Drawn Out Dreams. [A Zarry Fanfiction.]

Chapter Twenty Eight

Even though Zayn Malik’s body felt heavy with sadness, he still walked quietly through the streets of Bradford. He gave the odd sniff from time to time, as random spouts of Liam Payne’s words would bite into his mind like a snake and remind him of why he felt sad. Unable to deal with how heavy his heart felt, Zayn had done something bad for the first time in his life.

He signed out of sixth form and left the school. He didn’t have any lessons on that Friday afternoon anyway so technically it wasn’t much of a loss, but he still felt a little bad about it. Not as bad as his heart felt though. It just all felt like it had gone so fast for Zayn, one minute, Harry had surprised him with lunch, and the next minute he was being yelled at and punched by Liam.

Zayn was used to punches. This punch was a little different to the way that the other punches he received were like. His Father’s movements were quick and controlled most of the time, due to his years of boxing and gym training, Liam’s punch was strong but slightly shaken. Zayn’s brown eyes had quickly picked up on how the boy’s bottom lip had been trembling a little before his teeth had closed down on it, and the fist had flown into his face.

Liam’s knuckles had hit straight into the bridge of Zayn’s nose, the rest of his closed fist landing roughly on Zayn’s nose and cheek. He had quickly grabbed his books and ran off, and in fact had sat in the empty toilets with tissues shoved underneath his nose to make the trickles of blood stop. When they did, Zayn flushed them down the toilet with watery eyes before leaving the toilet stall, and slowly finding himself out of school.

A part of him was fairly thankful that his Nana was away from town for a few nights. She’d gone on one of these coach holidays made specifically for old people, and she’d left for the seaside with a few of her friends and wouldn’t be back until Monday now. Zayn was scheduled to stay at his Dad’s, but he couldn’t face that right now.

Zayn wasn’t one for being naughty, or not doing what people asked of him, but he knew that if he went to his Father’s house tonight, like he was meant to be doing, he’d end up feeling more sad. The boy’s mind was past trying to understand what Liam Payne had really meant, it was just more busy trying to keep Zayn’s heart beating regularly. It felt so heavy in Zayn’s chest that the boy felt he needed to lay down.

There were no sounds of pretty birdcalls echoing around the sky as he walked through the streets. Zayn’s big brown eyes looked up at the cloudy sky above him and tried to scan for some sort of bird, but there was nothing. Cars and lorries driving around him were the only sounds that he could hear, which only made his body feel even heavier. He soldiered on, heading towards the park, hoping that that would be the only place where he would feel lighter.

The town air around him didn’t feel fresh, and the tall buildings were starting to feel claustrophobic to the boy as they all loomed around him. His feet subconsciously walked a little faster as he headed to the nearest park, while his arms held on tightly to the sketchbooks in his hands. He didn’t want to let them go again, and clinging them to his chest felt like it was the only way that he could keep himself from falling apart. The boy gave another sniff.

The boy continued on, and soon enough the cars and lorries disappeared as he walked towards a rather large park just out of the centre of the centre of the town, where all the university students flocked in their spare time to relax or eat in the sun. It was a rather large park, a children’s play park in one part of it, whereas the rest was large areas of grass and trees, even though there was a large water fountain in the centre, where children went running through in the summer, earning calls from their Mother’s who were trying to keep their children as dry as possible.

Zayn liked to be in this park. He just liked to hear the sounds of the birds around him as they flew above his head, swooping into the trees and to their nests, causing other birds to come flying from the tree. Birds just calmed Zayn’s mind and soul, and that’s why he wanted to just know that there were birds around him somewhere.