Echo Of Us • Zarry

BF 2

"I felt loved," Harry says quietly, his eyes on Zayn's stoic face. "And my love for you was never the dispute. Even years ago, I would've done anything for you."

"Sure, that is why you chose your career over our relationship when I was leaving the band."

"That's not fair," Harry shakes his head. "That's not fucking fair. We both agreed getting together then would've been a horrible idea. We would've broken up right away and possibly ruined our lives."

Zayn shrugs. "We're breaking up now, aren't we? We could've saved some time if we'd done it back then."

"So this is over then?" Harry asks about the elephant in the room. He's not stupid, he knew this was coming one way or another.

"How do we come back from this?" Zayn wonders.

"I don't know," Harry replies honestly. "Is there even anything to save? I've done the math, as embarrassing as it sounds. We spent more time on the road or doing whatever the fuck we were doing than together in the past three years. Can we even count this as a relationship? Especially considering all of our fights, all the issues we needed to talk about were swept under the rug. While, yes, we did it ourselves, but that doesn't excuse it."

"We always did this," Zayn sighs. "We always fucking did this. We were fine, we were doing great and then once things started getting serious, we chickened out. We fucked everything up. You ran away and gave out your Hollywood smiles and I went back to Perrie because I was scared. I've always been scared that I'm never enough for you, that I can't keep up with how fast you live your life."

Harry sniffs, rubbing his nose twice. "You're right," he says, his eyes on the hardwood floor. When he lifts his head to meet Zayn's gaze, they're both damn near lifeless. "Love isn't enough. We can't work. We're not right for each other." Harry laughs then as he drops down on the armrest of the sofa. His hand slaps his thigh as it drops uselessly. "Nothing was standing in our way now. Literally nothing. We started dating like normal people, we went out on dates, we didn't have to hide and sneak around. We lived together. For fuck's sake, we planned our wedding, we spent one entire night signing invitations that were then sent out to our families, our friends. But none of it was enough. It doesn't matter what we would do, we just don't work. Why?"

Zayn's eerily silent. He averts his gaze before he mirrors Harry and sits down on the edge of an armchair, putting half the living room between them. His head hung low, hands restless. Harry watches him and his heart shatters slowly, like a frozen lake in January breaking from the middle after a heavy bird landed in the middle of it. The chill going down Harry's spine then is almost like a dip in that lake, icy and dreadful.

"Why, Zayn?" Harry asks again. "Why can't we work?"

The look Zayn then gives Harry is telling enough. The exhaustion on his face from the fight, his dull eyes. Harry chuckles breathily. "If you wanted this, we would've worked through everything. Fuck, our first few months were great. Okay, our first year. I was so fucking happy to have you again. To be with you, to touch you, to kiss you anytime I wanted. I didn't have to share you with anyone. I was foolishly in love, it was like- I felt like my chest could burst with it at any moment. I wasn't sad, I never found myself lying in bed for days on end and getting drunk in the middle of the day. But I was blind, god, I was so blind." Harry shakes his head before he stands up. He walks to his kitchen island, turning off his stove before he looks at Zayn again. "I've noticed this only recently. Finally started listening to my mum, Gemma, everyone else who truly cared about me. Because you," Harry points at Zayn promptly, one hand leaning on the island. "You never gave a shit. You're right, what I didn't push you into, you didn't do. It's been fucking hard, these past weeks because I've missed you so much. I've missed sleeping next to you, I've missed making love, kissing, all of it. But did you? Have you ever cared enough? Because, see," Harry's laugh is indignant. "If you loved me as much as you said you do, my issues wouldn't make you cancel the wedding. Sure, we would've fought, you would've told me to stop partying. What is absolutely ridiculous is that you believe that I had anything to do with that bloke. It was a tabloid, Zayn. A fucking tabloid. I'm a lot of things but I'm not a cheater. No matter how fucked up I am. While my memories from that night are hazy, and I spent days upon days beating myself up, I knew deep down I never kissed that guy, not for real. We were playing a game, if we'd actually kissed it would've been the kind of a kiss I've shared with fucking James on Late Late, not a kiss that would be deemed cheating." Harry sighs deeply, his hands shaking. The marble countertop underneath his hands is now warm. He shakes his head at Zayn. "You saw that as a way out. You knew you weren't ready to truly commit to me. Rather than owning up to it and telling me - hey, Harry, how about we delay the wedding? I don't feel like doing that just yet but I still want you - what you did is put all the blame on me and made me look like the immature one, the cheater, the problem. It's laughable. It's absurd because I was never the one going behind people's backs and cheating. That was you."