One last time/Zauren

/8.

It'd been two and a half weeks without even as much as a text message from Lauren and I don't know how I was holding up. Everytime my mind told me to send her a text my fingers told me no.

It was weird not having Lauren tickling me with her toes in the morning to wake me up and then having her giggle fill the room. I was rarely in my flat. I didn't want to have these constant memories of what used to be.

I was in the middle of taking Depp for a walk when I got a phone call from my mother. "Mum, hey."

"Am I uninvited to your wedding?" she asked, her tone upset.

"What are you talking about?"

"You haven't spoken to me about your wedding in what feels like the longest time." I was quiet as I walked down the sidewalk.

"Please tell me all is well with you and Lauren?"

"Mum, I don't really want to talk about this right now."

My mum let out a gasp as if the air was knocked right from her lungs. "Zayn, don't tell me somethings gone sour between you two?"

"I don't know what happened mum," I shrugged. "I don't know. She doesn't know. Everything just happened so fast."

"I wish I was there. What's going on with the flat? And your pup?"

"I've got the pup, and she's moved out of the flat. She's been staying at her families home."

"Are you holding up well? I know you love that girl."

"I guess that I'm holding up as best I could."

"My poor boy. I'm going to give Lauren a call and see if I can help with some mending remedies."

"No, mum, don't make any calls. We're taking it as it comes, please don't add to it."

"But I don't want to see that you're hurting."

"I'm fine as I will be for now. I'll talk with you later."

"Do tell me of anything changes?"

"Of course."

"I love you, Zayn."

"Love you too mum, we'll chat later." I hung up the phone and slid it into my back pocket.

L:
There was a loud knock at my front door, and I looked up from the book that I was reading on how to fix yourself and fix your relationships. I hadn't left my house in a week, and I hadn't been returning many calls either.

I placed the book down and made my way to the door. Standing on the other side were Dinah, Normani and Ally. "I wasn't expecting you guys..." I said.

"Of course you weren't, you've been ignoring our calls so we had to come straight to you," Normani sneered.

"I'm sorry. You guys know what I'm going through though. Where's Camz?" I asked letting them in.

"She's at Disney with Harry," Ally informed me. I frowned for a moment realizing that Zayn and I were also supposed to go to Disney today but he must have called the double date off obviously due to our circumstances. "Oh," was all I muttered.

"What have you been up to?" Dinah asked. I shrugged and gestured around me. "A whole lot of nothing," I shakily laughed.

Ths girls facial expressions showed that they could sense exactly how I was feeling. "What's that?" Normani pointed to the book sitting on the coffe table. I looked at the self help book.

"It's going to help me fix things between Zayn and I," I said confidently.

"How are you going to fix things if you don't even know why or how things went wrong?" Ally asked.

"I think it's that Zayn was slowly falling out of love with me because we fell in love at such a fragile innocent age and he chose to compromise so much for me, and now I'm just boring to him so that book is helping me to see what I could do to better myself as a person and as his fiancè, girlfriend, whatever," I said.

"Lauren, do you hear yourself? You sound and are acting really jittery," Dinah said.

"When'd you wake up this morning?" Ally asked me. I shrugged my shoulders.

"I barely slept the past couple of days but what does that have to do with anything? I am figuring out what's wrong with us."

"And that's something you figure out with Zayn, not staying cooped up in your parents house and not talking for a month," Dinah said.

"Yeah. I know that you think it's the best for you, but you don't even know what's really the best for you. You guys miss each other, plain and simple," Normani shrugged.

My eyes started to water and I started fanning them. "I'm just- I'm really fucking frustrated because it's like we're just throwing two and a half years away and I don't want to do that," I was full blown crying now. "It's like- it's embarrassing because we're just fitting this stupid young couples shouldn't get married because it leads to failure stereotype. Zayn and I have never ever fought like this and now look at us. I'm living with my parents again and we have bills that were due four days ago, and gosh I don't even know if he paid them..." I stopped in my tracks and started blinking my eyes. "I totally forgot about that until now. We always split the bills. Our landlord is strick as hell, we can't even miss a day. And what's Zayn gonna do if he gets evicted? He's probably going to go back to England or something." Everything was hitting me all at once. "What am I going to do about this wedding? We already paid for everything, and oh my gosh.. that ring. Zayn's going to be paying that ring off forever and it's just going to be a shiny reminder of what could have been. I can't- I can't do this.. I can't," I started to breathe in and out and the girls pulled me close and wrapped me in their arms. "Shhh, it'll all be better with time." Dinah said.

It was late that night and I tried fall asleep several times but I just couldn't, so I decided to flip through my phone looking at pictures of Zayn and I that made my bottom lip quiver.

Z:
I was sitting up watching a documentary and without Lauren's excitement and commentary and constant check ups, ("Did you see that? "What?! That's so weird. Right that's weird?" "Did you like it?") I couldn't really enjoy it. I grabbed the keys and headed out of the apartment. I know it was twelve in the morning but there was one place that could potentially relax me and that was the park that Lauren and I went to when we couldn't sleep one night. We sat up staring at the stars and just talking and it was just a peaceful place to go and clear your mind.

I parked my car in the damn near empty parking lot. There was just one car parked and it was almost too dark and too distant to distant to even notice it. I used the light on my cellphone to walk to the bench Lauren I sat on the one night, and as I approached it I saw a figure sitting on the bench, wrapped in a blanket. I thought it was a homeless person and was about to turn around, but my phones flashlight made them turn in my direction.

"Zayn?"

"Lauren?"