Come To Me | Jerrie

Chapter 1

Zayn speaks as I grip the doorway for support. "Give me a minute and we can talk."

I don't want to talk. I want to pour bleach in my eyes and rip out my heart so it will stop hurting so much. Nothing he can say will erase this. Ever. My heart will never be the same. Cheating is bad enough, but for me to witness it—with one of my friends, no less—is torture.

And she was my friend, or at least I thought she was. Sure, she was never in my inner circle and we drifted apart after college but I never saw this coming. I didn't know she was even capable of such a vile betrayal. Gigi was the one who introduced me to Zayn. She dated one of his frat brothers and the four of us used to spend a lot of time together. I knew they broke up a few months ago, but never in a million years did I expect her to go after Zayn.

When I look back up, the smug smile on Gigi's face says it all. She wanted this to happen. She's enjoying my humiliation. Standing here shocked and horrified, watching her with my fiancé while she grins, obviously convinced she's won whatever game this is ... I snap.

I turn, slamming the door, and run as fast as I can. Shakily, I turn the car on and speed out of the driveway. All the good times we had, beautiful memories tarnished by his act of betrayal. As I drive the memories besiege me one by one—good and bad, love and hate, happy and sad.

Our first date ice-skating in Rockefeller Center, Zayn skating backward holding my hands so I wouldn't fall. Two months later, going to the bed and breakfast on the Jersey shore and making love for the first time. He was tender and caring. The love and adoration he had in his eyes as we looked at each other during intimacy. I swipe the tears streaming down my face. It was all a lie. You can't respect someone then turn around and deceive them.

The memories keep coming.

The ride to the city, playing stupid car games and laughing until my sides hurt and Zayn trying to convince me that the Jets would win the Superbowl. When he took me to Little Italy in July and got down on one knee and proposed in the middle of the street. The tears become too much. I can't see the road, so I pull over. In the confines of my car I lose it. I cry and sob for everything I saw and will never forget. I call Leigh-Anne hoping she can calm me.

"Hey, Pez," Leigh answers.

At the sound of her voice, any emotion I was holding back breaks free. A choked sound rips from my chest and the tears come faster.

"Perrie? What's wrong?" Her voice changes from singsong to concerned.

"Zayn ... He cheated on me! I saw it! I ... I."

"What do you mean?"

"I w-went there and he was f-fucking her on the c-couch. I-I can't-t bre-athe," I stutter as the phone shakes against my wet cheek and ear.

"Okay, calm down. Where are you?" she asks.

"I d-don't know! I couldn't s-stand there and w-watch it," I cry, weeping on the side of some unknown road.

Leigh takes a deep breath before speaking. "I'm coming to get you. Where are you?"

"Why?" I croak, letting the pain take over.

"Perrie," she says, authority ringing through the phone. "Listen to me. Can you drive?"

"I g-gotta go," I say and hang up, right before I throw the phone against the dash.

I can't talk anymore. I can't even think. My head is a mess. I want to forget and stop seeing that moment of betrayal on replay.

I grip my hair, screaming in frustration as I try to form coherent thoughts through my agony.

Why? Why after all this time? Why?

Seconds, minutes, hours are lost to me. As the tears begin to ebb, even though the pain doesn't, I pull myself together enough to drive.

After driving around in circles for hours, my phone has over thirty missed calls and voicemails. I have no idea who they're from and I don't care. There are no words of comfort anyone can give me. My life, my future, my everything— ... is gone.

Somehow I find my way back to my apartment where Zayn is waiting for me in the hall outside. Seeing him brings me up short. The last few hours come right back, slamming into me with the force of a thousand bricks, piling around me and threatening to bury me under their weight.

He stands there, staring at me. "Hey."

"How long have you been here?" My voice is quiet, but there's no mistaking the undertone of disgust.

"A while. Leigh wouldn't let me inside."

My eyes close of their own accord as I try to find any ounce of strength I have left to handle this. The nausea hits me full force and I hunch over, trying to keep the bile down. Looking at him, being around him again, makes me physically sick. He's destroyed every good memory we've ever had. Four years of love is gone. I want to crawl into a hole and never come out. The pain of the last few hours has left me empty.

"Perrie, please." Zayn comes forward and places his hand on my back.

I snap back up, throwing his arm off me. "Do not touch me!"

"I didn't want you to find out this way." Zayn runs his hands through his sandy blond hair as he huffs.

"Really? How would you have preferred? After the wedding maybe? Or maybe at Christmas?" I glare as moisture returns to my eyes, threatening to spill over.

The tension rolling off of him shifts and he snaps, "I wanted to talk to you weeks ago, but I couldn't do it. I didn't want this." He gestures between us, apparently indicating the "this." Gone is the apologetic man from a few moments ago. His eyes are cold and devoid of the love that once shined brightly in them.

"You think I did?" I scream in his face. "I don't deserve this!"

"I need more," he bites out, completely uncaring that he's ripping my heart out—again.

"More? What more do you need? I can't believe this. You cheated on me!"

He steps back, averting his hard stare at the elevator. "It's been over for a while. I think we both knew this was coming."

My eyes widen in shock and disbelief. "You're kidding me, right? Because I didn't know anything. We were getting married, Zayn. How is that knowing this was coming? How many months of planning and building a life together shows me you were done?"

"I've been unhappy for months." He sighs, running his hands through his hair. "I didn't know what to do."

"I'll tell you what you could've done. You could have told me! You could have not slept with my friend!" I shout, but my words don't even penetrate. He stands there, completely apathetic. "So that's it? You're going to walk away after four years?"

"Why fight what we both know isn't going to work?"

I step back, shaken by his words. And then it sinks in: he's not here to make it right; he came here to end it. To further damage my beaten heart—the heart he bruised and battered with his infidelity.

"This is why you're here? To tell me this. Now?" I ask with fear choking me.

His voice is empty as the words tumble out of his mouth. "What we have just isn't enough, Perrie. It's better this way."

Without another word he turns and walks away, ending the last four years of what I thought was the beginning of our life together. The elevator door closes and my heart shatters into a million pieces. Broken. This can't be happening. We were getting married. We were going to have children, a life, a future! No!

I gasp for air, trying to fill my suffocating lungs. Leigh opens the door and pulls me inside while I lose everything I ever thought mattered.

"Shhh, it's okay." She holds me close to her chest. "It's going to be okay," she murmurs quietly in my ear.

There is nothing to hold me together as I crumble to the ground in complete devastation.

Not enough.

All over again.