My Enemy, Love

Chapter Eleven

Zayn's POV

I discovered the next morning that I had fractured my hand. The swelling had gone down since the night before but when I woke up my hand was stiff and throbbing painfully, and I made a quick trip down to the nearest Urgent Care. One of the nurses there examined my hand for a couple of minutes before giving me a diagnosis and a brace, which I was told to keep on for at least a week. Who knew that punching a brick wall straight-on would cause so much damage? I had known that it wouldn't have a very favorable outcome, but it seems that I'd underestimated my own strength and anger. The brace helped a bit, and after a handful of painkillers the throbbing went away.

Later that day, our fourth day with the girls, we went to an aquarium on the pier. We met them outside of our hotel since it was closer to our destination, and the moment Alli saw my hand she freaked out. "Oh my god Zach, what happened?!" She exclaimed as she carefully grabbed it and held it up to examine the brace, then looked up at me with a worried expression.

"It's fractured, because it, uh..." I wracked my brain for a good excuse, knowing that the truth would get me absolutely nowhere. "It got smashed in a door?"

Luckily Alli didn't notice my hesitation and continued looking down at my hand. "That hard? How did that happen?"

I pretended to glare over at Niall. "It was Nick's fault. He forgot I was behind him and slammed it closed on my hand."

Niall's face was one of baffled outrage and I felt bad for blaming it on him, but I hadn't thought of a story to tell the girls yet and it had been the first thing to pop in my mind. Luckily I was saved from a cussing out by Pan. "I think he's trying to tell you something, Zach." She said, then leaned over and stage-whispered to me, "I'd watch your back from now on."

Niall still seemed pretty mad at me but at that moment he let it slide, although the glare he sent me behind the girls' backs told me that I wasn't off the hook yet. I didn't mind though because the entire day I got the royal treatment from Alli, who acted as though my fractured hand was more of a broken arm.

As we walked to the aquarium Louis and Pan had puddle-splashing contests with each other while the rest of us were a bit more reserved, although every now and then Niall would join in. On any other day Alli would've been splashing me, but my 'poor little hand was hurt' so she was being nice.

Once we reached the aquarium we all automatically split up into groups of two and separated. Alli practically dragged me to see the pool in the center of the room where you can touch certain sea creatures, and so I assumed that we were walking through the aquarium together. To be honest I'm not a huge ocean fan so I didn't exactly have a phenomenal time, but Alli loves all kinds of animals and I liked watching her run around and ooh and ahh at everything.

"Come over here, Zach, there's a shallow pool where you can touch all the creatures! Sea Anemones tickle, because they aren't strong enough to paralyze us. Here, touch it. Ooh, look at those jellyfish light up! Check it out, these pipefish look just like unraveled seahorses!" She was like a kid in a candy store after someone offered to buy her whatever she wanted, constantly running back and forth between displays with me having to jog to keep up with her. After a while I was starting to get tired but then Alli paused and glanced back at me, and I saw that her eyes were shining with the light of discovery and excitement and it made the whole trip worthwhile just to see her that happy.

After a while we took a break, and glancing around I saw Pan and Louis a little ways away making faces at the fish in one of the aquariums, mimicking them. Nearby Jamie was clutching Niall to her tightly and refusing to look at anything as he walked around, and after asking Alli about it I discovered that the red-haired girl is scared of fish. I have no idea why she is because obviously the fish here can't hurt you, but it definitely isn't the weirdest phobia I've heard of.