Smoke & Mirrors • Zarry

37. Do you trust me?

Harry had been working on his new film Don't Worry Darling for the last few months, which was fortunately being filmed in Palm Springs, California, only an hour and forty minutes away from Los Angeles.

Zayn took several opportunities to drive over and see Harry within those few months of filming so that they could still spend time together, and everything was going so well between them. Zayn was busy with work, busy with the life he had created and found that sense of peace in knowing that he and Harry were secure, could withstand time apart and it wasn't as bad as he once thought it would be.

It seemed as though of all Zayn's former worries had come from a place of mental unrest, and now that he was actively working on his own mental health, he felt so many of those intrusive thoughts subsiding in the best way.

Zayn and Harry's relationship made several headlines and they were seen together, often getting papped, but it appeared as though the fans and the public liked them together, and they even voted Zayn and Harry as everyone's favorite couple.

And as he and Harry's relationship developed both privately and publicly, so did his business. Zayn had set up a few different meetings with other business owners in the area within the last month, looking to expand his career by opening up several more flower stores, and he also began developing a plan to create a new business venture by unleashing a new, underground nightclub in LA that he considered naming Blue Ruin, modeled after an old fashioned speakeasy, where people could go and have the experience of living during the prohibition era, which was actually Harry's suggestion considering his love for all things old fashioned.

Harry always had the best ideas.

Although Zayn wasn't considered famous, he was becoming more well known through his relationship with Harry and had even been stopped on the street several times by fans, but it didn't bother him. He didn't want to be a celebrity, but he handled the newfound attention rather well and made it a point to just be kind to people, because that was Harry's trademark thing. Treat people with kindness.

But the only real downside to his new life was his family's complete and total lack of acknowledgement after an argument they had when Zayn returned home to England for the holidays, where his family referred to him as an embarrassment and didn't want anything to with Harry or their relationship. The whole situation had left Zayn feeling deeply hurt, and he wondered if it would ever get better, if he would ever gain their approval.

But luckily he always had Harry to remind him that he had his own chosen family now, one that Zayn created, which now consisted of Louis and Eleanor, who were still pregnant with Zayn's soon-to-be niece, Emily and Taryn, both of whom Zayn had developed a close, personal friendship with both at work and outside of work, especially Taryn, who he viewed as a spunky little sister that he truly adored, Colton, who had become his new gym and yoga buddy, Cara, his eternal friend and the constant voice of reason, and of course there was Harry, his best friend in the world, the one person that Zayn could always run to, the absolute love of his life.

Zayn also made it a crucial priority to attend yoga and meditation classes twice a week and he was mostly recently in the process of quitting smoking cigarettes as well, which was proving to be more difficult than he thought, but he kept meditating through the urges as much as possible. But he continued smoking weed, of course, because it was his one guilty pleasure and he wanted to remain true to the remnants of his former self, which were still ever-present in some ways.

And Harry agreed that it was important for him to hold onto.

For the first time in his life Zayn didn't feel like he was faced with any real demons or panic, and it almost didn't feel real sometimes when he really sat and thought about it late at night, but he had accepted love into his life and the universe had rewarded him for it by giving him multiple blessings.