Need • Zarry

15. Space

Harry had never booked down a flight of stairs so fast. He felt like he couldn't breathe - it was just this gaseous ball of nerves now festering in the pit of his stomach and making him nauseous. Moving quickly through the lobby he stumbled outside in the crisp, spring air, spotting a bunch of teens outside chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and he breezed past them a short ways, slinking up against the building with his eyes shut tight.

"Hey dude, you good? You gonna throw up or something?" said a raspy female voice, causing his verdant eyes to blink open, looking at her sideways.

"I'm all good," he lied.

But he wasn't all good, not even in the slightest bit. Harry zoned out into the busy street, watching as the drunk kids jaywalked and danced drunk haphazardly, then followed by the aggressive beeping of car horns and plenty of fuck you's from the car window at today's youth.

I don't fit in here. I don't fit in anywhere.

Harry cursed himself over and over again as he leaned into the cold brick wall, wondering what had possessed him to decide that that was the right time to say those three words out loud.

Perhaps it was the ambiance of the night, the energy in the room, the warmth of Zayn's hand as he held it, the light dancing in his eyes, Lovesong. And then it just happened like word vomit because for some reason it felt right at the time, but apparently it was wrong.

Zayn could have said it back, but he didn't. He looked like he had seen a ghost instead; not exactly the perfect moment in that old, romance film Harry thought they were in - more like a sad drama, just getting to the part where it all falls apart.

Maybe there will be no happy ending either.

Just then Harry noticed Zayn from the corner of his eye shuffling towards him with both of their previously checked jackets and this look of deep concern written all over his face, brows furrowed, eyes hollowed, tight lipped; certainly not the former beaming glow of excitement Harry loved to see.

Well, I've ruined that too.

"Harry," he spoke quietly, handing him his suit jacket.

But Harry couldn't even bring himself to speak back to him because he didn't know what to say. He couldn't stop time and turn the minute hand back to before he had said those words and now he just felt dreadful, embarrassed, with every ounce of confidence he had managed to grow recently having been thrown into the trash and lit on fire by his own demon hand. So he just accepted it and stared back at Zayn blankly.

"Listen I'm...I'm so sorry. I'm just...it's just...a lot," Zayn muttered, but with sincere eyes.

"Yeah, sure. Forget I said it," grumbled Harry, turning away from him.

"Well, I can't do that."

An awkward silence filled the space between them and it brought Harry back to a previous memory - the night of Zayn's birthday on the car ride back from The Spot. Harry loathed that sort of silence, the kind that wasn't comfortable, the kind that was so quiet you'd hear a pin drop and yet, it was somehow still so loud that it almost felt deafening.

"Harry," Zayn spoke again, breaking through the stillness. "I'm not upset with you or anythin. It's...it's just a difficult emotion for me to accept...t-to process. I dunno what I'm tryin to say it's just..."

"Scary?" Harry finished his thought for him.

"Yeah," Zayn replied quietly. "Can we take a walk and maybe try and talk about this?"

"Okay."

Up until that point in their relationship Harry and Zayn hadn't treaded into discussing their feelings, at least not like this. This was serious, and therefore it felt a little awkward, because it appeared as though Harry wasn't the only one who didn't understand himself, who never experienced anything like this before. Neither had Zayn.