Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

65

I slowly became obsessed with the studio in these days, and hardly ever left it apart from our workouts. I was writing constantly. Letting my soul vent. Freestyling, improvising, experimenting, and experiencing some of the most potent highs of my life on music alone. Ant told me this was my reawakening. That it was time for me to be reborn. I took that shit to heart and started researching the symbolism behind rebirth and trying to channel it into my life. That's when I rediscovered the lotus flower and fell in love with its beauty and allure.

I'd caught a good bit of heat for calling the music the Hannides brothers and I were making real music when I tweeted about the new record deal, and I felt guilty the other boys might've been a bit disrespected. In spite of my petty back and forth on Twitter with Lou and Shahid, who I'd kicked out of my life entirely after he leaked her another song in early July, I decided it was time to make things right and be publicly amicable with the boys. After I'd thanked them at the Asian Awards in April, they'd done the same for me at the Billboard Awards in May, and so here it was August and they had just released a new single called "Drag Me Down." It was actually pretty sick. They were switching things up a bit. Sounding super grown this time around, and Haz outshined them all. For him, I tweeted that the tune was sick and that I was proud of them. That won a shit ton of the fandom back over to my side, which was an unexpected advantage of opening up.

Here's to new beginnings, I told myself. I tweeted an image of a lotus flower to document my rebirth, then had it tattooed later that day. Even though I tried daily——sometimes hourly——not to dwell on him, I'd still chosen to place the lotus in a spot that would mirror his rose, because I missed feeling a connection with him. A week of not speaking had quickly turned into months, with him ignoring my calls after I had management blindside him with the news that I wasn't showing up in Cape Town. Eventually the calls and messages from everyone else had gotten so bad I was forced to change my number. That really was the final nail in the coffin of us, and slowly but surely I got accustomed to being out of touch with him. Even though it had killed me in the beginning, it was to be expected. Our thing was no longer tenable. To admit that was like choking down a chalky pill, but I wasn't looking to run from the truth anymore.

At the beginning of August, when news broke that Pez and I were over, the media heat came right back down on my head. Yet another shit storm of hate and accusations. Someone had of course leaked that our last conversation had been via text, so they took it to mean I'd dumped her via text when really things had been over long before that, and I had just been trying to avoid further confrontation. Fuck...if felt like I couldn't do anything right anymore. Laying low for a few days while the hype of our breakup blew over, I cruised around LA with Jawaad, allowing him to chauffeur me around in my new '66 Shelby GT which he wouldn't let me drive anymore. Drake's "Know Yourself" filtered from the speakers. The sun was blazing, uplifting my mood. Coloring my world.