Smoke & Mirrors • Zarry

12. Let me inside

Zayn had hardly slept the night before. He just kept tossing and turning viciously, waking up every other hour, harassed with the most intrusive, reoccurring thoughts about where Harry was and what he was out doing and Zayn had found himself opening his bedroom door and staring up into the loft every so often just to see if Harry had come back and gone to sleep, but he never returned.

And he grumbled as he woke up that morning and fought with staying awake, downing shots of espresso before dragging himself to go box. He discovered several years back that boxing was the best activity for his displaced anger and frustration, and that's exactly what he needed. His trainer, Mike, squared up with him in the ring and Zayn had been particularly brutal with this deep, overbearing desire to just completely beat the shit out of him and he kept picturing Mike as some guy that Harry was probably out fucking, and nearly knocked Mike on his ass every time, but he felt better after he left.

That afternoon Zayn entered his apartment feeling a bit too sweaty and exhausted, so he jumped in the shower quickly and then fell onto his couch, re-lit a half-way smoked joint and started to play FIFA on his Playstation. Harry walked in moments later with the black backpack Zayn had given him thrown over his shoulder and his white t-shirt wrinkled, his hair pulled back into a low, messy bun and he threw the bag onto the floor, followed by the key that Zayn had made him and he didn't bother looking in Zayn's direction, not even once, as he immediately entered the kitchen and began pouring himself something to drink.

Zayn glanced over and watched Harry stand there, staring down at his phone while drinking a glass of cranberry juice and waited for him to start chattering away like he always did, but instead Harry remained hushed and the silence between them was becoming painfully deafening. Zayn turned back to his game, propping his legs up onto the coffee table, lounging casually in black sweatpants, shirtless, deciding to not to say a word to Harry until he was the one who broke, but he never did. So Zayn sighed to himself and paused the game, looking over at Harry again, watching as he started making himself something to eat.

"Hey," Zayn called over, taking it upon himself to initiate the conversation seeing as how Harry was too stubborn to even so much as greet him.

"Hi," Harry replied back in his low, monotone voice.

"What are you making?"

"A sandwich."

"Fancy," Zayn said sarcastically, leaning his head back against the leather cushioning with this irritating sense of frustration. "How was your night?"

"Good," Harry responded plainly as he opened the fridge to grab the jelly and Zayn groaned because he simply couldn't take the way that Harry was talking to him any longer.

"So is this how you're going to talk to me now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not stupid. You're obviously mad at me," Zayn answered and he heard Harry laughing to himself as he spread the jelly on top of the peanut butter.

"I just think it's interesting."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"How when I flirted with some guy at the club you literally dragged me out of there, got raging jealous, and then tormented me for an hour. But you can just leave whenever you want to, do whatever you want, whoever you want and that's supposed to be okay," Harry said as he turned around and faced Zayn and stared at him from across the open floor plan of Zayn's flat.

Zayn just returned his stare with a blank expression, not even sure what to say. He had never been much of the jealous type before and he admitted that it was pretty off base for him to feel like he had any control over the situation when he knew that he didn't, because Harry didn't belong to him.