Relativity. [Zayn AU | ENG]

One.

«I'm fine this way, this place makes me feel calm.» Aaliyah confessed, placing a strand of her curly hair behind her ear.
«So what do you do at night? Don't you go out? Don't you go have a drink? Today's Friday, the weekend has started.» she asked her co-workers, dazed by the idea that someone could rather not be social.
«Very often I stay at home, I don't like drinking. I work if that's necessary, otherwise I'd watch some tv or read a book..» she explained. She wasn't ashamed to confess that her life was so different and, for some reasons, so banal. «Speaking of, could you recommend me a bookshop?» she added.
«Are you really asking ME a bookshop recommendation?!» Claudia uttered in shock, bursting into laughter. Actually, she didn't really seem the right person to ask that question, but anyone could be a surprise so it was worth asking. «Anyway, there's one around here, but I can't remember the name..» she whispered, suddenly remembering something that, for her, must had been a pointless detail.
Aaliyah thanked her and went back to her office, checking which one of the bookshop she found on Google was actually the nearest.
Ended her shift, she went home to have lunch and then she went out, walking around the cityu in that beautiful sunny day.
After walking past a few blocks, she found one of the bookshops she had read of: it looked anonymous and and it was simply signaled by a maple wood sign where a "Bookshop" text in a elegant Bodoni font was printed -Aaliyah's graphic eye tended to prevail when she has looking at such things-. The girl overlooked on the glass to peek inside, then she pulled the glass and white aluminium emergency door handle, entering in a small corridor with some chairs on the left side.
Aaliyah walked in making small steps, with her shoes screeching on the floor at every movement she made, but no one seemed to notice. So she made a few more steps, finding out a first huge room with shelves on the walls. All of the books were catalogued in alphabetical order of their authors with handwritten name tags, while in the middle of the room there was a table with guidebooks to all of the most touristic cities of the world. She had rarely found in a bookshop so much relevance given to tourism, people would usually make new books or best sellers stand out, but she appreciated the audacity and the personality of that choice very much.
Following, there was a second room accessible through a small stairway leading to a raised ground floor: that area of the shop was definitely the warmest. All of the walls were filled of overflowing shelves of vynils, while in the middle of the room there was a dark and shiny solid wood table where newspapers, a teapot with cups and a small pastries tray were placed. Around it there were a couple of armchairs lined with dark brown leather, giving them a vintage look. On one of the armchairs there was a man reading a newspaper. Aaliyah tried to peek on the page and she saw its music section. Paying attention, she saw under the window a record player from where some relaxing electronic music was soaring. It was a familiar and a few seconds later she recognised the instrumental of "Born to do it", Craig David's debut album that she used to keep listening even thought it was so old.
The choice of painting the walls of a bright white colour was surely intentional and very functional, because it allowed to the cds, the table and the armchairs to become protagonists. Their colours clashed with the purity they were surrounded by, but that was the reason to make them stand out that much, to make that bookshop a very familiar place, perfectly identified by the time and space in which it existed, in spite music and literature where both, in quality of arts, capable of going beyond them.
«May I help you?» the man asked her. He had closed his newspaper, placing it on the table, and had got up from the armchair, pointing her with his honey-coloured look.
Aaliyah kept staring at him for a few seconds: he was a bit taller than her, he was thin and his skin was decorated with tattoos. He had several on his hands, arms and some peeped out from under his black t-shirt.
«No, actually no, I was just giving a look.» she replied smiling at him.
«Make yourself at home, miss.» he added, pouring some tea in a cup. «Do you want some?» he offered.
«Yes, thank you, sir.» Aaliyah accepted the cup he had handed her and took a seat on the empty armchair in from of him. She took a sugar cube from the saucer on the tray she had on her side and she turned it into the liquid until it melted.
They stayed quiet, drinking their boiling mint tea: Aaliyah looked around, looking for something to catch her attention, while the man observed her from beyond his cup that covered hi nose every time he took a sip.
The man placed his empty cup on the table and started playing with a piercing on his right ear, holding his gaze on her, making Aaliyah look away, embarassed. His persistent look seemed to be going deep: it wasn't the look of someone who is staring at your body, it was the look of someone who is trying to understand. But Aaliyah thought there was nothing to understand:she just wanted to buy a book, there's nothing much to expect from a bookshop. At a certain point, he stood up, going away and coming back a few minutes later: he had a book in his hands. Aaliyah noticed its cover was made of leather, making it look like it was from another age although it was in perfect conditions. The material detail of the cover amazed the girl, who had never seen something like that before, at least not personally.
«What is it?» she asked, raising her head to glance back at him.
«Take it, please.» he replied. «It seemed to me that you needed hope, miss.»
Aaliyah blinked a couple of times, astonished. She would have loved to ask him how he had got to that conclusion, but she didn't. She muttered a "thanks, sir." and she turned herself to pick some money from her bag.
«What are you doing?» he stopped her. His words to block her muscles instantly. «We'll talk about it when you'll finish it.» he added, getting another "thanks" from Aaliyah.
She observed him again, focusing on the details of his face: his hair was basically black and it was struggling to keep up, in fact some strands of hair had already fallen on his forehead, his beard was a couple of centimetres long and very thick, with some little curls that reflected the light particles coming from the window, and he had a little piercing on his nose and some on his ears. Of all those aspects, what astonished her the most were his lashes: they were so long that she couldn't get hers to look that beautiful even with three mascara layers.
«I trust your taste.» Aaliyah told him, offering her hand to say goodbye.
«It took me some time.» he replied holding her hand, making his rings jingle with hers, and going back to the newspaper he was reading before being bothered.
Aaliyah went out of the bookshop with her book held tight to her chest, without even knowing what title it had. She was incredibly curious, but she kept it religiously closed until she arrived home: she opened the door, she kicked her shoes off and she threw herself on the couch. She put the book on her legs and she caressed that cover that felt definitely new. There was no etching, no name on it, so she opened the book on the first page trembling and she heaved a sigh of relief as she read the title: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
Aaliyah felt a bit like Professor Dumbledore who, after a couple of pages, exclaimed: "It' lucky it's dark, I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.".
She blushed at the thought of that choice, at the fact that someone would still give value to that important saga that was so underrated at present. She had grown up with it, so that choice made her smile, but she knew that for a lot of people that story was old, some people would even make fun of those who still loved and respected it.
The thing that shocked her was the fact that she actually didn't own that book, she didn't have it in her collection gathered in years. In fact, since the first time when she was nine, she had always read the saga starting from the second book (due to the fact that her brother owned the saga in that way), so -even though she knew the story- she had never bought that book.
Maybe because she thought it was a childish book, but the bookseller didn't think of it that way, so she turned the pages and read them after years, acting like she didn't know anything about it and she had to wait for it to reveal its magic.
Aaliyah took a copybook from the drawer and she started writing down all of the emotions that the sentences were making her feel, to think about that story as something more meaningful than a story tale. And only by reading it as an adult could let her see things so clearly and it still was mysterious because its meaning was hidden and very deep.
The first thing she could think of, when Mrs McGonagall wondered how Harry had survived Voldemort, was how do you survive to the evils of life, when you're defenceless?
Aaliyah found herself agreeing with Dumbledore: you could only make guessworks, but no one would actually know that.
How did she survive her mother's death and depression? She didn't even know and she couldn't ask anyone to answer that question for her. She remembered that period so vividly that each time she thought about it, it was like living it once again. She was over it, but she still had that doubt.
She had a stabbing pain in her stomach when she read that no one ever believed Harry. It wasn't new to her to feel like having everything only in your head, to notice that people would never go to examine in depth anything about her. If she looked okay, people thought she was okay. If she looked smiley, people would think she actually happy. But in reality, the only one to know how she was really feeling was her.
After a few pages, she was hit by the desire of feeling wanted like Harry was when he'd receive his letters from Hogwarts or, even better, when Hagrid went straight to him because they hadn't heard anything from him.
She was just at the fourth chapter, but she was really appreciating that choice, she was making a point of the situation she had lived and she was still living, analysing things from a different prospective, which seemed very positive.
Aaliyah stayed on her couch until 10pm, whe she finally realised she deserved a sandwich. She paused from reading just to have dinner and go wear her sleepwear, then she went in her bedroom and she read the other half of the story.
Reading about the Mirror of Erised made her feel emotional: what would she see if she looked in the mirror?
It reflected the heart, so she wasn't surprised that her mind thought about her mother.
She would have loved to see her family united again, based once again on that mainstay that only her mother could represent. She would have loved to see her mother to a side, a man who loved her on the other, and some friends and her family behind her.
She found herself thinking about the fact that her heart only wished to be filled with love.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" she read out loud, caressing the paper on the spot the quote was written on the page. She had repeated herself that quote so many times, she tried to use it every time depression would lock her in her house, in her bed-tv-dark room comfort zone. She remembered those months too well: Aaliyah didn't get out, she would stay in her room for weeks, watching tv shows under the blankets while fighting insomnia with earpods on to let out any kind of noise, from the rain to the kids in the street. She would realise she was getting to a dead point and so, by repeating that quote, she would start doing something more concrete, she would fight back. Sometimes she would go out, even just for grocery shopping, or she'd stay at home baking cakes. Anything was good, when you want to save yourself.