TAINTED | Zayn Malik

Chapter 23| Past

"So, I was thinking..." I trailed off as I took a seat in front of Zayn's mom.

She looked at me curiously before nodding, placing down her pen and notepad. Folding her hands over her knee, I knew that stance meant she was completely listening and this was going without giving me a judgement from her job.

"Recently, I guess I was told something from someone. And I don't wanna say that I don't care about the situation, I mean I do-" I stopped, looking away from her and finding a way to think of my words.

It was incredibly hard to ask her something that was involving her son, especially since the two barely talk. And it was weird for me to confide into her, but I had a feeling that she wouldn't go tell Zayn I was honestly worried. I felt nothing but civility with her, she has now become someone I couldn't wait to talk too. She never frowned down at my mental thoughts, it was like she wanted to understand me more than a patient. I didn't even think she treated anyone else like that, it seemed to be mostly focused on me. Even at times when she got a few tears out of me, she would grab tissue and cry with me. And somehow that was everything to me, so I had major respect for her.

I had so much respect for that I felt apprehensive that I tried bringing up her son's kid, it was a complete invasion of privacy. And I knew this was something that Zayn would never tell me, at least willingly. This was something I wanted to know, and not just out of curiosity. I felt a bit sad for him, when he mentioned that part. It was like everything in him changed, he seemed broken to even talk about his son in past-tense. And that changed something in me, I had to know just so I could allow myself to realize his abilities of remaining civil isn't placed on him.

Dr. Murphy, Taylor, Harry and even Fatima had mentioned it to me, he's a very troubled guy. And I don't even think it ends up happening to him based of the decisions from this gang he's running. This was actually deeper and seemed to be life effecting, and that just made me want to hold onto him. And it made no sense, I knew nothing about him and yet I wanted a bit of things to go right in his corner. And I wouldn't be able to do that, not until I knew for myself.

"I just wanna know something, and I feel like it'll be important for me to know." I continued, pushing my hair back as I cleared my throat. "Something happened the other night, and I found out that Zayn had a-" I stopped and I could see the ends of her lips frowning, losing that smile at my bashfulness.

"I, I can't talk to you on things about him Ryder." She said lowly, turning her head and making sure the doorway was still empty. Almost as if she was afraid to be talking about it. "It's not my place and it's completely unprofessional, whatever you would like to know about Zain, you'll just have to ask him yourself."

I nodded, seeing the look of depression sweeping over her face about the thoughts of her duplicate. It seemed to be a deeper feeling than what I thought, knowing she wasn't able to talk about her son was just sad. She is such a sweetheart and it obviously bothered her.