Heartstrings ➳ z.m.

seventeen - zayn

Chapter Seventeen – Zayn

            He doesn’t realize how long that they had stayed like that, him drawing—although he was more focused on Skylar than anything else—until the door cracks open.

            “You two…” Trinity trails off when her eyes scan over her roommate, and more particularly, her neck. “Oh my God!”

            “Don’t even say a word,” Skylar mumbles, burying her face on Zayn’s chest, and he looks at her, a slight smile on his face.

            He wonders what they are now.  Still friends? With benefits?

            God, he hopes not. It was undeniable that he had fallen, and fallen pretty hard at that. It was pretty inevitable, even if he had tried to fight it at first.

            But does she feel the same?

            It’s stupid, Zayn knows, to be so insecure. She had kissed him first for Pete’s sake, but he can’t help it. She was the first person to try to understand him. She was the first to not give up on him.

            Even his own mum had stopped trying. But Skylar, no, she hadn’t.

            And that’s hard for him. Because there’s still that small part in his heart that’s telling him that she’s going to walk away and he can’t handle that. He won’t be able to go through that again.

            He just can’t.

            There’s still that selfish sliver, that small part in his soul that’s telling him to push her away before she can do it to him. There’s this portion of his mind that’s urging him, begging him to shut down like he had before.

            It would be so easy.

            But then he looks at her, really looks at her, and takes in the way that his heart flutters when she touches him, and the way that her eyes kind of crinkle when she smiles, and he knows that he can’t do that.

            He’s too far in this hole, this well, this pit to dig himself out.

            He’s not sure if he wants to, anyway.

            “Did you even hear me?”

            He blinks, shooting her a sheepish smile as he scratches the back of his head. He hadn’t been paying neither of the ladies any attention; too lost in his own head to realize that Skylar had been speaking.

            “Figured not. I said that we have to go, now.”

            He pouts before he can think about it, tilting her face upwards with his thumb to plant a small kiss there.