The Chase of Adeline

Chapter 5. Confrontation and Contemplation,.

Zayn's POV

I stood there at the entrance to the house of Louis' mother and sisters. I thought to myself about what I was going to do, what I would say, what I could offer her. That was the biggest question in that moment though. What could I offer her? Did I even have anything to give her? 

I already knew the answer to that. I already knew that I had nothing to give her. Why would she want to come back to the man who cheated on her twice? The man who left her worried sick for nights on end while he was out drinking and getting high with all of friends? The coward that didn't even have the guts to follow her out of the door when I caused her to leave in the damn first place?

She wouldn't. No one would. 

But what if she wasn't even there? That would cause a problem. I knew she had to be though. If she wasn't with Louis and she wasn't with her parents, where else could she be? 

I didn't know if I could take it if she really wasn't there.  I had felt an ache rise in my chest at the thought of her wanting to be away from me so badly, that she really did do everything in her power to keep me from finding her. It got deeper when I thought of never finding her. And impossibly deeper yet again when I thought about never seeing her again.

There was no way I could do that, I would kill myself. I would've rather died than allow my last time seeing the love of my life to be when she was in tears, leaving me in the early hours of the morning. 

After somewhat gaining my confidence and gathering my thoughts, I finally brought my hand up to knock on the door. I let my fist hover for a moment, preparing myself,  before bringing it down onto a light but strong knock. To say that my nerves were on end would have been an understatement. I was about to have a fucking panic attack. I needed a cigarette to be quite honest. 

The door opened, and a prominent gasp could be heard when Johannah realized it was me, and not whoever it was that she was expecting. She stared at me for a moment, and I stared back, neither of us knew what to say. 

"Is she here?" I asked abruptly. I saw that she was taken aback, but she still said nothing. Her face was anything but expressionless, I just couldn't tell what emotion was showing. I knew she knew who I was talking about, I didn't even have to say her name, and that thought alone filled my chest with a tin shred of hope. "Johannah," I said again. She shook her head. 

"Louis is, but not her." I didn't buy it. Her face was hard and she looked at me like I was a criminal, which at that point, I might as well have been. "I know about you and her though," she spoke again and it hit me right in the chest. I knew she had to know something, or at least suspect something, but I didn't know that she knew everything. 

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. My head was hung and I looked at my feet as I kicked a fallen leaf around with the toes of my shoes. "I just really need to find her," I told her. She looked at me with the soft eyes that I had seen so many times before. It was a long moment that seemed to never end before she spoke again.

"You know, she's not so much angry as she is hurt, and betrayed, Zayn," she said to me. I didn't know what to say. I knew I had hurt her, but I didn't expect this to come from Johannah like this, of all people. I felt ashamed. This woman had been like another mother to me ever since I met her when she visited Louis at the X-Factor, when the band first formed. Now I was ashamed that she knew every horrible, rotten thing my shitself had done to Adeline.

"I know," I choked. My throat felt dry and my voiced cracked, but I shoved the words out of my mouth like they were dirt. Finally I looked up again to meet her eyes. "I'm just trying to do what I can to make it up with her, and that starts with finding out where she went to." Johannah nodded her head, her lips had spread into a firm line.