Ruined // Zayn Malik AU

Chapter 1

arabelle 's pov

"Belle," the firm voice of my clearly agitated mother spoke, in order to get my attention.

Dropping my previously crossed arms to my sides, I spun around to her with a glare clear on my facial features.

"What?" I spat at her, resisting the urge to stamp my foot. I was annoyed and angered by her, and even though she clearly knew, I was determined on making that very obvious to her.

"Belle, honey -" she began, her voice changing to soft and comforting as she came closer to me, before I cut her off.

"Shut up. I don't care, alright? Leave me alone. I hate you." With that, I moved away from her and turned my back, walking ahead once again. I was being awfully childish and immature about the whole situation, and I knew that, but I couldn't help it.

I wished with everything I had in me that we didn't have to move from our home in America, and away from all of my friends. But according to my mum, we had to. I didn't know exactly why, and I hadn't yet got to properly discuss it with her, for all I was capable of doing so far since I found out was to shout disrespectful words at her, and scream at her for 'ruining my life', as I would always tell her she did.

"You know I had no choice!" She called, and I stopped again, rolling my eyes with a groan, but not bothering enough to turn to face her.

"You know I had no choice," she repeated, a sigh mingling in with her sentence. I could hear the clink of her heels nearing me and I waited for her to reach me. She soon did, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Belle, I - I know it's hard. I'm not going to try and tell you it's not, because that's not true. Moving is never easy, and I'm sorry that you had to leave your friends." She stopped for a moment. "But you'll make new friends."

"You don't know that," I muttered under my breath, refusing to look at her, and staring at my faded red, dirty converse shoes, taking note that the laces were coming undone, but not bothering enough to fix that.

She let out another sigh, this one longer and deeper, and lifted a hand up, proceeding to scratch her forehead in frustration. "Love, you're a nice, caring, intelligent and friendly girl. Of course you'll make friends," she assured me, and I glanced up at her for a moment, to see her send me a supposedly reassuring smile.

"Whatever you say, mum," I heaved a sigh, and pushed a falling strand of my hair behind my ear and out of my eyes, starting to walk forward again.

Something that really worried me about starting at a new school in a new place, was, for some strange reason, my accent. Out of all the other things I could be worried about, my thoughts always seemed to linger around that topic.

As a child, I lived in London, and so I had a British accent. At the age of eight, though, I moved to California in America, and developed an accent of some sort while there. My accent, after having been living in California for eight years, was now strange, as sometimes I spoke in a British accent, but other times it would sound awfully American.

Because of this, people would often question me on where I was from. No one had ever bullied me in any way because of it before, but I, for whatever reason, had got it into my head that when I started school in Bradford, they would make fun of my accent.

I was so caught up in my own thoughts that before I knew it, my mother and I were on our way to our new home - the one in which I had told my mum multiple times "would never be home to me".

I glanced over at my mum who was sitting beside me in the back seat of the car that was currently headed towards our new house, a man with next to no hair on his head driving us there.

Mum looked to me and caught my eye, sending me a weak smile. For the first time since I had found out we were moving, I felt properly guilty. Out of all the things she had said before about how much I was upsetting her and even when she would cry out of stress because of me, I hadn't felt this guilty before.

It was the way she smiled, that made me feel so horrible for being so ignorant and immature about this. Her smile looked so fragile and weak, and there was some certain look in her eyes, that I couldn't exactly describe, that made me see how much I was upsetting her.

"What?" She asked, snapping me out of my thoughts, confusion etching onto her face. I hadn't realised it, but I had a frown on my face, and was staring at her.

"Oh my god, mum. I'm so sorry," I mumbled, which only made her look more confused.

"Sorry? For what?" She asked in confusion, her eyebrows furrowing together.

I sighed, looking down at my clasped hands, that were rested on my lap, the denim of my jeans pressed against the sides of both hands. My hands were smaller than average - a trait I had inherited from my mother. When I was younger, it didn't bother me that much, but now, being sixteen, having hands the size of a nine year olds didn't suit me very much.

"Just.." I said softly, shrugging. "For everything."

I was expecting some speech about how I didn't need to be sorry for anything and that I was a wonderful daughter, which I often got from her, but I didn't receive it. Mum simply smiled and nodded her head, with a sincere, yet quiet "thank you".

For a minute or two, silence enveloped the car. I busied myself by looking out the window and taking in all of the features of the area I would be living in for the next - at least - two years.

We were now in the town of Bradford, and I looked at all of the people who were walking through the town centre. I mostly, though, found myself looking at the people around my age, wondering if any of them could be my classmates when school started, in only a weeks time.

"Belle, look!" Mum's exclaiming cut off my train of thought and snapped me back to reality, and I looked to her. "That's the school you'll be going to!"

I looked to where she was pointing and my eyes fixed on an average-sized school building, a sign in front of the gates that I couldn't quite make out the words printed on it.

And as I looked at that school, I wondered what would happen when I became a student there.

But boy, I had no idea.

---

a/n:

oOoOOOH

yay i started this

THIS IS SO SHORT AND BORING AND VDKASJOAK BUT IM REALLY BAD AT FIRST CHAPTERS OK IT WILL GET BETTER

dedication to @xSummerParadise bc comment = life

please vote and comment bc frANKLY ENOUGH, they encourage me to update faster yano

thanks so much for reading ily

x