One Night With Zayn & Nine Months With His Baby

Chapter Thirty Nine: It Never Was

   After about six hours with just Louis and Nathan, I felt like I was about to break down. I wanted Zayn with me. I wanted our apartment back. I wanted to be normal. And clearly that wasn't going to happen. It wasn't even a possibility for me.
   My life would never be normal again. It would never be the same. My son would never be the typical person and neither would my unborn baby. We would never be left alone.
   I dropped my face into my hands and cried. I cried hard and I sobbed as if I were entirely alone. Until I wasn't alone and Louis was wrapping his arms around me tight.
   "Hey, what's wrong?" He asked without pulling away. "Riley, hey, what's happened?"
   I didn't know how to answer him so I just held onto him as if my life depended on it. I didn't know why it hurt so much to feel like this but it did.
   "Are you hurt?" He asked. He knew that I wasn't.
   "No," I stammered. "I want this to be over."
   "I know. I'm so sorry."
   In that moment I heard the lock click open and the handle turn. I didn't bother pulling away from Louis. No amount of lying or covering up would actually hide the fact that I'd been crying.
   "Riley?" I heard Zayn's questioning voice ask. I felt his hand in my hair as he crouched next to Louis and me. "Baby, what's wrong?"
   Louis pulled back and wiped the tears off of my cheeks. It was no use. New ones were right where the ones he wiped away in a matter of a second. I looked at Zayn and a strangled sob found its way through me. His eyes, the way they worried so much about me so often, were my undoing. He wasn't like this before me, I was convinced. Before me, Zayn was happy. With me, the only emotion he had room for was worry.
   His fingers wiped tears from my face as he looked at me questioningly. "Riley?"
   I turned my head to the side and kissed the inside of his palm. I knew that what I was about to do was irrational. It was stupid. I loved this man with all my heart and soul. But my children needed a normal life. I owed them that much. I owed them more.
   "We need to talk," was all I could say in front of the boys.
   Zayn asked for them to walk out so that we could have our privacy. And they did without hesitation.
   I stood up from where I sat and gently pushed Zayn down to where I'd been. I could taste the tears on my lips as I ran my hands over the contours of his face. His lips. His nose. Underneath his eyes. His eyebrows.
   I left my hands in his hair and hugged him to my chest. His arms wrapped around my waist.
   "I have to go," I told him. He won't understand, but I have to.
   His hands held onto my waist and he pushed me back a little so that he could look at me. "Go?"
   I nodded a few times as the tears fell down my cheeks, onto his forearms. "I can't do this anymore. I can't pretend."
   His lips parted, eyes about to burst into tears. "Pretend? Baby, what's happening?"
   I coughed, trying to suppress my sobs. I love you, Zayn. "This isn't my life. It never was. And it was nice to pretend for a while, that it was, that it could be, but it's not."
   "You're leaving me," he didn't ask. He stated it. He knew it. His head dropped.
   And I let myself sob before him, lose myself in the grief that I felt and that I knew I was causing him. "I love you. I would have loved you forever."
   He stood up, his body pressed against mine. His eyes looking into mine so earnestly. "I need you, Riley. I love you. You know that. I can't be without you," he cried. "Please. We can work this out."
   I closed my eyes and traced the contours of his face again. I could feel his sweet breath on my skin, his fingers gripping into me as if I were the only thing keeping him from the brink of death. I touched his soft hair again. For the last time.
   "I can't do this anymore."
   I don't know how to describe the sound that fell from his lips when he started crying, strong and uncontrollably against me. His head rested on my shoulder as he did. I left my hand in his hair because I knew that the next day I wouldn't be able to do so. That this feeling would have to stay imprinted in my memory if I wanted to keep it.
   "I love you so much," I told him. And I meant it.
   I pulled his face from my shoulder and held it in both my hands. With my thumb, for the last time I traced the contours of Zayn's face. Except his lips I traced with my own. I tried to remember the feeling. One last time. This is what I'd have to cling onto for the rest of my life. I would love Zayn forever, but I wouldn't have him the way that I did in that moment. I wanted to remember how it felt.
   When I felt like I'd memorized him well enough to be without him, I let go of his face and pulled away. I didn't look him in the eyes as I picked up Nathan's bag and then his car seat where he lay.
   I brought him to Zayn. "You can say goodbye."
   He fell to his knees, unable to control the flow of tears pouring from his eyes as he kissed his son goodbye. I couldn't either. It hurt to see him like this. It hurt that I would never see him like this again. That I would never see him again.
   "I love you," I heard him whisper to a sleeping Nathan.
   With a little difficulty I opened the door and walked through it, my shoulder slumping, my eyes crying and crying, my lips trembling. Oh, Zayn. My Zayn.
   The boys sat on the ground in the hallway and all jerked up to the feet when they saw me walk out of the hotel room.
   In the order that they were, I kissed them each on the cheek. None of them asked any questions until I reached Louis. His eyes were boring into mine, tears running down his cheeks.
   "I want to go with you," he told me. He looked like a child when a parent leaves for good. A child that knows the circumstances. A child that's so good and so innocent; doesn't want to be left behind.
   But this was his life too. "You can't."
   "Please," he pleaded. "I can take care of you. I can... I promised you."
   I shook my head and touched his cheek. "You can't," I repeated.
   And with that I walked away. Walked down the hallway and into the elevator with Nathan's car seat in my hand and his bag in the other. Nothing of my own besides my cellphone and my son.
   Once I reached the lobby, I pushed one foot in front of the other. I had no other choice. It was either that, or fall to my knees and never move again.
   I heard feet pounding behind me and only turned my head, only to see Louis run up behind me. "You're not leaving me," he said, his eyes ablaze with determination.
   "Louis," I sighed.
   "You're not. I'm going with you," he stated firmly, taking Nathan from my hand.
   My eyes darted to my son. "He can't live this life, Louis."
   "He won't, Riley."
   And with that I simply gave up. There was no convincing him to stay. There wasn't an argument that I could set down that he couldn't refute. I was utterly powerless to him.
   He hailed a cab and we both got inside. I didn't know what directions he gave the driver, but once we were off, he looked over at me. "I told you that if take care of you no matter what. You need to know that I will and that I'm not going to give up on you that easily."
   I looked away from him, out onto the streets blazing by us.
   "You and Zayn are meant to be together and I know that as well as I know that I need air to breathe. And you will be together. And everything will be alright. I know that in my heart. And I know that you do, too."
   I weaved my fingers together so that he wouldn't see that I was shaking. "How would you know that?"
   "You didn't take the ring off."
   I looked down at my interlaced fingers and saw it. The ring that Zayn gave me the day that Nathan was born; the day that I said yes. And I knew that Louis was right. A rational person would have never let him go. And I just did.