This Thing Upon Me [Order The eBook] [Harry Styles]

Chapter 9 (Re-post)

This is a re-post of Chapter 9 for those who can't see the first Chapter 9. There seems to be a glitch with Wattpad for that chapter. Sorry for the trouble. Thanks for reading!

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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Bangkok, Thailand

March 14, 2015

Once Zayn put an end to a discussion, that discussion was done. Dead, buried, finito— never to be revisited again. His lips were sealed like his life depended on it, and you ought to follow suit, or he'd walk out on you faster than you even realized he had borne the inclination.

I found myself on the receiving end of this behavior too often to count, since I was naturally disposed to talking through whatever was bothering me until I felt a sense of relief. Zayn was the exact opposite (rather brusque at times), and in moments like this we became oil and water—repelling one another until he couldn't stand to be in my presence anymore.

Walking on eggshells was a grave misrepresentation of what it was like to talk to him whenever I brought up his desire to leave. It was more like navigating a minefield. My "hysterics"—although they were always the result of his relentless stonewalling—tended to rankle his nerves even more. Once or twice he even told me I was acting like a female, and that set me the f--k off.

He was the only person on earth with the power to reduce me to anything, let alone an emotional wreck. I just wasn't an outwardly emotional guy. Like him, I was a studied stoic and prided myself on the fact, but there was just something about that Yorkshire bastard that dissolved every bit of my composure—sometimes with just one look.

March 14, 2015. Thailand. My memories of that night were hazy, and gave me a sense of sinking or free falling into a vacuum. Once the fog cleared and I was suspended mid-air, I saw the stadium. The Rajamangala stadium. That night, the show had gone off without a hitch. In the end we blew kisses to over 23,000 smiling and sobbing Thais and hopped offstage to decompress.

As we stopped by the sound-crew to return our mics and have the in-ears untangled and removed, I tracked Zayn's every move, getting a sense that he was avoiding me. Onstage he had chucked his chin at me a few times in a silent "wussup," but never uttered a word until "Little Things," and even then, he was only responding to something I muttered first.

As Niall crooned the lyric, You'll never love yourself half as much as I love you, Z looked directly at me, nodding. It had been a pointed gesture. He wanted to break the ice, but was reluctant to make the first move. Like always, I relented so he didn't have to.

Technically we hadn't spoken in days, each too stubborn to yield—thus, the ice layering over and hardening since Valentine's Day. Despite a few hiccups here and there where we managed to crack a smile or share a fleeting word or two backstage, we still hadn't returned to texting or calling, and it was driving me up a wall.

I kept dreaming about him, and when I wasn't doing that, I couldn't sleep. And now, neither of us had spoken a word since returning from the brief hiatus that followed the Japan shows. We had all flown home to England as expected, but after a day or two of settling in and catching up with the family, when I reached out to meet up with him, he made excuses.

Apparently, he preferred to spend time with Perrie and his family since the break between shows would be so brief. I tried not to take it personally, since I held the same sentiment about seeing family and friends who I neglected all year, but something about the way he treated me smacked more of avoidance than honoring social obligations. Especially since he had been acting weird long before we flew back to the UK.