Drawn Out Dreams. [A Zarry Fanfiction.]

Chapter Twenty Four

Zayn Malik sat on his bed by his bedroom window at his Mum’s house. His face was pressed against the cold glass, his big brown eyes watching as the cars drove past slowly, his eyes craning inside to take a quick glance of the people inside of the cars, his brown pools picking up on little details, like they always did.

His arms were balanced on the windowsill, and his chin was rested on his arms as he looked out of the window. If anyone were to look into the boy’s bedroom, then you’d expect the boy by the window to be a sulking child, but it was a confused seventeen year old, looking longingly out of the window as he tried to make some sense out of the busy world that seemed to run circles around him.

Zayn’s parents had divorced many years ago, so many in fact that Zayn had to work hard to remember the accuracy of his parent’s marital breakdown. He had barely started school when the yelling and the arguments had started to occur, and unknown to him, the cheating and the lack of fidelity. Both his parents were as bad as each other. His Father turned to gambling and boxing, whereas his Mother turned to long, lonely nights where she would clutch her four year old son to her body in one of her arms, and a half empty bottle of red wine in the other arm.

As a four year old, Zayn would have never began to understand the impact that alcohol had had on his Mother in the early years of his life. Then again, even in his late teenage years, he still couldn’t get his head around how powerful the deep red liquid in the dark green bottles truly was, and how much of a hold it had on his family.

As a five year old, Zayn could clearly remember sitting at the top of the steps in their small, semi-detached house in the centre of Bradford, his small feet covered with Power Ranger socks, and his small body in a blue and red all in one. His big brown eyes watched as his Father pulled the wedding ring from his third finger on his heavy left hand, and threw it by his Mother’s feet. His Mother was clinging to his Father’s forearms, begging and pleading, many words that Zayn’s small mind could have never started to understand, but his Father would have none of it.

With a swift movement, and a grumble that sounded like the beginning of a volcano erupting, Zayn’s Father pushed away the desperate woman and grabbed his suitcases before leaving the small, messy house. Zayn could recall the bloody mess that was his Mother’s face, and he could recall the slight wet patch in his underwear, which was caused by pure fright.

There had been five small, family Christmases that were held in the small semi-detached house following that incident. Small Christmases that included a small green tree in the corner of the living room, which Zayn would sit by and stare at through enchanted brown eyes, taking in every detail of the small decorations that covered the tree. If asked on the spot, Zayn Malik could still tell you the amount of small baubles, and what they looked like. The amount of glitter that was slowly rubbing off them due to many years of use, and how slowly they would turn due to the air movement around the small tree.

The small boy would sit and watch it for ages, his Mother always turning her nose up in confusion as she would watch the seven year old. She found it strange how the boy would rather watch a cheap, fake tree rather than a flashing television screen, but she ignored it, as telling the glossy eyed boy to do otherwise would cause her son to look at her with that same, innocent look that made her wonder if there was anything going on in her son’s brain. Looking into it was pointless to her.

One year, there was a new face that arrived in the semi-detached house. Following weeks of the small boy sitting on the bottom of the step by the front door, as his Mother would leave a kiss his forehead and tell him that she would be back soon, before disappearing into the night in an arrangement of pretty colour dresses, Zayn was introduced to a man. He was tall, broad shouldered, and had dark eyes and dark hair.