Smoke & Mirrors • Zarry

27. Dunkirk

One year later.

"Hey baby, can you pick up some milk from the corner store on your way home later? We're all out," Gianna said to Zayn as he walked into the kitchen that morning, decked out in his navy blue suit and black tie, his white dress shirt and black patent leather shoes.

"Yeah sure," he replied casually and leaned in, giving her a swift kiss on the cheek before he grabbed his phone and keys and slid out the door on his way to work.

The sun was hot that day in London because it was summer again, and it felt good on his skin as he clambered down the stairs from his apartment and onto the street, unlocking his Range Rover from a distance as he checked the time and noticed that he had about fifteen minutes to get to work, and he wondered if he'd get there on time because there was always too much traffic around eight in the morning.

Zayn hopped into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition while the radio turned on automatically, causing Zayn to realize he must have forgotten to turn it off the day before and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd started playing. He contemplated turning it off for a second, if only because it reminded him of a certain someone, but Zayn decided to leave it on as he drove away onto the busy street.

In the last year things had changed drastically for Zayn, ever since that night at The Box where he had some epiphany, some realization that he needed to turn his life around. And just as Gianna said, she managed to get Zayn a job working for her father in Real Estate, of all career fields.

He still couldn't figure out how exactly it was that she managed to get her family to like Zayn, or at least warm up to the idea of him and Gianna together, but she did it. Trying to convince people to buy homes was not exactly the ideal job for Zayn, however, he was grateful for the opportunity that he was given because he couldn't seem to draw up an idea for a small business and he just needed something to do, something that didn't involve dealing drugs.

And he hadn't even been to The Box ever since that night either. He packed up that part of his life and put it away, like a treasure full of memories that he just lived with but didn't want to relive and Zayn felt okay with it...kind of. Nothing good would come from venturing back there, anyway, he told himself, and the only person from that place that he bothered to think about was Cara, and she hadn't been back to London in all of that time.

The last he heard from her was a few months ago when she finally decided to commit to a serious relationship with this guy named Jakob, whom she met along her travels in that gypsy lifestyle that she tended to lead, and she fell in love with him in Amsterdam, so much to the point where she decided to settle down there and start a life. And it seemed like everybody in Zayn's life was doing just that, getting their shit together and figuring themselves out.

However, the one thing that had surprised him the most in the last year was his family. He went home for the holidays last December and they actually got along. And although his parents hadn't exactly shown support for his sexuality, they turned a blind eye, so long as they didn't have to openly talk about it, and agreed to make more of an effort in making him feel like he was part of the family.

And for Zayn, that was a step in the right direction but it seemed to help his case that Zayn was with Gianna again and he knew that had everything to do with it. His family was happy to see him with her and they continued to encourage that relationship. But in his heart he knew that the only reason why was because she wasn't a man. And even though it still bothered him, Zayn just swept it under the rug.

It seemed as though things were going well overall, and Zayn felt this sense of normalcy take over his life, as if everything had been rearranged into feeling like this calm, blue ocean instead of those thrashing rapids in a stormy river that his life once was. He hadn't been experiencing any panic attacks lately and he hadn't opened that bottle of Valium in a long time, so Zayn had hope for the future for the first time.