Operation Opossum

Congratulations & Goodbyes

"Um, Skyler?" 

"Yeah, buddy?" 

Zayn ignored her choice of words for a moment and gave her an skeptical look. 

"What are you doing with those bags?" he asked cautiously. 

"These bags are my presents to you and the boys," she said excitedly. 

Zayn frowned. "Then why did you send the boys downstairs?" 

Skyler laughed and grabbed three large and heavy looking bags from behind her that were hidden by her body and waved them in front of his face. 

"Most of them are yours though. It's part of my way of saying CONGRATULATIONS!!" 

Zayn jumped as she screamed the word congratulations, then smiled. "So how'd you find out?" 

Skyler looked offended. "I know everything, Zayn! Don't you think i'd know if you proposed to your celebrity girlfriend?!" 

He chuckled and scratched his head. "So what do you have there?" 

She was next to him faster than he could blink, already getting out the first bag's contents and eagerly holding them out for him to see. 

"This right here," Skyler began, "is something that I think is really cool, and hopefully you'll like it too!"

She anxiously took out an entire art set from the first bag, quickly hnding Zayn numerous amounts of sketchbooks in many different sizes, along with hundreds of packs of pencils, pens, pastels, chalk, markers, and brushes. He had a variety of things to choose, and Skyler laughed at the look of overwhelm on Zayn's face, his eyes wide. 

"Where did you get the money to buy all of this?!" he asked incredulously, running his fingertips along the row of art supplies to last him his life. 

She continued with her presentation, taking out a simple black microphone, which was wrapped in an old blue rag. 

"Okay, to tell you the truth, this mic really means alot to my family Zayn, so please be careful with it."  Zayn studied it curiously. 

"What's so great about it? It looks like a regular old mic to me." 

Skyler glared and tenderly looked down at it. 

"Ignore him baby, he just doesn't know how cool you are," she cooed, as if it were her child.

Skyler looked back up at Zayn, and cradled it in her arms, earning a bewildered look from him. 

"This mic was my mother's," she said wistfully.

Zayn stiffened. 

"She got it at her first concert with my dad. He proposed to her in the middle of one of the performances, and the band that they'd went to see stopped the show for them. This mic is what the lead singer had been using, and he's given it to mom after the concert was over. She just loved talking about it when I was a toddler." 

Slowly, Skyler stretched out her hands to Zayn, setting it in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the entire world. 

"Take it!" She said, giving him a bright smile. "My parents had the best marriage together, so hopefully it'll grant you the same life with lots of luck!" 

Zayn was shocked, and immediately began to object, trying to hand her back the token of luck. 

"I can't just-!"

"Yes, yes you can," she said, letting out a light laugh. 

But Zayn wouldn't back down so easily. "Maybe you should think this through...!"