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

Chapter 21

(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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I went to pack my things and was glad I was alone. Free of him. It gave me time to think, but unfortunately mostly about him. I knew I was f—ked. I had fallen hard, and there was no going back to spare my dignity or to undo everything now. I had exposed the real me, and that version of me had debased myself to please him. The only thing that comforted me now was the idea that he was mine. And that's a truth I would never give up easily, no matter what I'd have to face to hang onto him. No matter how many Stephanie's would come our way.

How was I so sure he was mine? Well, he was a different person when we were alone. Not better or worse than his usual self, just different. Very direct and laser-focused on everything to do with me. Like he had no other care in the world apart from studying and understanding me. And it wasn't a caviling kind of scrutiny like Louis sometimes leveled on me when I spoke in public, or the kind my aunts volleyed at me, picking apart my attitude and clothing at family gatherings ever since I became "famous" (which they always said in an accusatory tone). With Zayn it was just curiosity unfettered. He never seemed disinterested in me, and although I felt unworthy of his attention sometimes, it made me feel equally as conceited.

Sometimes I feared he only stared at me so long so he could imagine what it would be like if I was a girl. So that he could be with me without any remorse or embarrassment. Yet just when that idea started to torment me, he'd do something that let me know he appreciated the fact that I was all male.

Ultimately, he just made me feel like everything was going to be ok. He constantly reassured me not to sweat the little stuff. Whenever he could tell I was nervous onstage or behind the camera, he'd do something to take my mind off my mind, like poking my dimples or sneakily pinching my bum. That's when I felt like he had been crafted especially for me. I knew it was a selfish way to think of it, and I knew he was his own person capable of independent action and thought (he more than anyone), but there was something about the way he completed me that made him feel god-sent.

He was the only one who could really reach me when I felt overwhelmed or totally homesick. Although Lou and the other boys tried to comfort me sometimes, Zayn knew just what to say or do to make it feel at ease. Like he was in possession of an instruction manual that detailed the way I operated—mind, body, and soul.

He cared for me with a sort of warm paternal sensibility sometimes, like he'd already fathered few children and oversaw their growth and development. Unlike Lou, (who was also my elder and also had several sisters), you could see the nurturing spirit the female dominated Malik household had bred in Z, and I benefited from it more than the other boys. It was a bizarre combination of attributes he possessed; being at once the most masculine yet the most sensitive guy among us. Overtime I would come to realize that true masculinity embodied both.

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I stepped back into the lounge after I'd finished and things were nothing short of chaotic. Liam was spinning around in circles in the leather computer chair from Robin's office, and Zayn and Louis were sticking things into Niall's mouth because he had fallen asleep on the sofa. Z's snicker was all that caught my ear. The pizza boxes were still splayed all over the floor, one of them flipped with Zayn's crusts flown everywhere. I knelt and picked them up since they were his (he was the only person who didn't eat the crusts). If they were anyone else's I would have made them cleanup after themselves.