It is Monday morning. The day I have been dreading for the past month. The day that my dad died. I literally roll off of my bed and onto the floor. I lift my head and look at the clock. 11:00. Shit, I think. I'm late for school. I stumble up to my feet, push the blanket to the ground, and fall back on the bed. Education is not that important.
I grab my phone off my nightstand.
2 new messages
From Charlotte:
Are you okay?
No need to reply to Charlotte, she knows how I am. I throw my phone to the ground without looking at the other message. Distraction is what today is about. It is easier that way, less stress on my part. Half of my body hangs over the edge of the bed. I keep falling in and out of sleep, accompanied with short dreams. The house is eerily silent. It starts to creep me out. I guess that is what happens when you are addicted to crime shows. A shower sounds good right now. I am still wearing yesterday's clothes and makeup. My arms struggle to push me off the bed. Immediately, dizziness overwhelms me, and I search for something to hold onto. After I am able to stand up straight without the shakiness, I start to walk the obstacle course that is my bedroom. I eventually make it to my bathroom, after I trip over a shoe and my backpack.
I turn the knob in the shower and cold water spurts out. I jump out of its way, it is freezing. Once the water heats up, I step forward into it and stand there for a few minutes. Whoever says people should conserve water by taking short showers deserves death. I spend almost a half an hour in there, 25 minutes of it not even doing anything.
I regrettably step out of the shower and look at myself in the mirror. I look like a raccoon. All my makeup decided to run down my face, and even though I just washed my hair, I still do not know what is happening with it. After I dry myself off, I put on a robe and wash my face.
CREAK. What the hell.... I dry my face off. "Isaac?" I call out. He had left earlier this morning with his friends. Maybe he is back now. I wait a second. No answer. I hear it again. I know exactly where the sound is coming from. There is a squeaky floorboard in the kitchen by the sink. Against all that I have learned from horror movies, I walk to the top of the stairs to see what made the sound. I grab my phone in case I need to make an emergency call. As I stand at the stairs, I can hear even clearer. The person in the kitchen is walking around opening and closing all of the cabinets. I clutch the handrail and tiptoe down a few steps to get a better look.
For a second, there are no sounds. Then footsteps continue. My heart is beating like crazy. I look around the stairs to find a possible weapon. All there is is a pair of socks.The person walks into the living room straight across from me so I can see him clearly. "Shit," I say. I jump back a little and trip over a step, landing on my ass. "Zayn, what are you doing in my house?" I yell. I pick up the socks and throw it towards him. I miss by a lot. The socks hit the TV behind him. He watches them pass him.
"Socks?" He says smugly.
I cross my arms. It is not really the best time of year or month to piss me off. I shut my eyes tight and take a deep breath. "You didn't think knocking was necessary?" I respond as calmly as I can.
"I did knock," he says as-a-matter-of-factly. "You didn't hear me so I let myself in."
I'm fuming. "You didn't even tell me you were coming over," I spit.
He furrows his brow. "I'm pretty sure I texted you."
I quickly look at my phone.
1 new message
From Zayn:
I'll be over at 11:30
"I brought you pizza."
I quickly look up at Zayn. He is holding a plate out to me that I did not even notice. I cannot really be mad at someone who brings me food.
"Give me 5 minutes. I'm not exactly dressed."
He looks at me like he realized for the first time what I am wearing. He clears his throat. "Sure."
I run up the stairs and into my room. That was weird. It becomes weirder now that I think about it. Maybe I should just hide up here until Zayn leaves. All our relationship is is weird, and I do not want that today. I know I have to see him though. He ditched school and spent money on me. I grab a red Coca-Cola t-shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans from my dresser. Whoa whoa whoa, wait a second. Zayn Malik, the most popular boy in school, left his kingdom to bring me pizza? Does this make sense? I mean, Zayn has ditched before, but usually with his friends to do something stupid... Zayn and I are friends, I just thought of us more as classroom friends, not out of school friends. The thought revolves around in my head as I get dressed and walk downstairs to see him.
He sits facing away from me with his two plates and a box of pizza on the coffee table. I grin. He is so cute. I walk to the couch and sit next to him.
Zayn gives me a plate with a slice of pepperoni pizza on it. "Just one?" I whine.
He throws another slice onto my plate. MY plate. "Zayn, are these my plates?"
He holds up his plate and moves it around as if he has to examine it. "Yep."
I sigh.
***********
"Hurry up," Zayn yells from the living room.
"I'm coming." I quickly finish my mascara, grab my purse off my bed, and run downstairs. Zayn is pacing by the stairs with his hands in his pockets. When he sees me, he groans, like if he waited any longer he would have died.
"That was way longer than five minutes."
"At least I don't look like a water buffalo anymore."
Zayn opens the door for me. "Whatever," he says. I walk out and he follows me.
I get into his car for the second day in a week. Everything is exactly the same. Even the soda can that was there on Saturday is still here. I get buckled. Zayn is taking me out for pie. His reasoning is that today is March 14, Pi day, and that it would be absolutely insane and disrespectful to all mathematicians by not celebrating such an important event. I do not argue. I get free pie.
I pray we do not have the silence that Zayn and I had last time we were in this situation.
"So where was everyone?" Zayn asks.
"Eve was at school. My mom was at work and I don't know where Isaac was. Frankly, I don't care." I rest my head on the window and look outside. It is a little cloudy. We pass our school and I see people eating and sitting and talking.
"Why didn't you go to school?"
"I woke up late and didn't feel like getting out of bed." I choose not to mention that nightmares were what kept me up all night and caused me to sleep in. I start to think. This is a good time to ask about why he is here.
"W-what about you? Why aren't you in school?" I ask as casually as possible.
He snickers. "How often do you see me in class?"
"Then why did you come to my house?"
He stalls a second. "Well, I did go, but Charlotte told me you weren't there. I really wanted pizza, so I figured I could bring you some." His fingers move up and down on the steering wheel as he talks, like miniature gestures.
I do not say anything, but on the inside, I am dying a little. Charlotte does not really know Zayn, but I have talked about her to him. He would have to have gone up to Charlotte and asked about me to know I was not at school. He was thinking about me. He ditched for me. I start to laugh a little when I imagine how Charlotte reacted to him talking to her. Starstruck, definitely.
The restaurant is significantly closer to my house than the beach is, so we have less time in the car. Zayn parks. Where we are is a cute, little yellow restaurant that looks more like a well-decorated house than a place to eat. Zayn opens the door for me, and I thank him as I walk through. He gets caught keeping it open for a group of people who were leaving. Inside, I get us a table and sit down while waiting to be seated. Zayn finally walks inside and sits down next to me.
"I'm never doing a good deed ever again," he says. I laugh at him.
"Your table is right this way," a waitress says. She speaks in a high-pitched voice that sounds like it would be directed to four year olds. She has long, blonde, curly hair that is fading away to gray. She is probably mid-fifties. Her lips are outlined in bright red lipstick, that, when she smiles, is obviously stained onto her teeth. She has a way of disgusting me, and I have barely met her.
As I follow her, Zayn comes to the side of me. I feel his warm hand press against my lower back. Tingles forming there rush through my body. I tense, but I am not about to complain.
She leads us to a booth by a window. I sit down across from Zayn.
"Here are your menus," she says. I take mine and immediately go to the dessert section. She says something else that Zayn responds to, but I am too distracted to hear.
Minutes later, the woman comes back with two glasses of water and takes our order. Zayn gets pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and I get banana cream pie with whipped cream.
"Thank you," she says when she finishes writing. She turns to walk away. "Such a cute couple," she mumbles.
I spin my head toward Zayn. He is looking at his phone, not even caring about what just happened. Maybe he did not hear the waitress. She was talking pretty quietly. I am not going to bring it to his attention, though, because that would start an awful conversation. Actually, I can see why the waitress thought we are together. We did come here together, alone. Zayn did open the door for me and guide me to the seat. Seems pretty relationship-like.
"My friends keep texting me asking where I am at," Zayn says.
"Well you can go to school if you want," I say. Don't leave, I mentally plead with him.
"Oh, no, I am going to stay." Phew. I realized being with someone on this day is way better than being alone.
The waitress brings our pies shortly after. I frown at my plate.
"What's wrong?" Zayn asks.
"There's not enough whipped cream."
He raises his eyebrows. "The entire pie is covered in it."
I shrug. There is never enough whipped cream.
"It's funny, what the waitress said," Zayn says while cutting into his pie with his fork.
"What did she say?" I scoop as much whipped cream as I can into my mouth.
"That we are a cute couple."
So he did hear her. "Yeah. I recall that you didn't say anything to her about that," I accuse.
"You didn't either. And since you didn't, it couldn't have bothered you that much that someone thought you were mine." I do not respond. "You might've even liked the idea," he suggests.
I glare at him. I shove my mouth with pie so I do not have to give a response. He is partially correct. If it really did bug me, I would have said something. But that does not mean I wanted her to think we are together. Being Zayn's. Just the thought of "belonging" to someone, even Zayn, makes me wince. Zayn always finds a way to piss me off, no matter how sweet he can be. Besides, I am much more on the independent side. I do not need someone telling me what I can and cannot do all of the time.
"She didn't seem the brightest," I try to deter away from that episode.
"Ditzy," Zayn says. We eat our pies. When we are done, Zayn pays for everything.
"Where to now?" I ask.
We debate on where to go for a few minutes, but eventually we decide on the zoo.
***********
"I'll pay for us," I say to Zayn as I search through my purse for my wallet.
"No, I've got it."
I lightly hit Zayn on the arm. "You've paid for everything so far. It's my turn." I shove him out of the way and move up to the man selling tickets for the zoo. "Two adult tickets, please."
"That'll be £22."
I slam the money on the table. Zayn comes out of nowhere and does the same. "Take mine," he says.
"No take mine."
The poor man looks very confused. "If you take mine, I'll give you £5."
"Okay." He grabs Zayn's money with a smile. I should have thought of bribery. I mentally curse myself.
We walk into the park. Zayn grabs a map and holds it up for us to see. "Where should we go?"
One attraction catches my eye. I vigorously point to it on the map. "The aerial tram."
"Bad idea," he says with a subtle laugh.
"Why?" What is wrong with it? It seems fun to me.
Zayn clenches his jaw. He starts to look anywhere except me. He motions towards something on the map. "What about the petting zoo? They have baby animals and stuff. You'd like it better."
He is beginning to annoy me. "How would you know what I like? Why can't we go on the tram?"
Why is he so against the tram? Unless...
"You aren't-"
Zayn begins to blush. "So what if I am?"
I try to hide a smile, but it is too funny. I break out into laughter before I can stop myself.
"It's not funny," he says sternly.
"Yes, it is." I double over, the pain from laughing is so unbearable. I cannot believe he is afraid of heights. Zayn starts to groan. Whoops. I try to control myself. I am able to put on a serious face for a full two seconds."No, you're right, it isn't." I start to giggle.
Zayn huffs away.
"Wait." I grab his hand. "We can go to the petting zoo if you want."
He gives me a slight chuckle and shakes his head. Zayn walks away from me. I sigh. I feel guilty now. I stand around in the middle of the park trying to decide on what to do next. I hope he comes back soon. It is getting pretty cold, and I have no way to get home. I sit on a bench and stare at my navy blue shoes on the cobblestone ground.
"Jessie," I hear Zayn yell. My head shoots up to where the sound was coming from. "Are you coming?" He looks at me questioningly.
"Yeah." He got over that fast. I jog up to Zayn. He pulls his hand out of his jacket pocket and out to me. I take it reluctantly. Friends do that, right? We walk through the busy zoo, which is almost too crowded for a Monday. Mostly parents and their children are exploring, but a few couples are also walking around. As we pass the elephant exhibit, I see one young blonde haired blue eyed girl on her father's shoulders. She is pointing up to the animal. Her father mimics her, which causes her to smile. A woman with beautiful, long brown hair and blue eyes comes up to them while holding her son's hand. The four of them take pictures together by the elephants. I smile. They all look really happy. It is dreamlike. Zayn squeezes my hand and causes me to come back to reality. He smiles at me.
"We're here." We have arrived at a little farm in the middle of the zoo.
"Oh my god, baby sheep." I run into the farm and straight for the lamb. It scurries away from me along with the rest of the flock. I get down onto my knees. "Here sheepy sheepy," I say while softly clapping. I think my actions scare the sheep even worse, and also a few children.
When my sheep attracting methods fail, I get up off the ground and search for Zayn. I look through half of the place and I cannot find him. How lost can you get in a petting zoo? I notice that the farm is way emptier than it was five minutes ago. It is almost deserted.
I find the children in the rabbit pen. There parents are surrounding it smiling and laughing with each other. The kids are all surrounding something. I move inside to get a better look.
It is Zayn. He is sitting down, holding a rabbit in his hands, and all the children are completely mesmerized by how well he is treating it. He gives the rabbit to a girl, and after he makes sure she is holding it correctly, he turns his attention on me. The group of children recircle around the girl with the bunny, clearing a path to Zayn. I walk over to him and sit on the ground next to him.
"You are really good with animals... And children."
He laughs. "I'm sure you are too."
"I scared away a flock of sheep."
"Sheep are... Sheepish," Zayn says. I lightly hit him on the shoulder for making such an awful pun.
"You want to leave as bad as I do?"
"Yep." Zayn gets up and helps me to my feet. We leave the petting zoo almost as quickly as we came in.
As we walk hand in hand through the zoo, I see something that reminds me of Zayn. "Look, a guy making charicatures." I point to the man.
"Oh. You want to get drawn?"
"I already have yours, I don't need another," I say. I start to shiver. The weather is now officially bothering me. I move closer to Zayn to absorb his body heat.
"Are you cold?" He asks.
"N-not really, j-just a little." Great, now my teeth are chattering.
"Do you want my jacket?" This is a hard offer to refuse.
"No really, I'm okay."
We stroll through the park, conversing about whatever interests us. We talk about names, family, pets, food, teachers. Whatever we can think of. We do a good job of keeping the conversation alive, too; there were hardly any unwanted silences.
The sun is starting to set. The two of us relax by the tiger exhibit.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"6:00."
"Oh." I stare at the tigers. One of them is asleep. Another is rolling in the dirt.
"Zayn?"
"Mm?" He says faintly.
"I could use that jacket now."
He chuckles, which makes me smile. He has a really nice laugh...
Zayn takes off his jacket and gives it to me. I quickly put it on- a red and white letterman jacket. I have no clue where it is from, but I am not going to question warmth. I hold the jacket closed so that no cold air hits me. The jacket is huge on me, but that is okay. I sigh at the relief.
"Maybe we should head back," I say.
"Okay," Zayn quietly agrees.
**********
It is dark outside. And cold. So goddamn cold. We have been driving for almost an hour now. It would have been shorter, but unfortunately we left the zoo at the worst time. My fingers tightly clutch the ends of Zayn's jacket I am wearing. My head rests on my shoulder. I breathe in the smell of his jacket. There is a subtle smokey smell on it that fills my lungs and makes me want to cough. It is warm inside the car. The small amount of visibility is produced by the lights on the dashboard and radio. We sit outside of my house. I have been in this situation before. But this time is different.
I am in no rush to leave the car. For one, it would mean I would have to give Zayn his jacket back, but I have grown attached to it. I squirm at the thought of deserting the warmth, and Zayn notices it. He turns his head toward me, and I suppose it is a good time to say something.
"Thanks for taking me out," I say. "I had fun." That is not at all what I want to say. Zayn helped me more than he knows by doing this.
"So did I," he says. I start to unbuckle myself, figuring that was the end of our adventure.
He grabs my forearm, firmly enough to keep me in the car. "Wait," he says.
I know what to expect. My heart is racing, my breathing is unstable. The anxiety rushing through my body makes me want to run out of the car and to my house immediately. I look at the silhouette of Zayn. The light reflects off his perfect hazel eyes, and I am fixed into staring at them. He allows his mouth to curl up into a smile before leaning in. He leaves me no time to react.
His soft, warm lips press to mine. I melt into the kiss. My eyes close. My tense body relaxes, and I begin to return the embrace.
The kiss is passionate. Zayn's fingertips graze my cheek. They linger there before his hand falls to my chin, cupping it, and gently tilting my head. The warmth from his touch spreads throughout my body, making me crave more. My right hand that has been supporting me instinctively advances toward the nape of his neck, pulling him closer into the kiss. He smiles at this. His warm breath escapes his mouth, softly nibbling at my cheeks and neck. The stubble surrounding his mouth scratch at my cheek, adding a new sensation that heightens my desires. We continue for a while. Up until a light turns on in my house.
I pull away and my head turns to the house. Zayn turns to it too. A quiet laugh starts to erupt from his chest. My head drops to the floor as I think of the torture and embarrassment my family will give me if they know what was going on. Our foreheads rest together. "I guess that's your call, then," Zayn says. I move away from Zayn and sit upright in my chair. I sigh deeply. I now especially do not want to go. "I'll walk you there," he says.
I nod in agreement. I get out of the car. Zayn is waiting for me leaning on his door. He holds out a hand as I arrive next to him. I grab his hand and we walk to my front door.
"Isn't that my jacket?" Zayn smirks as we arrive at the door. His words leave his mouth smoothly along with the visible hot air that disappears into the wind.
"Maybe," I answer. He pulls me up to him so that our bodies are touching. Our lips barely brush against each others before the door swings open. Zayn throws my arms down and steps back.
Isaac. I roll my eyes. The fun is over. "See ya, Zayn," I say.
"Bye ," he whispers. I walk into my house, and Isaac shuts the door behind me. At least he did not confront Zayn.
I float into the kitchen where my mother is. "Was that one of your friends? Invite him in, dinner's ready."
Oh no. Isaac opens the door and calls for Zayn, much more willingly than I would expect. They talk at the door. I desperately try to beg Zayn with my eyes to say no, but he never looks back at me. He enters the house.
My mom shuffles from the kitchen and up to Zayn. "Hello, I'm Catherine, and you are?" She shakes his hand.
"I'm Zayn." My mother is so much shorter than Zayn that he has to look almost straight down to see her. She starts to question him, and he answers them politely each with his signature smile. Eve hops down the stairs and joins the whole family.
"We're having spaghetti, Zayn, in case you wanted to join us."
This time, Zayn flashes his eyes toward me and I shake my head no. "Alright," he smirks.
I glare at him.
"Everything is ready so go ahead and sit down," my mom says.
The four of us walk to the table, and my mom walks to the kitchen. Isaac sits next to me, and Eve sits across from me with Zayn next to her. My mother starts to serve everyone the spaghetti.
"You must be Zayn," Eve says.
"Yes I am. Has Jessie told you about me?"
"I just hear her and Charlotte. Charlotte likes to talk about you a lot." She twirls her spaghetti with her fork.
"Is that so?" He shoots me a devilish grin.
"Yeah, they especially like to talk about how-"
I kick Eve under the table. "N-nevermind."
My mom finally sits down after serving everyone. Zayn asks her, "So how was your day, Ms. Lynd?"
"Hectic," she says. She starts some anecdote about whatever crazy patients she had that day. She is a psychologist.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
1 new message
From Zayn:
How'd you like it?
I scowl at Zayn. I know exactly what he is talking about. He has been smirking at me. Does he actually expect an answer? He looks back at my mom when she finishes talking."That's interesting. So did his dreams have any underlying meaning?" The question starts her up all over again.
My phone buzzes again.
1 new message
From Zayn:
It couldn't have been your first, right?xx
How is he doing this? I silence my phone.
"That's enough about me, what did you two do today?" My mom asks.
Everyone looks at Zayn expectantly, but he looks at me, so I start to speak. "We first got some pie, and uhh...and then we went to the zoo." When I think about it, we really did nothing exciting today.
"That's it?" Isaac asks.
"Yep." I pull my hands into my sleeves, and that is when I realize I am still wearing Zayn's jacket. No one has noticed, thank God. I start to blush thinking about how the day really went. It was a lot more interesting than how I told it.
"Well tonight's been fun." Zayn says. I guess the silence has gotten to him. "But I have to head home now. Thank you, Ms. Lynd, for having me over."
"You're so welcome. Jessie go walk him out."
I walk to the door behind Zayn. We walk outside and he shuts the door. "I'm gonna need my jacket back sooner or later."
"How about later?" He stares into my eyes, his only a few inches away from mine. "Fine." I take off the jacket and give it to him.
"Thank you."
I start to shiver. It is really cold outside. He grabs my hand and pulls me closer to him. His other hand slides up my arm. He dips down to leave a soft kiss on my lips. The touch leaves me warm on the inside, but does almost nothing for my outside. I am desperate to get inside. How can he stand this cold?
"Bye, Zayn," I say gently.
"Bye." He walks to his car, and I rush inside the house. My family is still at the table, but I run upstairs. I enter my room and jump onto the bed. I smile. A lot. I cannot stop. I pull out my phone to text Charlotte.
1 new message
From Zayn:
You never answered my questions xx
I consider answering them actually, but I end up throwing my phone on my nightstand. If Zayn really wants to know, he will ask me tomorrow in school. When I am ready for bed, it is only around 8:30, but I am so dead tired I fall asleep immediately.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Well happy anniversary guys!!! Three years of One Direction today! It's amazing.
Comment, vote, tell your friends, stay off drugs. Bye bye:)