Zayn Malik sat on his bed by his bedroom window at his Mum’s house. His face was pressed against the cold glass, his big brown eyes watching as the cars drove past slowly, his eyes craning inside to take a quick glance of the people inside of the cars, his brown pools picking up on little details, like they always did.
His arms were balanced on the windowsill, and his chin was rested on his arms as he looked out of the window. If anyone were to look into the boy’s bedroom, then you’d expect the boy by the window to be a sulking child, but it was a confused seventeen year old, looking longingly out of the window as he tried to make some sense out of the busy world that seemed to run circles around him.
Zayn’s parents had divorced many years ago, so many in fact that Zayn had to work hard to remember the accuracy of his parent’s marital breakdown. He had barely started school when the yelling and the arguments had started to occur, and unknown to him, the cheating and the lack of fidelity. Both his parents were as bad as each other. His Father turned to gambling and boxing, whereas his Mother turned to long, lonely nights where she would clutch her four year old son to her body in one of her arms, and a half empty bottle of red wine in the other arm.
As a four year old, Zayn would have never began to understand the impact that alcohol had had on his Mother in the early years of his life. Then again, even in his late teenage years, he still couldn’t get his head around how powerful the deep red liquid in the dark green bottles truly was, and how much of a hold it had on his family.
As a five year old, Zayn could clearly remember sitting at the top of the steps in their small, semi-detached house in the centre of Bradford, his small feet covered with Power Ranger socks, and his small body in a blue and red all in one. His big brown eyes watched as his Father pulled the wedding ring from his third finger on his heavy left hand, and threw it by his Mother’s feet. His Mother was clinging to his Father’s forearms, begging and pleading, many words that Zayn’s small mind could have never started to understand, but his Father would have none of it.
With a swift movement, and a grumble that sounded like the beginning of a volcano erupting, Zayn’s Father pushed away the desperate woman and grabbed his suitcases before leaving the small, messy house. Zayn could recall the bloody mess that was his Mother’s face, and he could recall the slight wet patch in his underwear, which was caused by pure fright.
There had been five small, family Christmases that were held in the small semi-detached house following that incident. Small Christmases that included a small green tree in the corner of the living room, which Zayn would sit by and stare at through enchanted brown eyes, taking in every detail of the small decorations that covered the tree. If asked on the spot, Zayn Malik could still tell you the amount of small baubles, and what they looked like. The amount of glitter that was slowly rubbing off them due to many years of use, and how slowly they would turn due to the air movement around the small tree.
The small boy would sit and watch it for ages, his Mother always turning her nose up in confusion as she would watch the seven year old. She found it strange how the boy would rather watch a cheap, fake tree rather than a flashing television screen, but she ignored it, as telling the glossy eyed boy to do otherwise would cause her son to look at her with that same, innocent look that made her wonder if there was anything going on in her son’s brain. Looking into it was pointless to her.
One year, there was a new face that arrived in the semi-detached house. Following weeks of the small boy sitting on the bottom of the step by the front door, as his Mother would leave a kiss his forehead and tell him that she would be back soon, before disappearing into the night in an arrangement of pretty colour dresses, Zayn was introduced to a man. He was tall, broad shouldered, and had dark eyes and dark hair.
His face was aged well, a couple of well-worn dimples in his cheeks as he stood before the small boy, looking over him with a slight smile. The boy was told by his Mother to call him Mr Garrett, which soon changed to Andy, and after many years, Andy turned to Step-Dad. Zayn still remembered how one of his shoes wasn’t tied properly, and the lace was broken a little.
The summer after Zayn reached his tenth birthday, he was dressed in a slightly ill fitting suit and was sat down on a cold bench in a marriage office and was named pageboy. His big brown eyes watched as his Mother and his soon to be Stepfather got married, and when the small crowd and congregation broke out into cheers and applause, the small boy smiled a little and clapped his small hands together to show how happy that he was for his Mother, who was dressed in a long white dress. He could still count the amount of beaded flowers that were embroided onto the skirt, for he spent the majority of the party afterwards stroking his small fingers over the beads, a smile of delight on his face as he did so.
Shortly after the marriage, his Mother moved herself and Zayn into his new Stepfather’s house. It was away from the centre of Bradford, and was a three-tiered townhouse, rather newly built. It was still in a busy area, and in fact the plot where it was built was a commuting road, which was why it was so busy. Ever since moving into Andy’s house, Zayn hadn’t seen the small demi-detached house since.
Zayn Malik finally met his Father again after almost seven years of being apart once his Mother was remarried. More often than not, when the burden of her son would start to affect her new husband, Zayn’s Mother would quickly ship him off to his Father’s house, filling her son’s backpack with sandwiches and a drink before ushering him over to the dark blue car that his Father drove at the time.
Zayn would walk over to the car with curious brown eyes, as he held a Power Ranger action figure and his drawing pad in his hands. Zayn liked the outside of his Father’s car. It had mud stains around the wheels, and reminded Zayn of the rally cars he had seen once or twice before when the small boy did watch the television. But, inside was a different story. The car felt huge on the inside. The boy would sit down on the seats and immediately the smell of old cigarette smoke would hit his nostrils.
Zayn still remembered the first time when his Father’s knuckles made contact with him. It had been the first night that Zayn had ever gone round to his Father’s house since his Mother’s remarriage. His Father had grumbled and thrown a couple of ready meals onto the table in front of his brown eyes son. When Zayn hadn’t answered, his Father had scowled, a collection of gruff curses leaving his mouth as he stared at the small boy in front of him.
When Zayn had simply pointed to the one that had mostly appealed to his tummy, his lack of words had earned him a swat to the back of the head. Throughout the rest of the Father and Son’s relationship, the lack of communication given by Zayn caused several more swats to the boy’s body. The older he got, and the more withdrawn the confused boy became, the harder the hits came, but from his own experience he knew that talking only provided him with the same treatment. As a conclusion to this, the boy tended to remain silent around all people. Talking always tended to go wrong for him.
“Blue.” Zayn whispered to himself, as another blue car drove past the window. Zayn’s brown eyes followed the car right down the road, watching it turn left down a road of houses, before returning his eyes back to looking down at the road straight in front of him.
Zayn had been a little surprised when he had seen Harry and his friend walk towards him after his art class. Harry’s brown curls were bouncing ever so slightly as the boy walked, and there was one at the back that Zayn was transfixed with, due to how it sprung away from the rest proudly, as if it were trying to get the attention of whoever was looking at Harry at the time.
Harry looked perfect, as always. There was a small smile on Harry’s lips, and as Zayn looked at Harry’s lips from behind the frames of his glasses he remembered the small kisses to his cheeks that Harry had delivered throughout lunch, and he had had to try ever so hard not to blush from the memory of it, which meant he had looked down at his sketchbook eagerly, a smile threatening to slip onto his pink lips.
The poor boy didn’t see Liam Payne lean into his love interest and whisper the command to trip him into his ear.
When Harry Styles’ hand had flown from nowhere and knocked Zayn’s sketchbooks from his hand and sent them flying to the floor, Zayn had gathered them with a smile on his face. Harry was so clumsy. Zayn’s hands had carefully started to gather up all of his work slowly, making sure nothing would be bent or crumpled. When his brown eyes saw a small crease in one of his sketchings, he had quickly tried to flatten it out as he had gathered them all together.
As Zayn had gathered up his sketchbook, he had looked up to expect Harry stood over him with a sorry smile, his large hand held out to help Zayn back onto his own feet, but Zayn’s big brown eyes slowly looked up to see the curly boy that clouded his mind like a spring breeze walking away, wrapped up into the arms of his angry-looking friend.
The other boy was nipping at Harry’s earlobe, and that was the first time Zayn had ever felt his heart do a strange flip behind his ribcage. Zayn’s brown eyes had quickly glanced over every part of the two boys that was touching. It started at their hips, pressed together like a jigsaw, and their torsos followed suit. The angry-looking boy’s arm was wrapped around Harry’s lean torso, his knuckles firmly holding onto the boy’s side.
Their shoulders were next to each other, and Zayn saw the small break in their contact, which was a small gap inbetween their necks, before it rejoined once again with the angry-looking boy’s lips pressed against Harry’s ear. They left as quick as they came, leaving only the echo of their laughter in the quiet corridor where Zayn was sat on the floor, pulling sketches back into their rightful place in his books.
Zayn’s heart felt like it had been hanging onto his ribs as he had watched the two boys walk past, and when they left, pressed against each other, the corridor fell quiet. The heavy door slowly closed with a small thud, and at the sound of that thud, it felt like whatever Zayn’s heart was holding onto had given way, causing his heart to drop. Zayn was unsure as why. The boy only knew that the thought of the angry-looking boy, that he had once met before at the bus station, yelling at the beautiful, young blonde boy who sat beside him, so close to Harry made his heart feel like it was hanging onto something that was about to give way again.
That’s why Zayn was sat by the window, watching the cars that drove past intently. He didn’t quite understand why the angry-looking boy was so close to Harry all of a sudden, but he knew that he must have been important due to how Harry stayed stuck next to him. Zayn was sure that he must have been telling Harry something so important that his curly haired best friend was hanging onto every word, Zayn may have done the same if Harry was telling him something important, but the boy’s heart still seemed saddened.
The delicate boy was busily counting the cars away, his nose pressed against the glass, so that he could ignore the heavy feeling in his heart and count the minutes go by, as each minute that passed meant it was getting closer to he and Harry’s sleepover. And he was extremely excited about that.
“Don’t worry little heart, you’ll feel better when we’re at Harry’s house, on our sleepover. You’ll feel light again soon.” He whispered to himself again, before a small smile formed onto his perfect face, and Zayn’s eyes sparkled with happiness, before counting another red car drive past.