Strings and Schemes

Chapter 21

Zayns POV

The gallery is quieter than I expected. Most of the guests have already left, only a few still lingering, murmuring to each other as they take in the pieces. I stand near the entrance, pulse thrumming in my ears, debating if I should turn around and leave before she notices I'm here.

But then I see it. Her gallery. I feel my heart swell with pride, followed by a tight feeling; as if I failed her.

I walk towards the first piece, without looking her way. Shame running deep as I see what Liam was talking about. These are painful to witness. It was painful to live it.

The first piece is called 'The First Touch.'

Two hands, reaching, not quite touching. The detail is so intricate I can almost feel the tension between them. Fingertips suspended in a space so small yet impossible to bridge. I remember that night—how her eyes flickered to mine, how I felt the static in the air but did nothing. How we both hesitated.

The magnetic pull. The moment before the fall.

My chest tightens as I step deeper into the room.

I wonder how many times she's felt that way; reaching, almost grasping but never fully holding. Not just with me, but with basically everyone in her life. Even her two closest confidants, the two that should know the most.

I stop in front of The Gilded Cage.

It glows under the gallery lights, gold-plated metal twisted into a perfect, fragile prison. Shards of glass embedded in the bars catch the light like shattered diamonds. And the door—just slightly open.

A way out.

I think of her rolling to the bar on her Independence Day, an awful, paper mache version of an uber black, a fake moustache and a grin. She was starting to fly free.

I swallow hard, hands clenched at my sides. I've always known she felt trapped. I've heard her say it, seen the way she stiffened when duty called, the way her face shuttered when politics invaded her personal life. But this... this is something else. This is the raw, unfiltered version of what it felt like for her.

And still—she left the door open. She chose to leave.

I exhale shakily and move to the next piece.

The Limo Scene.

I feel my stomach drop.

It's visceral, almost violent—the way the bodies are entangled, a tangle of limbs sculpted in smooth, cold stone. Lust without emotion. Hands gripping, mouths seeking, but it's not intimacy. It's desperation.

I know exactly what this is.

I turn my head, jaw tightening, but I can't look away.

I think about the way she looked that night in my apartment, the way she reached for me like she was drowning, like I was just another escape. And I let her.

I force myself to step away, my pulse uneven as I come to The Tightrope.

It's delicate, so delicate I'm almost afraid to breathe near it. Paper-thin wire, twisted into the shape of a person walking a nearly invisible line. I don't need to be told what this means.

It's us.

The push and pull. The closeness and the distance. The love and the fear of it.

And the title—The Tightrope.

I exhale sharply, shaking my head. She hasn't talked to me about the song, hasn't acknowledged the lyrics I poured into the world like a confession she refused to read.