The Plague {One Direction AU}

7. Zayn

Stockton, CA
December 14

The world had fallen silent. Where once there was the cacophonous crush of cars and people, now there was only a gaping void. Zayn had always been quiet himself, and now, he lived in the silence, the solitude of this forsaken world, in relative comfort. He liked the quiet, the peace, the tranquility. He preferred it.

Perhaps that was because he had been raised by stoic elderly, nearly-deaf grandparents who, to spare everyone else from their shouting, communicated with one another by touch more than by words. A glance to show consensus, a raised eyebrow to show disdain. Grandma's gnarled hand on his neck, a gesture of comfort. Grandpa's pat on the knee, a gesture of approval. Even the work, the hard physical labor of their large family farm, was communicated through demonstration rather than explanation. Yes, Zayn was used to the silence.

But Zayn loved words. He loved the written word. As a child, he spent hours in the large barn, reading stacks of books pulled from the library. Oh, yes, his was a family of few words, so much so that Zayn often didn't know how to pronounce the words he had read, leaving him flustered and embarrassed at school. He said tapper when it should be taper. He struggled over massacre and façade. He blushed and hid when it was time to read aloud, but still, he loved words. Because through words, he lived a thousand lives. A thousand quiet lives. Quiet adventures. Quiet mysteries unraveling. Quiet romances blossoming and withering. He loved words...

And Meesh.

There was only one person on this earth Zayn had ever truly opened up to, and she was a thousand miles away. He groped for his cell phone in his pocket and dialed her number. After just a few rings, it went to voicemail. He listened to her stilted greeting, the first voice he had heard in days, and pictured her face, the first face he had ever loved. He hung up without leaving a message, forcing the idea, the image of her dying from his mind. He couldn't believe that Meesh was gone. He didn't believe it.

It had been a couple of years since they spoke. Several since they'd seen each other. But that connection would never fade. It was like his body could just tell that she was still out there somewhere. The thing about Meesh, the thing about her that just worked, was how she just fit right into his silence. Most people got all awkward and uncomfortable when it was too quiet. But not her. Not only did she settle into his silence like she had always been there--and really, she had, considering they had been best friends since they were seven--but she had also pulled him from that hermit crab shell of silence and out into their own world. A world of shared imagination. All those stories he had read alone, he shared with her. All those words he loved, he said to her. And she loved them too. Which made him love her even more.

The first time she came to the farm, they reenacted their favorite moment from their favorite book, a tradition that continued and grew over the years--she would put together extravagant scenes, building castles and boats and caves out of whatever leftover things they could find behind the barn, and he would recount the stories. The best one, his favorite, was when they recreated the British moors one winter morning in sixth grade. The low tule fog shrouded the San Joaquin Valley in a cloud of dense mist, the perfect scene for Wuthering Heights. But his Heathcliffe and her Catherine didn't hurt each other and run away. No, Zayn and Meesh rewrote this one, sharing their first kiss in a swirling gray cloud. He felt like he was floating on clouds that whole day. That whole year. His whole life. Until she left.

And then it was like the clouds dissipated right beneath his feet, and he crashed, crushed.

His first love, his first kiss, his first everything had gone across the country for college and never came home. There had been other girls after, of course there had been, but he had never loved another. He had never shared his heart, even as he shared his bed. And now, the thought that he might never see her again made his caged-away heart ache with longing.