By the time Zayn gets back to the loft, he’s much calmer. He shouldn’t, but he starts making excuses for Harry again. He’s out of credit. He forgot to charge his phone. He got chatting to the woman in the café on the corner and by the time he got back, Zayn had gone. He’s halfway up the stairs when it occurs to him that Harry might be waiting for him, equally anxious. Zayn’s heart hiccups at the thought as he runs up the rest of them expecting to find Harry sitting in the corridor by the front door, complaining that he had to eat the fried egg sandwich he bought him.
When Zayn gets to the top of the stairs, Harry isn’t there and the disappointment almost makes his legs give way. His fingers are trembling so much that it takes a few attempts to get the door open and when he does, he looks down for a note. WHERE ARE YOU, SHITHEAD? CALL ME. H x but there’s nothing and it’s all Zayn can do not to collapse into a heap on the floor.
He doesn’t know what to do and paces towards the dining table as he checks his phone. It’s futile, but he calls him and when it goes to voicemail, panic plucks at his nerves again. Something’s wrong. This is more than Harry freaking out. Something’s wrong. Harry wouldn’t just say what he said last night then leave. Something’s wrong.
So he calls him again. ‘Harry, it’s me,’ he breathes into the phone when he gets his voicemail. ‘Zayn,’ he adds, squeezing his eyes shut because he doesn’t know if he’s Harry’s me. If he ever was. ‘I, um,’ he has to stop again and sits on the stool by the drafting table. ‘Look. If you’re freaking out about last night, don’t. Don’t run away again. Just talk to me, okay? Just talk to me. It’s okay. Just talk to me. Talk-’
His throat is so tight that he can’t say any more, so Zayn hangs up and covers his eyes with his hand as he tries to catch his breath. He doesn’t know what it is, if it’s having his eyes closed or focusing on his breathing for a moment – the in out, in out, in out that suddenly feels so difficult – but he notices that the loft smells different. He didn’t know it had a smell – cigarettes and white spirit, his mother tells him every time she comes to visit as she empties the ashtray with a sneer, counting each butt before she does – but he can smell something else. Not Harry, something new. Them, he realises as he looks at the bed. Then all he can think about is last night, Harry beneath him, his eyes closed and his mouth open as Zayn reached for his hands. His hips faltered when their palms touched, before he held Harry’s wrists to the bed and thrust into him again.
One corner of the sheet has pulled away to expose the mattress underneath and Zayn wonders if the sheets are still warm, if they smell of them, of Harry’s skin and the aftershave Zayn put on before the exhibition. Is that what he can smell? The two of them melting together, mouths on mouths, palms on palms? Then he sees the indent from Harry’s head in the pillow, as though it remembers him, and Zayn has to look away because he can’t keep doing this. How long’s it going to be this time? Is Harry going to leave him hanging for two weeks again? Three? A month?
Zayn gets it, he gets that Harry’s confused and scared and thrown, but he can’t keep being the one who’s left behind, the one who has to wait and hope that he’s worth being confused and scared and thrown for. He never is and he keeps forgetting that. It’s as if every time his heart breaks, it heals back twice as strong, like a bone, and he forgets.
He should have known, so maybe this is his fault, too. He should have just accepted it and enjoyed last night for what it was: a desperate fuck neither of them could avoid. But he didn’t know. There are so many things he didn’t do in his haste – his thirst – to taste Harry’s skin. There are huge patches of it that he neglected – his back, behind his ear, the space between his eyebrows – but he thought they had time.
He thought they had time.
The sad thing is, Harry did mean everything he said. He’s heard it all before – the I’m so scared, Zayn-s and the I love you, Zayn-s and the Show me, Zayn-s – so he knows that Harry meant it. He meant every word he gasped, every word he breathed into his neck. They always do, when it’s just them and the curiosity burning through them like a fever. Harry would have said anything to feel Zayn’s tongue in his mouth again, on his collarbones, his stomach, so it’s not that he was lying, it’s that his curiosity has been quenched and the reality of being gay (or bi or whatever the fuck he is) and coming out to his parents and being called a faggot in the street suddenly isn’t worth the blow jobs, good as they are. It really is as simple as that and Zayn can sit there making excuses about how scared Harry is and how confused he is, but the truth is: When you love someone, you run to them, not away from them.
Something settles in him then and Zayn doesn’t know if it’s that he’s giving up or if the practical side of his brain has finally taken over, but he stands up and puts his phone down for the first time since he got out of the shower. He needs a cup of tea, he thinks with a sudden smile, knowing that’s the first thing his mother would do if she was there – put the kettle on – but then there’s a knock on the door and he’s running.
‘Harry,’ he breathes, his heart hammering.
‘Hello, stranger,’ Dan Delgado says with a smirk when the door slides open.
Zayn’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach. ‘What are you doing here?’
Dan doesn’t wait to be invited in, just slides past him and when Zayn turns to face him, he’s standing under the skylight, looking up at the sun.
‘So this is the Silver Factory.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Zayn asks, hands on his hips, but Dan ignores him as he turns on the spot, his gaze darting from the kitchen to the bed to the leather chair by the window, before settling on the drafting table.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ Zayn tells him, but he ignores him again, and when Dan leans down to peer at a watercolour, Zayn paces over and gathers everything up, his cheeks hot and his hands shaking, as though Dan’s walked in on him while he was naked. ‘These are private.’
‘They’re beautiful,’ Dan says, clearly amused by Zayn’s reaction. ‘Like you.’
He raises his hand to touch Zayn’s cheek, but Zayn pulls away before he can, walking over to the dining table and putting the pile of paper down with a scowl. He still feels his traitorous heart skip beat, though, as if to say, Remember?
Remember?
‘You look good,’ Dan tells him with a smooth smile as Zayn takes the cigarette box out of his pocket and lights one. And he hates the way he says it – You look good not You look well – and waits. Sure enough, Dan adds, ‘You always look good in black.’
‘What do you want, Dan?’ Zayn asks, tossing his lighter on the dining table.
‘I came to get my painting.’
Zayn closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose.
Of course. Of fucking course he was the one who bought his painting.
‘It’s not here.’ Zayn tells him, nodding at the door. ‘It’s at the gallery.’
He’s about to tell him to go, but then he’s next to him, his hand on the small of his back.
‘I miss you,’ Dan whispers, the tip of his nose grazing Zayn’s cheek.
Zayn shudders and turns his face away. ‘Don’t.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ Dan rests his forehead against Zayn’s, their eyelashes catching as Dan slides into the space between Zayn and the table. Their hips nudge as he does, then Zayn feels the outline of Dan’s belt buckle through his t-shirt as their chests touch and his traitorous heart skips beat again, as if to say, I remember.
I remember.
‘I’m sorry. I’m an asshole,’ Dan breathes and when Zayn feels his breath on his mouth, his eyes flutter shut. ‘It’s you. It’s always been you.’
He kisses Zayn then and the shock of it makes Zayn step back, but Dan’s hand is there, on the small of Zayn’s back, so he rocks forward, their mouths catching again.
‘Don’t,’ Zayn gasps, turning his face the other way as he stubs the cigarette out.
But Dan follows. ‘I’m not letting you go this time.’
When he kisses him again, Zayn can’t fight it and tilts his head as their mouths meet in a breathless bite of a kiss. Zayn reaches for the collar of Dan’s shirt and he doesn’t know if he’s pushing him away or pulling him closer as they fall against the dining table. Dan parts his lips first and as soon as he does, Zayn’s tongue slips into his mouth. It’s hot and wet and familiar, but instead of feeling that thing he feels, the thing he feels every time he says something to make Harry laugh or when Harry walks into a room and Zayn waits for him to notice him, there’s nothing.
Nothing at all.
‘Don’t,’ Zayn breathes, pulling his mouth away and looking at him, trying to find something that he recognises, something in Dan’s face – his mouth, his eyes – to remind him why he ever felt that for him. Why he laid awake at night, aching for him. But then Dan kisses his neck and it makes Zayn’s heart recoil behind his ribs. He tells him to stop, but Dan isn’t listening as his hands slip under Zayn’s t-shirt to unbutton his jeans. As soon as he does, he slips a hand under the elastic of Zayn’s underwear and when he touches him that doesn’t register, either and Zayn doesn’t know why because he’s saying all the right things – I want you, I need you, It’s you, It’s you, It’s you – and it’s all he ever wanted, for Dan to say those things. For Dan to want him. But then he says it again – It’s you, Zayn – and it brings tears to his eyes because Dan isn’t the one he wants to hear say that. So Zayn wriggles away, but before he can tell him to go, he hears someone say, ‘What the fuck?’ and his heart stops as he turns to find Harry behind him.
‘Harry,’ Zayn breathes, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Harry says and he’s never heard his voice like that before, hard and weak, all at once, as though it hurts to say each word. It even flusters Dan who starts pulling down his shirt and blushing as Zayn does the same.
‘I’ll go,’ Dan says, then glances at Zayn. ‘Call me about the painting, okay?’
Harry watches him go and when he looks at Zayn again, Zayn has to look away because Harry isn’t looking at him like he did in the corridor last night, like he can’t help how he’s feeling, like he can’t stop it. This is rawer than that, Harry’s eyes wide and wet and his chin shivering. Zayn’s broken him, he knows.
He’s broken him.
‘What are you doing?’ he whispers, and Zayn has to suck in a breath before he can speak because he sounds like a little boy asking if Santa is real.
‘Dan bought my painting last night,’ he explains, but it sounds so feeble.
‘And that’s how he’s paying you?’
Harry nods at the table and Zayn’s stomach knots so suddenly he’s sure he’s going to throw up.
‘There’s nothing going on, Harry.’
‘That would be more convincing if your jeans weren’t unbuttoned.’
‘Jesus.’ Zayn closes his eyes and turns around to do them up.
When he turns to face him, Harry is shaking his head. ‘Seriously, what the fuck? I tell you that I love you. I let you-’ He looks over at the bed and when he turns back, he’s crying, a big tear rolling down his cheek. Zayn steps forward to catch it with his thumb, but Harry pulls away. ‘No,’ he says, slapping his hand away. ‘What the fuck, Zayn?’
Harry takes two steps back. He lifts his chin to look at him and Zayn is suddenly so confused that all he can say is, ‘Where’ve you been?’
He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but his hands are balled into such tight fists to stop himself touching him again that his nails are cutting into his palms.
‘I went to get bagels.’ Harry throws the plastic bag in his hand at Zayn. It lands on the floor between them and Zayn presses his fists to his forehead.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Harry? I woke up and you were gone.’
‘I tried to wake you up, but you were sparko. So I left you note.’
‘Where?’
‘In the kitchen. I was worried it’d get lost in the sheets so I left it under the kettle.’
Zayn’s head is spinning so fast – spinning and spinning – that he has to close his eyes.
‘The kettle?’ he spits, taking a step back before he reaches for the front of Harry’s t-shirt and shakes him. ‘Why the fucking kettle? Why the fuck would I look there?’
Harry raises his voice then, too and Zayn wonders if he wants to shake him, too. ‘Because it’s the first thing you do every morning!’ he shouts back, ‘Make a cup of tea! You light a cigarette, which I hate, by the way, then you ask me if I want a brew!’
Zayn covers his face with his hands because he knows Harry is crying – really crying, he can hear it in his voice – and he can’t look at him because he does do that. He does. An oh God, he’s fucked it up.
He’s fucked it up.
‘Why didn’t you answer your phone, Harry?’ he says, and it doesn’t matter now, he knows, but he wants to scream it, to charge around the loft and tear it apart. To kick over the easel and rip the sheets to shreds. ‘You should have answered your phone.’
‘So what? I forget to charge my phone and you hook up with someone else? It’s been five fucking hours,’ he hisses and Zayn deserves that, but Jesus fuck it hurts. ‘And Dan Delgado? Of all the people in the world, Dan Delgado? I’d rather you fucked my dad!’
He deserves that, too, but he can’t take it, his legs threatening to give way as he turns his back on Harry and leans against the dining table. Zayn’s hand shakes as he reaches for the lighter and he doesn’t even want a cigarette, but he needs something to do with his hands, something to distract him as his stomach lurches.
‘It’s not like that,’ he tries to say, but he’s going to be sick. ‘Dan and me-’
‘Dan and you what?’ Harry interrupts. But Zayn doesn’t respond, just lights the cigarette, his jaw juddering as he does. ‘Fucking look at me,’ Harry tells him, his voice harder than he’s ever heard. ‘You fucking owe me that.’
Zayn turns around slowly, but when he lifts his chin to look at Harry and he sees how red the skin around his eyes is, he can’t speak.
‘Dan and you what?’ Harry pushes, taking a step towards him.
Zayn shakes his head and looks at the floor.
‘You’re not,’ Harry says and he laughs – actually laughs, sudden and too loud – but when Zayn doesn’t respond, he walks over to him and shoves him. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘I dunno,’ Zayn says and he doesn’t.
He doesn’t know.
‘Look at me.’ Harry waits for Zayn to look at him. ‘How long?’
Zayn looks away again. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘How fucking long?’ Harry roars and it’s so loud – so raw – that it makes Zayn jump. He’s sure that he hears the jam jars by the sink shiver when he says it again. ‘How fucking long?’
‘Six months,’ Zayn says, turning to stub out his cigarette so he doesn’t have to look at him.
‘Six months?’ he says and it sounds like all the air has been punched out of him.
Zayn nods.
‘This whole time?’
‘No.’ Zayn rubs his face with his hands.
‘When did you stop seeing him?’
‘The night I met you,’ Zayn says quietly, and he wants to reach for him so much, to stick his finger through the hole in his black t-shirt and kiss him and tell him he’s sorry.
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘No. It’s the truth.’
Harry’s quiet for a moment, then he says, ‘Did you fuck him?’
Zayn almost doubles over in shock. ‘No.’
‘Did you fuck him here?’
‘No.’
‘Did you fuck him in that bed?’
‘No.’
Zayn walks over to the drafting table and he follows. ‘Was it good?’
‘Stop it, Harry.’
‘Did he let you pin him down?’ he asks, standing behind him, breath on his neck, quick and hot.
‘Stop it.’
‘Did he let you pull his hair?’
‘Stop it.’
‘I bet he did. You fucking love that, don’t you, Zayn?’
‘Stop it!’
‘Did you come in his mouth?’
That bit is true and Zayn turns around and nudges him back with his shoulder.
‘We didn’t have sex, I swear. You’re the one, Harry.’
He was meant to say, the only one. What a time to say it. Too late, as always because Harry isn’t listening as he shakes his head, sending fresh tears down his cheeks.
‘I can’t, Zayn.’ He steps back and presses a hand to his chest. ‘I cant breathe.’
‘I’m sorry, Harry.’ Zayn doesn’t think and reaches for him, but he pulls away.
‘No.’ He takes another step back. ‘I thought it was me. I thought I was going to fuck things up because I’ve never done this before-’
‘I’ve been gay my whole life and I don’t have a clue!’ Zayn interrupts and Harry steps forward so suddenly, he’s sure he’s going to punch him.
‘Not gay!’ he says, his hands balled into fists. ‘In love! I’ve never been in love. I don’t have a Ben or an Adam or a Dan. There was just you.’
Was.
Zayn grabs the front of Harry’s t-shirt, every bit of him shaking as he tries to pull Harry to him, but he pulls away. Zayn hears a rip as he does, but he doesn’t let go as he hears the word was playing in a loop over and over in his head. Was. Was. Was. Was.
‘Let go,’ Harry tells him, jaw clenched, but he doesn’t.
‘Just listen to me,’ Zayn says, breathless.
‘No! You’ve ruined it.’
‘I thought you left!’
Harry manages to wriggle away, then shoves him. ‘Why would I leave?’
‘You tell me, Harry. Before last night, I didn’t speak to you for two weeks!’
He lunges forward again. ‘Because I was scared! I was so scared I couldn’t move!’ He shoves Zayn again. ‘I was so fucking scared that I was going to hurt you that I thought it was better if we stayed friends because I would rather be miserable then fuck it up and make you miserable.’
Zayn stares at him. He doesn’t know how they got there and he wants to go back. He wants to go back to arguing about Jackson Pollock and trying to get Harry up the stairs when he’s drunk. Back to the Harry he met that morning in May, the one who had to touch everything in his loft as though he was claiming it as his own. He wants to go back.
He wants to go back.
‘I tried, you know,’ Harry admits when he’s caught his breath, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. ‘I spent two weeks trying to drink and fuck and puke it out of me, but I couldn’t. Then you saw me hiding from you in the Dublin and when you sent me that text I thought that I was going to lose you and that scared me more than all the other shit I was scared of. That’s why I fought for you last night.’
‘Harry-’ Zayn starts to say, but he stops him, shaking his head.
‘I thought it was me, but it’s you.’ Harry says, lifting his chin to look at him. ‘Why would I leave? Is that how little you think of me? Why would I say all of that then leave?’ Zayn looks away and Harry finishes the thought. ‘Because they always do?’
He stops as Zayn wipes a tear from his jaw with the heel of his palm. ‘That’s not fair,’ Harry tells him, his voice a little softer. ‘Just ‘cos Adam fucked you over doesn’t mean you get to fuck me over. That’s not how this works.’
Zayn shakes his head. ‘I’m not trying to fuck you over.’
Harry starts to walk away, then stops. ‘Everyone thinks that I’m so impetuous,’ he says, turning to face Zayn again. He’s standing in the middle of the loft, under the skylight, and he’s never looked so beautiful, like he did last night, pink cheeked and breathless, the sun catching in his eyelashes. ‘They think I just packed a bag and moved to London, but I spent two summers here, riding Tom’s couch and busking before I did and I made sure I finished my A-levels so I can go to uni if all of this doesn’t work out. So if you think that I charged over here last night and blurted all of that out without thinking, then you don’t know me at all, Zayn, because it’s all I’ve been thinking about since the morning you opened the door to me.’
TELL HIM, a voice in his head roars, but Zayn can’t catch his breath as Harry smiles, small and sweet.
‘You know, there was a moment last night, when we were out there,’ he nods towards the door, which is still open, and Zayn wants to go over and close it as he hears the sound of someone’s stereo intruding like an eavesdropper, ‘when you were kissing me and I could feel your stubble and it was the nicest thing I’ve ever felt.’
Harry touches his cheek and looks at Zayn. ‘I didn’t think it could be like that. Before last night, it was either friendship or sex, never both. I didn’t think you could have both. Then last night, when you were trying to take off my jeans and we were laughing, I thought, So this is it. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. It was like these two parts of me finally fitting together and all I could think was how lucky I was,’ he says, almost to himself as he starts playing with his bottom lip. ‘Most people go their whole lives and never feel like that. They marry their high school sweetheart or whoever they happen to be with when they hit twenty-nine and realise that they should settle down and they never have that.’ He looks at Zayn again. ‘They get safe and compatible, but they never have what we had last night. I actually felt sorry for them.’ He laughs. ‘And look at me now.’
‘Don’t,’ Zayn says and he doesn’t know how because he can’t catch his breath.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t use the past tense.’
Harry shrugs. ‘You’re right, it’s not worth it, Zayn.’
It’s as if the world falls away from his feet and he can’t speak, all he can do is reach for Harry’s wrist and not let go.
Harry looks at his hand, then at him.
‘Just say it,’ he breathes, fresh tears in his eyes. ‘Please, just say it.’
Zayn stares at him. He knows what Harry wants him to say, but he can feel the frantic flutter of Harry’s pulse under his fingers, like a bird trapped under his skin, and all he can think about is locking the door and keeping Harry there forever. But it’s too late.
‘Do you know where I was this morning, Zayn?’
Harry yanks his arm away and points to his arm. Zayn has to blink a few times to get his eyes to focus and when they do, he doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it, the cling film wrapped around Harry’s arm, just below the crease of his right elbow. Then he sees the tattooed moon and his heart snaps in two.
‘I was having this done while you were getting off with Dan Delgado. That’s how much I love you, Zayn and you can’t even say it. You were inside me last night and you couldn’t say it. I’m about to walk away from you and you can’t say it.’
Zayn covers his mouth with his hand as he tries to catch his breath because he wants to say it – he wants to, he wants to, he wants to – but then Harry is walking away and he panics.
‘Please don’t go,’ he says, but he knows they’re not the right three words.
Harry stops and for one sweet second, Zayn thinks it’s enough – that he’s enough – but then Harry shakes his head.
‘You’ll never be able to feel it if you can’t say it out loud, Zayn,’ he says.
Then he’s gone.