The time has come, yaay! :D Enjoy!
*Jenan*
When I woke up the next morning the flat was as quiet as in a dead-house. It was strange how I always was able to feel the absence of the boys. Three more lonely days were infront of me and I didn't have a clue of what to do. Hours passed and I lazed around all morning long. My activites varied from playing computer games to staring out of the window. I was just watching a man trying to calm down his crying son when I heard my mobile ringing from upstairs. I jumped away from the window and hurried upstairs, in my mind the image of Zayn. My heart bumped fastly as I stepped into my room and spotted the phone on the bed. I grabbed it and saw an unknown number. I tried to swallow the feeling of disappointment and picked up: "Hello?"
"Jenna?" a familiar Irish accent asked. "It's me, Niall."
"Hey Nialler." I greeted him and smiled.
"Sorry for bothering you, but have you seen my mobile somewhere in the flat?" in my mind I tried to remember if I had stumbled over it somewhere but I realised I didn't.
"Nope, sorry. But you could call yourself and I will listen if it is somewhere." I suggested and walked out of my room as it was for sure not there.
"Yeah, great." He mumbled. "Wait.." a few seconds later I heard a melody downstairs.
"Ah, I hear it!" I said and took the stairs. "Is this.. Demi Lovato?"
"Yeah!" he said. I just reached the last step when the melody ended. "Oops, sorry. Should I call again?"
"No." I replied. "I know where it is."
"Great! You can put it in my room, okay? Thanks Jenna, that's all I wanted to know."
"Alright, you're welcome." I replied and eyed the brown door infront of me. "Bye!"
"Bye!" the connection ended and I had a strange feeling inside of me. I was standing infront of the door of the only room I had never entered. I remembered my first day where Zayn showed me the flat but totally skipped this door and no one ever mentioned it infront of me. What was behind it? My hands were sweaty when I grabbed the door handle and pushed it downwards..
It was a small room with a laminated floor and dark blue walls. A long blue couch was in the middle of the room. 70% of the walls were covered in posters where I could see the boys in strange positions. I approached the nearest poster to me and caught my breath. In big white fat letters was written the word One Direction on every single poster, sometimes I could read Up All Night or Up All Night tour. My mind was still not able to fully understand when I recognised the shelf at the end of the room and after approaching it I found myself standing infront of some trophies, magazines and awards. On every single magazine cover the faces of the boys were staring at me; Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, Bravo.. but after all, my mind was still unable to understand. I fell into a trance state and was only able to raise the mobile which had been in my hands and diall Emily's number, my eyes still fixed on the shelf.
"Hey babe." An enthusiastic Emily greeted me. "What's up?"
"One. Direction." These two words were heavy on my tongue, I had said them slowly and dramatically.
"Uh?" she asked. I didn't reply. "Jenna? .. Jen?"
My tongue was heavy and my mind blank. How could I reply?
"JENAN!" Emily screamed and with that was able to wake me up a little.
"Em, what would you think if you were at Lucas' house, he is not there and some unknown circumstances lead you to a room you never entered before so you enter it and inside you find posters of Lucas in expensive looking clothes, you see magazines with his image on the covers and find trophies with his name on them? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?"
I didn't know what I expected from her.. some sweet words, saying that I misunderstood the whole situation and that it was not what it looked like, maybe. Anyways, I expected her to be confused and lose her train of thought but instead I heard her saying: "Oh. You found out."
Oh, yes I indeed found out. I found out that the boys I have been living with for the past months were obviously popular and rich teenie stars who were known all over the world. I found out that I have been walking on earth like a total twerp. I knew I had a lot of other problems but instead of being angry with the boys, I pulled my anger out on Emily. "You knew?!" I shrieked.
Emily sighed. "Jenna, I'm from England, of course I recognise One Direction when I see them. On the day you were in the hospital I knew for the first time when Zayn called me to ask me about what had happened and I freaked out on the phone but he asked me not to tell you about their identity and I agreed. I know you're feeling fooled now but I advice you to call them up and tell them you found out."
"Call them?!" I asked. "No, I can't." I tried to smother my anger as I didn't want to hurt Emily and lose the one person I could trust here in England.
"You should." She insisted. "I'm sure they can explain everything to you."
"There's nothing to explain." I interrupted her and turned around intending to leave but as soon as I reached the door I remembered Niall's phone so I quickly took it and hurried out of the cursed room.
"Jenna.." Emily started slowly.
"It's okay, Em." I sighed, taking the steps that lead to the next floor. "I will call you again later." And before she could say one word, I cut the connection. The door of my room was opened and on my way to the pc I threw my phone onto the bed. I waited impatiently for the laptop to boot up and still couldn't focus my thoughts. I was like a volcano a few minutes before eruption. Why didn't they tell me the truth? And why didn't I see it? Retrospectively, I guess there were more than one hint right infront of my blind eyes, like why they mostly wear sunglasses when they leave the flat or why the people keep staring at us. At first I thought it was because of my Hijab but no! It was because I was walking on the streets of London with a member of One Direction!
In addition to their obvious wealth and their trips to America and Sweden. My fingers were trembling as I wrote the words one direction into the blank space in Google.582.000.000 results. Whoop-de-do!, I thought sarcastically.
I don't know how many hours I spent there, staring at the screen and reading about the five boys who were my best friends. With every minute passing, my eyes hurt more, just as my disappointed heart. At last I couldn't bear it anymore so I stood up and started arranging my books numerically by release date. I felt a lot better after my work and fell backwards onto my bed. What shall I do now?
And in the middle of my thoughts and worries, I fell asleep.
**
I woke up again the next morning with crinkled clothes and a headache. I spent half and hour in having breakfast, washing myself and praying when I realised that my laptop was on Stand By. I boot it up again and opened Google only to type in the words zayn malik. 52.300.000 results and the third was his Twitter account. I was curious about it so I clicked on the link and spent a few minutes scrolling through his page. Emily once has told me that every celebrity has to have a Twitter account and most of them use it to interact with their fans. A strange idea formed in my mind and I quickly decided to create an account for myself. I brood over my work and half an hour later I had my own Twitter account. I followed every member of One Direction and some other celebrities I know. I retweeted some Islamic stuff in order to make my account look used. Finally I tweeted something myself: @PinkFatCat66: Islam is all about being tolerant and having a good heart.. I chose a username which doesn't really fit me and my personality as I didn't want to be recognised on Twitter.
Just as I wanted to log out, I threw a look at the trends and saw #AskZayn trending. My heart beat faster and I headed over to Zayn's account. His newest tweet said that he wanted to do an ask zayn, 4 minutes ago. I knew my chances of being answered were 1 to 100,000 but I couldn't help it and tweeted: @PinkFatCat66: would you date a muslim girl with headscarf? @zaynmalik #AskZayn
Why did I even ask this question? Was I out of my mind? He would never date a Hijabi, would he? I'm not really into that celebrity stuff but I could imagine what would happen if the world saw someone like Zayn Malik out with a Hijabi and— wait..
My hands became sweaty and my mind wasn't really able to complete the thought. I returned back to the Google page but this time I typed in Jenan Tareq. When I saw the results (although they were only a few) I felt like crying. I couldn't bear to open the article about Zayn and me so I just shut down the pc and left my room. For a while, I kept running up and down the stairs and maybe I would have completed till I died out of strain if the house phone wouldn't have rung. I hesitated.. this phone rarely rang, the boys always used their personal mobile phones. My curiousity finally won and I headed over to pick up the phone.
"Hello?" my voice broke down and I cleared my throat.
"Am I taaalking with Jenaaan Tareeeeq?" a female voice said. Although the first time I met her was long ago, I immediately knew who I was talking to. On my very first day I had met her at the reception at the place where I had to go and see the friend of my mother's friend, Simon C. Simon C.? I groaned at my stupidity. Simon C = Simon Cowell! "Yes, it's me." I answered her, still thinking about my naivity.
"Weeeell, Mr. Cowell wanted to make suuure you're okaaay?"
"Obviously I am." I replied in an angry tone. It was not her fault that since yesterday I got to know that the people around me were liars and that I was a stupid naive twerp but I couldn't help it.
"Okay, that's aaall for now. Goodbye." She said and cut the connection. I banged the phone down on the hook and took the stairs up to my room. My phone was beside my laptop so I took it and dialled Emily's number.
"Jenna?" she answered and I clenched my mobile between my head and my right shoulder.
"Emily, I can't bear it." I replied to her, pulled my suitcase out from under the bed and opened it.
"Can't bear what?" she asked. I walked over to the wardrobe and took out all of my clothes. Whilst throwing them into the suitcase randomly I replied: "I can't bear to stay here in this flat, Emily! Everything reminds me of them and I can't even look at the door of the room which ruined everything."
"Jenna, I understand you but— wait." She said when I was staring at the books in my shelf. I knew I couldn't take all of them with me now so I quickly chose my favourites. "Are you packing your bags?!"
"Yes." I replied. "I need to get out of here." My drawing tools were next but I left the file of the drawings of the boys in the drawer.
"Where the hell are you going to stay?!" she asked. Good question.
"I'll book a room in a hotel." I replied and completed throwing random stuff into my suitcase.
"Stop it, you're coming to me."
My hands stopped in the middle of their action and I thought about this for a moment. I had to admit that it was better than wasting a lot of money I didn't even have on a room in a hotel. "But –"
"No back talk!" Emily replied sternly. "I'll text you my address. See you in a bit." And with that she hung up.
Twenty minutes later I had finished packing. I wasn't able to leave my books so I spent ten minutes in squeezing them into the suitcase. As I dragged it out of the room I remembered the bin under the desk and decided to empty it. It was already kinda empty, I only could see two crumpled-up papers and a used pen. One of the papers was the bill of a book I bought a few days ago. I reached for the other one and unfolded it.Good morning, Jenan. You will be home alone till 3.00 PM, sorry. You can find everything you need in the kitchen. The flat is all yours! ;) Z. Was written on it with a now familiar handwriting. My hands started shivering and I remembered my first day in the flat and how I felt towards the boys. A lot of things have changed since then.
My eyes started burning and I quickly screwed up the paper again before I would break down into tears. I got rid of the pen and the bill in the bin downstairs but I just couldn't throw Zayn's message away so I carelessly squeezed it into a space in my handbag.
A last look at the room infront of me and in the next moment I was gone.
**
"Where do we go from here?" Emily took a sip from her coffee. Her cup was brown while mine was black. Like my mood.
"I don't know." I replied and looked into the cup, staring at the surface of the coffee. "How long can I stay here before you throw me out?" I smirked shyly.
Emily nudged me. "You can stay until you put an end to whatever is going on between the boys and you."
My cross-legged legs started to become numb so I released them from the pain. "Well.." I said slowly. "I don't think I can do that them easily."
"Jenna." Em put her hand on mine. "They didn't do anything wrong."
"What?" I asked her and pulled away my hand. "They lied to me. They fooled me everyday we lived together! Trust has been impaired."
Em sighed impatiently. "Jen, it's not trust which has been impaired. In fact, your pride is injured."
I wanted to repsond. And tell her this isn't true. But.. maybe it was. "And even if!" I exclaimed, put my cup aside and stood up. "I still think that I deserved the truth! From the beginning."
"Yes, I agree with you." Emily said. "But instead of thinking about what should and might have been, you better think about what you're gonna do now." She was right, totally right. What shall I do?
"You have two options." She stroke her blonde hair backwards and looked up at me. "You could either stay here and wait till the boys get to know where you are, see you here and talk to you, or you could go back to the flat, act as if you still don't know anything and see when they finally decide to tell you the truth." I sat down again and kept mulling over the two options. Actually, it would be kinda mainstream to stay here at Emily's and act hurt and disappointed, but if I returned to the flat and acted like I didn't know anything.. hmmm, it would be very interesting to watch the boys with different eyes now.
"You don't have to make it too easy for them." Emily remarked, shrugging her shoulders. "You could play with them a little." Oh yes, that sounded like Emily. But me? Was I able to 'play with them'?
"And," she added. "you will change the roles. You will be the one knowing more, not them." I smiled and without noticing nodded my head.
"Alright." Now I grinned.Emily grinned back and high-fived me.
"Oh oh oh," Em started singing. "trouble troublemaker, yeah, that's your middle name.."
I recognised the song and immediately completed: "Oh oh oh, I know you're no good but you're stuck in my brain, and I wanna know.."
Emily joined in and we sang the next part together: "Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad, oohhh, my mind keeps saying run as fast as you can.. I say I'm done but then you pull me back, oohhh, I swear you're giving me a heart attack, troublemaker!"
We burst into laughter and had to hold each other, and that was the moment I realised how much Emily meant to me.
"Em," I started slowly as soon as our laughter faded away. "You don't know how—" the melody of Taylor Swift's Today Was A Fairytale interrupted me and I pulled my phone out of my handbag. "It's Zayn.." I muttered as I stared at the display.
"Today was a fairytale, you were the prince.." Taylor sang into the room.
"Today Was A Fairytale??" Emily repeated and started laughing. "Pick up and act normal, okay?"
I ignored her comment on the ringtone for Zayn and asked: "Should I tell him I'm with you?" she nodded.
I clicked on answer and put the phone on my right ear. "Hello?" my voice was shaking in shyness. You are talking to a world famous teenie star! was blinking in my mind like written on an advertising sign.
"Jenna, hey." Zayn's voice greeted me sounding.. excited. "Guess where I am!"
My mind was confused and I crinkled my eyebrows, replying: "Umm, in Sweden?"
"Wrong!" Zayn laughed. "I'm at the airport in London, soon on my way back home."
"What?!" I shrieked and scared Emily so much she choked over the biscuit she was eating.
"Is, ammm, everything okay?" I think I had crashed Zayn's excitement because he sounded confused.
"You were supposed to return tomorrow!" I exclaimed and ran with my left hand over my face.
"Yeah, umm, we are back one day early that's why I'm calling you. But if you want us to stay away for longer..." he left the sentence uncompleted and I knew I had made him upset.
"No, of course not." I lied. "It's just.. I'm at Emily's now and actually wanted to bake a welcome cake for you tomorrow so, yeah." I was a bad liar but Zayn seemed to let me get away with it.
"Oh don't worry, Jen. But I could pick you up on the way?" he suggested and as I was just about to agree I saw Emily waving about with her arms and pointing at my suitcase. Shoot!
"Uh, no no." I replied quickly. "I'll see you at the flat."
"Okay, if you say so." He answered. "See you in a bit!"
"Yeah." I muttered. "See you.." and in the next moment he had cut the connection. "And now?!" was the next thing I screamed. Emily stood up, put away the two coffee cups and grabbed my arm, pulling me to the door.
"And now you're taking a quick taxi back home. Go!" she handed me my stuff and we both ran downstairs (or moved as fast as we could with my luggage). Outside the building, she yelled for a taxi. I got in, looked at the driver (noticing he was a ginger woman in the mid twenties) and told my address when Emily turned to the driver's door and said to the woman: "Quickly please, she needs to get back urgently!"
"Sure, babe." She grinned and in the next moment we hurtled off.
**
*Zayn*
"Is our flat burned down or why are you pulling a wry face?" Louis asked me and pulled his suitcase behind him near the entrance of the airport. My eyes fell on the paparazzo behind the glass and I frowned even more.
"I thought she will be happy when she hears we're back one day early, but she almost sounded hysteric." I grumbled.
Louis grinned and tapped on my back. "Maybe the flat is in a mess and she doesn't want us to see it." I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath before stepping out of the airport. Frenzy of flashing cameras and a lot of questions greeted me.
"Mr. Malik, is it true you have been working on a song with your bandmates in Sweden?" it came from the right.
"Have you broken up with your girlfriend, Mr. Tomlinson?" a few asked Louis while we carried on walking.
"Mr.Malik, is it true it was your friend who was involved in the accident a few minutes ago?" on mid-distance I stopped and turned to the left to the man who spoke the last words.
"What?" I asked and approached him.
"Your friend, Miss Jenan." He only said and now there was less than one metre between us. Behind me I could feel the presence of Louis and Paul who tapped me on the shoulder.
"What happened to her?" I asked with a slight fear inside of me.
"There was an accident on Palm Road and passants say they have seen your friend getting into that taxi minutes before the accident." Palm Road. A road very near to our flat.
Accident. Your friend. Palm Road. The words flew through my mind and for a few seconds everything was black infront of me. The next thing I did was to turn around and run to the van, the cameras around me going crazy. I jumped into the car and pulled out my phone to diall Jenan's number.
Paul and Louis got in too and I yelled: "GO!" to the driver.
"Please don't let this be true, please don't do this to me.." I whispered. My hand started hurting as I was holding my mobile with it in a deadly cling. The tut tut tuts carried on and my eyes started burning.
"Who's there?" a male voice greeted me from the other end of the line. My body became hot and I could feel a few sweat drops on my forehead.
"This is Jenan's phone, who the #@$% are you?!" I almost screamed.
"Oh, this is the girl's phone?" he mumbled. "I'm sorry to tell you this but.. we couldn't help her. The girl has passed away."
The mobile fell out of my hands and my whole body started trembeling terribly. Everything infront of me was black again.
"Zayn?" I heard a voice which sounded like Louis but it seemed far away. "Zayn? Zayn!" his voice started to become clearer and louder when suddenly I opened my eyes and looked into his face.
"What?" was all I could say.
"You fell asleep and then suddenly started trembling and shaking." Louis said with a worried tone. "Is everything okay?"
I straightened my back and looked around. I was in the van and faced my four bandmates who were looking at me with worry. When I realised that reality had changed into a dream at the point where the paparazzi told me about the accident, it took a load off my mind. I rubbed my face with my hands and muttered: "Just a dream." I took my hands off my face and saw the boys nodding slowly.
"When do you think we will be recording the new song?" Niall asked and took the headphones out of his ears. He had been listening to the song the whole day long and he obviously couldn't wait to record it.
"Soon, I guess." Liam answered and Niall rolled his eyes saying: "Very accurate, Liam." He just shrugged his shoulders.
"You wanna talk?" Harry beside me whispered.
"Why?" I asked and looked at him.
"You look played out." he shrugged and I sighed saying: "It's just the stress of the past days, that's all."
Although Harry knew there had to be something else, he nodded and turned away again.
During the whole ride I didn't say a word, I was only glad when the van stopped infront of the building. I didn't take my luggage and carry it upstairs as usual. Instead, I jumped out of the vehicle, entered the building and took every two steps of the stairs. I pushed my key into the hole and got into the flat. "Jenna?" I called after noticing her not to be within sight. A few seconds later she rushed down the stairs and grinned at me widely. I took a tight hold on the door handle or else I might have run up to her and hugged her. And everyone knew how this would have ended..
"Welcome back, Zaynster." She smiled and came a little nearer.
"I'm glad you're okay." I said, my voice sounding croaky. From downstairs I could hear the lads approaching.
"Why shouldn't I be okay?" Jenan's smile had shrinked a little and her eyebrows were crinkled. I just shook my head and in the next moment the door was opened by Harry who carried his suitcase inside but he didn't just put it beside mine as I had expected. Instead, he walked towards the stairs (on which Jenan was still standing) with it and whispered something into her ear before carrying it upstairs. Jenna gave me one last look and then followed him.
**
*Jenan*
To interact with the boys after knowing they were famous singers was weird. All the time there was a voice inside my head saying: They are not what you thought they were. They are famous and highly coveted. 90% of their fans would kill for sitting around them like you do.. and so on. My phone gave out a familiar tone, telling me I received a new message. I had to stick my arm out of the warm blanket to grab it from the bedside locker.
Check Zayn's Twitter! – E. x was all the message said. I was too lazy to crawl out of bed and boot up the pc, so I signed in from my mobile. His last tweet was only 15 minutes ago.
@zaynmalik: I don't know where I stand with you and I don't know what I mean to you. All I know is every time I think of you, I want to be with you.
My fingertips began to tingle and before my heartbeat could increase, I left Zayn's profile and clicked on Me to see if I had got any new followers. The blanket fell from over my chest as I shrieked and sat upright. I couldn't believe my eyes as I looked at the number of followers: 876! Yesterday they were barely 5! I turned to the connect button. Under the box which showed my new followers, I saw a tweet:
@zaynmalik: @PinkFatCat66 the question is would a muslim girl with headscarf date me? Aha :) x
______________
Dedication for @Typingstories .. she was VERY close to the right answer :D great guess, girl x
Tell me what you think about chapter 24 :) vote if you liked this way for Jenan to find out xx