Chapter Seventeen – Zayn
He doesn’t realize how long that they had stayed like that, him drawing—although he was more focused on Skylar than anything else—until the door cracks open.
“You two…” Trinity trails off when her eyes scan over her roommate, and more particularly, her neck. “Oh my God!”
“Don’t even say a word,” Skylar mumbles, burying her face on Zayn’s chest, and he looks at her, a slight smile on his face.
He wonders what they are now. Still friends? With benefits?
God, he hopes not. It was undeniable that he had fallen, and fallen pretty hard at that. It was pretty inevitable, even if he had tried to fight it at first.
But does she feel the same?
It’s stupid, Zayn knows, to be so insecure. She had kissed him first for Pete’s sake, but he can’t help it. She was the first person to try to understand him. She was the first to not give up on him.
Even his own mum had stopped trying. But Skylar, no, she hadn’t.
And that’s hard for him. Because there’s still that small part in his heart that’s telling him that she’s going to walk away and he can’t handle that. He won’t be able to go through that again.
He just can’t.
There’s still that selfish sliver, that small part in his soul that’s telling him to push her away before she can do it to him. There’s this portion of his mind that’s urging him, begging him to shut down like he had before.
It would be so easy.
But then he looks at her, really looks at her, and takes in the way that his heart flutters when she touches him, and the way that her eyes kind of crinkle when she smiles, and he knows that he can’t do that.
He’s too far in this hole, this well, this pit to dig himself out.
He’s not sure if he wants to, anyway.
“Did you even hear me?”
He blinks, shooting her a sheepish smile as he scratches the back of his head. He hadn’t been paying neither of the ladies any attention; too lost in his own head to realize that Skylar had been speaking.
“Figured not. I said that we have to go, now.”
He pouts before he can think about it, tilting her face upwards with his thumb to plant a small kiss there.
His lips tingle before he even pulls away, smiling against her mouth before parting.
He wonders if every kiss will feel like that.
He wonders if he’ll ever kiss her again.
If she’ll come back.
Or if she’ll leave too.
“Don’t look so upset,” Trinity snorts, a small grin on her face. “She just has to leave.”
That’s what he’s afraid of.
But then Skylar is pressing her lips to his ear, her breath warm as it fans over him. “I’ll be back,” she whispers, and then she plants a kiss on his cheek, and Zayn is awestruck when he watches her leave.
Because it’s like Skylar always knows exactly what he’s thinking and she knows him better than he knows himself sometimes.
And that scares him too.
Niall’s the first to catch sight of the love bite. He’s leaning in to give Trinity a parting hug, when his eyes catch sight of a small purple bruise right next to Skylar’s collarbone. “Is that a—”
“Don’t say it!” The girl warns, and by this point, all of the others are interested too. Zayn’s stepped out of his room, leaning in the doorway, watching the exchange.
“Do you have a hickey?”
“Niall!” Trinity frowns that the Irishman, giving him a slight shove. “She said not to say anything.”
The blonde frowns, his eyebrows folded in. “But… I mean, I didn’t see her and Lou together at all tonight and—”
By now Skylar’s face is buried in her hands, and she’s just wishing that the ground would swallow her up. Of course she was going to tell the boys, but for goodness sakes, not like this. Not until she and Zayn figured out exactly what was going on.
“That’s because Louis,” the boy in question starts, an almost animalistic growl forming in the back of his throat. His fingers tighten around the controller that he’s holding, and he shoots a pointed look at Skylar, who’s cowering back now. Zayn wants to go out there and hold her, but he has a feeling that it will only make things worse. “Louis had no idea about it either, Niall.”
Niall’s eyes widen, his jaw dropping a bit when he realizes exactly what dilemma he’s just started. A whole can of drama, when all he really wanted was to tease Skylar a little and out her and Louis, because the sexual tension between them had been unbearable.
Or so he had thought, anyway.
“Would you like to explain?” Louis asks, cocking his head to the side in almost a sadistic way, and Zayn knows that it’s just the calm before the storm.
“I’d actually rather not,” Skylar squeaks, and Zayn’s had enough. He strides into the living room, wrapping an arm around her to bring her tight. All eyes are on him—and the others had suspected that it was his doing anyway—and he just ushers Skylar out of the door, planting a small kiss on her forehead.
She gives him a grateful smile, and he gives a tight-lipped one back—because he’s going to receive so much fire from Louis—and starts to head back inside.
“Zayn?” Skylar starts, and he stops, raising his brows lightly. “What are we?”
Zayn shrugs, because honestly, he has no clue, no clue whatsoever, and just gives her a little grin.
He’s not going to force anything. The last time that he had tried to manipulate his future had ended him where he was now, mute and stupid and numb to the world, and he’s not going to do that this time. He’s just going to let the chips fall where they may.
And so he shoves his hands in his pockets and enters the flat again, because he’s made up his mind now and he’s done. He’s done being… whatever this was, this other person that he had created. He was ready now, ready to be Zayn again, and Skylar had done that for him.
When he enters the place, all eyes are on him, not that he expected otherwise.
“You’re horrible, mate,” Louis spits first. He was expecting this too. “You knew that I fancied her from the start, and you go and, what, mark her? If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have even known her!”
Zayn wants to point out that if it wasn’t for him, Louis wouldn’t have needed to purchase a sketchbook in the first place, but he keeps his mouth closed. He always does.
“You did it just because you knew, isn’t it? You knew that she liked me back and you couldn’t handle that, could you? Didn’t like that somebody didn’t fancy you, is it?”
Zayn sighs, but stays silent.
“But you know what, Zayn? She doesn’t even like you! She likes me, and only me, and just because you bloody marked her doesn’t change anything! You just want to take her from me, don’t you? Do you even fancy her?”
Zayn shakes his head, because he’s fallen way past the ‘fancying’ stage, and to even use those words with him and Skylar seems elementary.
“Did she even kiss you back?” Louis is snorting now, because he’s so sure of himself, and he’s surprised when Zayn starts to nod.
And Zayn is clenching his fists in his pocket, too, because what even gives Louis the right to assume that she hadn’t?
“And you don’t even fancy her? That’s sick—”
“I don’t fancy her,” Zayn breathes, and the words feel foreign and jumbled on his own tongue, because he hasn’t talked in so long and he’s even forgotten the sound of his own voice. “But that’s only because I love her.”
And Louis’ eyes are wide and heck, so are everybody else’s. But Zayn doesn’t acknowledge any of this, and instead runs his hands through his hair and hurries to his room because he just admitted that he loved her.
And that’s bad, really bad, because that just really made it real and he hopes that Skylar stays true to her word and comes back because if not, he’s screwed.
Because he’s held Skylar, and he’s kissed Skylar, and he loves Skylar, and that’s still in present tense which means that it’s still true.
And it is.
And he’s really scared, now.
______*______*______*______
I feel like the last two chapter have been crappy but, oh well. I hope you appreciate them a lot more than I do :)