Storms {z.m.}

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Zayn

Once I got back in bed, I couldn't sleep. My brain kept juxtaposing the image of the pristine Christine I knew all my life. She had light brown hair that she always wore straightened, and she frequented quirky outfits involving jeans and t-shirts. The Christine from today was wearing short denim shorts and a tank top telling the world that over the last few years she had...well...developed. Her hair was dyed slightly blonde and even had a green streak in it. Green! And that tattoo made her look so...punk.

In all of the photographs of us together, it was always interesting to see how different we looked. I normally worse black clothing and band t-shirts while she worse bright colors and patterns. We looked so different. Now we looked a lot more similar and I didn't know what to think of this sudden change.

Or had it been sudden? I hadn't been home once since I got into the X Factor. I never wanted to come back to Bradford. I had promised I would get out of here and if there was one promise I was going to keep, it was going to be the one I made to my dying father.

If there was one person who knew me better than Christine, it was my father. He knew how much I loved to sing, how it made me feel free. How it was the only outlet I had for my emotions. He nurtured my musical spirit and always encouraged me to sing. I have always been quite bashful when it comes to my voice. I sang in the shower only, or whenever no one was home. Specially because my older sister Doniya always teased me about it.

But my father loved to hear me sing. He would take me out to an empty field at the outside of town; a place where I could let my voice soar while knowing that no one else could hear it besides my father. I would take his requests: Beatles, Nat King Cole, The Goo Goo Dolls. Whatever he wanted me to sing, I would. His eyes would light up and a smile would appear on his bearded face. He was a big Pakistani man, easily two to three times my size.

At that time he was, at least. I could have never known that just three months after I had sung him a song I wrote myself, I would be watching a version of him 70 pounds lighter die on a hospital bed. Pancreatic cancer crept in silently and by the time the doctors diagnosed it, it was too late to do anything. All we could do was wait.

“Come here. Son,” he begged me the night before he died. I had been sitting on the chair next to his bed watching reruns of Doctor Who with him for hours. It was his favorite show. Mum was at work, Liya and and my youngest sister, Safaa, were at school, and Doniya was nowhere to be found as per usual. I had missed two weeks of school already because I didn't want to leave my father's side. Another day wouldn't hurt.

I looked away from the TV and walked the couple of steps toward my fathers bed. He reached out for my hand and looked me in the eyes. His brown eyes were the same as mine, except his eye sockets were sunken. His cheeks were less prominent than they were normally. His dark brown skin had turned an unhealthy shade and for the first time ever he looked white. I couldn't bear to look at him like this, but I couldn't make him feel horrible by looking away. It wasn't his fault. I swallowed hard and looked into his familiar eyes.

“Vas happenin'?” I said in my signature way, hoping to make him chuckle. I did, and it made me happier than anything ever before had ever done.

“When I die. I want you to sing. Sing all the time. Don't do it...for me...do it for...you. Leave this dump of a town. Do big things and don't look back. Live your...dream” he told me through strained breaths. He rubbed circles onto my hand. I picked at my black jeans with my other hand. I bit my lip to keep the tears from coming, but it was no use.

“Don't say that, baba,” I say, calling him the Urdu equivalent of “dad,” something I used to do a lot more when I was a young kid. I felt so young at that point. I need my baba more than I did when I was 5. “You're gonna be fine,” I say as my voice finally betrays me. He isn't going to be fine. They haven't even given him treatment.

“Don't hide your love. Don't hide from your love. Don't run away from your love. Be man...enough...to follow whatever or whomever it is you love,” he says closing his eyes.

“Just rest, baba,” I say as tears run down my cheeks.

Just then the door opened. It was Christine. Without a word, she sat in the chair next to mine and began to watch Doctor Who. She put a Yorkie bar on my chair, gave me a small smile and pretended she hadn't seen me crying. She was the only friend that had come to visit my father during his stay at the hospital. She was only true friend. She was my best friend.

I remember that night like it was yesterday, sadly. When I was going through a dark time, Christine was there for me. Maybe it was time I did the same for her.