"Zayn! Wait up!" Niall Horan called as he hopped down the stairs of the bus, his feet landing hard on the grass below. Zayn ignored the boy as he quickened his pace, hoping Niall would get the hint and leave him alone. Unfortunately for him, Niall did not. His heavy footsteps approached quickly, and soon, he was beside the brown eyed boy, sucking in breaths through his mouth. "Didn't you hear me? I said to wait for me."
Zayn kept his mouth closed and his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him, his left hand clutching tightly to the bag he had slung over his back. He was in no mood to talk to the annoying blonde today, he just wanted to get home and allow the release of emotions he bottled up that day. For a few minutes, silence settled over the two boys, their shoes hitting the pavement being the only sound.
"So, you doing anything tomorrow?" Niall asked, his stupid grin back on his face. Zayn knew he wasn't doing anything that Friday, he was never invited to anything, but he didn't dare tell Niall. "Because my family and I are going bowling and they said I could invite someone. I figured you would be a good choice because you don't have any friends, and I don't either, and we could both become friends and then you wouldn't be so sad."
"Who says I'm sad?" Zayn hissed, cursing himself as he realized his mistake. He wanted to keep his mouth shut, the last thing he wanted was to give Niall the satisfaction of getting a reply from him.
Niall waited a moment before answering, his eyes roaming over Zayn's body. It made the raven haired lad uncomfortable, but he did his best not to comment on it. "Well, anyone would be sad if they hung out with themselves all the time. I-I know how lonely it is, Zayn. So let me in? I just want to be your friend." Niall's voice had softened at the end, his blue eyes adverting to the ground. Zayn hardened his jaw and straightened his back.
"I don't need friends," Zayn said coldly, hurrying off and away from the smaller boy.
~~
Zayn sighed in content as he closed the front door, leaning his back against it. He had run a whole extra block just so that he could avoid Niall, who had nearly managed to catch up to him anyway. Looking around the room, Zayn quickly realized that he was alone, his mother at work. Yaser Malik had died in a fatal car accident years back, and that's when Zayn's mother began to invest more time in work, leaving Zayn on his own most of the time.
Zayn trudged slowly up his carpeted stairs to his room, pushing open the slightly closed door and striding in. He tossed his bag off to the side, flopping face first onto his bed. His eyes scanned over the picture on his nightstand, where a picture of his family was framed, back before his father died. They were standing on a beach, Zayn holding a hand of each one of his parents'.
With a small smile, Zayn picked it up, bringing it closer to his face. Downstairs the doorbell rang, and Niall's faint voice came from behind the closed door, calling Zayn's name. With a groan, Zayn set the picture back down, pulling his pillow over his head. Niall continued to ring the doorbell and pound on the door, keeping it up for another five minutes before giving up. Zayn laid there for a while longer, finally getting up and making his way to the bathroom.
He flicked the lights on, taking a look at himself in the mirror. His skin was paler than it had been this morning, his hair a crazy mess piled on top of his head. His brown eyes no longer shone with brightness, but held a sad look that Zayn couldn't seem to get rid of. Niall had been right when he said Zayn was sad, but Zayn wasn't going to let Niall know how much he was hurting.
Why should he? Niall had a perfect life with everything he could ever want. He had two parents that weren't dead or split up, an older brother that loved him, friends back from wherever he came from-Zayn couldn't remember where anymore, not that he cared. He had probably gotten everything he wanted by asking. Plus, he wasn't bad looking, had a kind of cute side to his face. And he was always smiling. It sickened Zayn how happy the boy was. And that's why Zayn hated Niall, why he had hated the blonde since the first moment he had laid eyes on the boy.
