'm sorry."

Zayn

 

I walked into the room, to find her in bed, staring out the window, her bare lips captured between her teeth, her tired eyes seeking an escape. The white hospital gown was too big for her little figure, but it revealed her vulnerability, her diminishing composure. She was humming the melody to “Your Song”; the song that I used to wake up to, whenever she stayed the night. I didn’t know why, but I chose to swallow my raged words, that were no longer as raged, because I wanted to hear her for a little bit longer.

I closed my eyes, and for a deceiving moment, she wasn’t so ruined.

I wasn’t fucked up, Zayn.

She wasn’t psychotic Scarlett.

We were someone else.

Someone better.

Someone fixed.

“ Zayn,”

God, I could physically feel my heart breaking in my chest, pieces scattering into the irregular flow of my blood, shattering into the nothing I had become, lost in the void devouring my insides.

How could she forget it all, but not me?

“ I-“

“ You look like crap.”

Her tone was playful, saturated with joy.

Deceitful, unreal, joy.

Temporary joy.

Mirage-like joy.

“ You- don’t do that.”

“ Do what?”

“ Don’t joke. Not about this. Not now.”

“ Why? You need to loosen up, and get rid of this stick up your ass, honestly, you’re going to die young.”

Boy, did I wish I had.

I wished I had died before I met her.

I wished I had died, a thousand deaths, a million deaths, but not this one.

This death was too much for me to live through.

“ What’s wrong?” She asked through the pounding in my ears.

“ You need help.”

“ What?”

“ You need help, Scarlett.”

“ It’s Scar.” I could hear her teeth colliding with one another in frustration, as I opened my eyes, to reveal her beautiful figure in distress.

“ Not now, Scarlett.”

“ Stop calling me that!”

“ It’s your fucking name!”

“ Nobody called me that but-“ And she paused, her face twisting in what could only be labeled as fear, before she gulped, shaking her head to herself.

“ Forget it.”

“ Is that what he used to call you?”

I would have done anything, absolutely anything, if it meant I wouldn’t have had to see that look in her eyes.

“ I’m not doing this.”

“ No, no, Scarlett, really, he used to call you that, before you killed him?”

My soul had departed my body, looking down upon a bitter, heartless, man, who had nothing left to lose. She lifted her tearful eyes, bringing them into mine in utter loss.