It's a fact that you can't help who you fall in love with. And for Rosaline Davenport and him, it definitely shouldn't have been each other.
Because, sometimes, love stories have blood on them.
[warning: this is the mother of all slow-burns]
•...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
【 05.
Five
Wafaadaari 】
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
[ Wafaadaari • loyalty ]
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
THERE’S THIS ONE memory that plagues Zachary’s mind, one that plays around in his head like a broken record, on and on and on in a never-ending loop.
It’s of his freshman year during college, when fraternities were a big deal—especially to the wide-eyed awestruck adolescents who were trying to fit in, blend into the norm, attempting to figure out their place in the world.
But not Zachary.
He already knew his place, had a clear focus, and was driven by the goals he was so hell-bent on achieving. Zachary never tried fitting in, never attempted to go with the crowd’s flow—and maybe that was what pulled one of the top fraternity houses towards him. The fact that Zachary didn’t need their approval for validation, that he didn’t seek to please anyone other than his own ambitious self. The fact that he knew he was born to stand out instead of fitting in, to set the trend rather than be a follower.
Even as a nineteen year old, Zachary Hawthorne carried himself like he had blue blood running in his veins. And that gave him an allure, a sort of magnetic pull, sure—but what won over hearts was the incredible amount of humility they saw him carry alongside all that confidence.
Zachary remembers the initiation, being invited to take part in those ridiculous trials that determined whether he was worth being associated with the fraternity. That in itself was a big deal back then—the fact that he never expressed any interest in joining the society or that he didn’t volunteer as a candidate, but that the fraternity themselves welcomed him to participate in the hazing.
He accepted the invitation, of course, wanting to make the most of his college life and make a name for himself. Belonging to a popular frat house would let him network with all the right people, provide him with connections he could use later on in life.
The hazing lasted for the majority of the first semester, and within that time he befriended the fraternity’s vice president, Felix Darwin. The bond was almost effortless, the two of them building a rapport like it was only second nature to them, and by the end of the second week, they became close allies. More than that, Felix went to become Zachary’s ‘big’—the term used for someone assigned as a mentor to each participant during their initiation stage.
Zachary was enjoying himself, regardless of that mini heart-attack he believed he had when his head was stuffed into a bag and abducted from his dorm room, which was the fraternity’s way of informing someone of being selected as a potential frat brother. He found it all enlivening, despite how overwhelming the drinking games were, how embarrassing it was to have his entire head shaved, how insane it was to go skinny dipping at three in the morning and risking his toes being frozen off.
