"I don't know where it is, I don't know when, but I want you around." - 'She Is' by The Fray.
"How long is this going to last?" Liam groaned, gazing down at Zayn's weak figure.
Zayn had woken up this morning with nausea - kind of like the flu. The boys thought this was just a bug from the change in atmosphere, but I knew better - this was a withdrawal symptom from his cigarettes. We'd decided not to tell them about Zayn quitting yet since I thought that questions would arise, like why Zayn was doing it now. Like I said before, I knew that his smoking and cutting were linked.
"About a week," I replied calmly, keeping my eyes on Zayn.
He lay flat on his bed, breathing heavily sounding like he had broncitis. Every once in a while he'd let out a sneeze which would trigger his immidete reaction of picking up one of the wrinkled tissues that surrounded him and blowing his nose. His eyes were bloodshot from the numerious amount of tears that leaked from his eyes whenever he coughed. His throat was sore and he barely spoke because of it.
"Won't be too hard," I continued. "Just stock up on soda, he's going to need a lot." Liam stared into mid-air thoughtfully. "I mean now. Dude, go!"
"What? Oh, yeah, right."
I waited for Liam to go before I shut the door and began clearing the used tissues and replacing them with new ones. "Withdarwal symptom," I grunted. "There's a lot, but not everyone gets everything. First one's nausea - we'll have to wait to see what comes next, no telling now."
"Great," he slurred. "so how long are the symtoms gonna last?"
"It's different for evreryone," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Hard to say, but it won't exactly last a few weeks. Five or six months, more or less. How's the leg?"
Another withdrawal symptom.
"Aches," he grunted.
"Just...don't move," I suggested.
He sighed and suddenly began coughing again.
Zayn's nausea lasted six days exactly - on the seventh, the two of us scavenged his bed looking for any old tissues and crushed soda cans. Usually, he was pretty tidy, but the symtom had a large effect on his cleanliness. His leg was a lot better and it helped that he only moved if he needed to.
Unfortunately, it wasn't long before his next symptom came: hoarseness. This wasn't too bad in a sense that Zayn wasn't really coughing all the time and he didn't feel dizzy everytime he moved and his bed wasn't a human version of a pig-sty. Thing is, he couldn't talk, let alone sing and the symptom could last up to several months - hopefully getting better as time progressed.
"Here, you need this," I pushed another cup of tea into his lukewarm hands. It was his fourth one today. "How you feeling?"
"Better," he managed. "As in I can actually talk without my throat burning."
"That's good," I smiled. "Your throat's just regenirating its tissues, nothing too complex."
"That's coming from someone whose studying this stuff," he whispered.
"Shut up and suck on your lozenger."
It wasn't only his symptoms that occured - it was his dreams as well, which were only figments of his personal guilt.
I didn't really want Zayn to fall asleep again - I couldn't handle the image of the lines of discomfort on his forehead, or how he shifts around, moaning the same thing: 'I didn't mean to.' I was usually a heavy sleeper, but when Zayn had mentioned that he'd had dreams of some sort, I'd tried to stay awake for longer. At night, I could hear him talk in his sleep.
And what did that mean? 'I didn't mean to'? Didn't mean to what? Break something? Hurt someone? Leave someone when he was needed most?
Thoughts clouded my mind, as I tried to fathom what was happening. It was obviously something to do with losing someone - whether they died, or they just left him - or he left them...
Was it a break up? A really bad one? Maybe Zayn's girlfriend died? Wait, that'd be all over the gossip channels, unless they were really good at hiding their relationship. Maybe his family had a massive argument - my family's had a few of those. His parents were obviously alive, he received texts from them all the time. Though, he did mention his aunt dying...and something about his grandfather.
Also came the self harming and the smoking. Zayn told me that he did both to get rid of 'the pain'. So, evidently, they were both linked - along with the nightmares.
I sighed, frustrated; before, it had all seemed so much more easier than it is now. In order to relieve Zayn from his nightmares, cutting and smoking, I have to dig down to the root of the problem. It isn't as easy as I thought it was - to deprive him of cigarettes until he gave up trying to get some, or hiding away any sharp object so that he couldn't hurt himself, or making him stay awake twenty-four/seven.
Zayn's reason behind his self-created obstacles was a deep psychological impact and it needed to be taken care of before he did anything drastic. The more he waited, the deeper the problem would become.
Zayn and I needed to talk. Immediately.
I slipped off my bed and poked my head around the curtain. I saw that Zayn wasn't in his usual place in the bottom bunk on the right. Not being able to control myself, I pushed past the material to get a proper look around. The rest of the boys were sleeping soundly, as was Eleanor. I crept forward, daring not to make a sound and saw that a light was shining from underneath the bathroom door - the boys' bathroom.
God, for a medical student in Cambridge, I'm an idiot!
Without knocking this time, I opened the door and found what I expected - Zayn in the coner with leaking eyes.
He noticed me and guilt shadowed his profile. "What are you doing here?" he mumbled, slowing down with the silver blade.
"It's sort of my reason for being here," I said, gently, keeling down in front of him. "To make sure that you don't do anything stupid."
He didn't say anything, however, he did sigh with defeat and drop the blade on the floor.
"I noticed your bandages as well," I admitted, adding in a lie: "On the plane - your hoodie slipped down and I saw them."
He blushed. "I'm pathetic, aren't I? You can say it if you want. I'm sure anyone else would if they knew."
"Zayn, stop being a moron," I defended. "Beating yourself up over something which is obviously traumatizing for you...I'm honoured that you haven't beaten the crap out of me so that I don't tell anyone."
"I know you'd never tell anyone," Zayn whispered, looking into my eyes. "You won't even tell me what's wrong with you. You should know that I fully trust you with this."
"Can we start talking now?" I asked. "About your problems? About the cutting? The smoking...The bad dreams?"
The last part triggered something. "How do you know about the dreams?"
"When we were on the plane," I told him. "You looked agonized, you were moaning the same thing, over and over again. And I can hear you at night."
"W-what was I saying?" He sounded apprehensive, like he was scared he gave too much away.
"'I didn't mean to,'" I quoted.
He sighed and tilted his head back to lean it against the wall. "I just don't think I can fix everything, though," he sighed. "Everything I've already done..."
"Someone once told me," I said. "That no one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start and make a new ending."
He raised an eyebrow. "That's deep."
I looked at the watch on his wrist - eleven o'clock. "It's getting late," I said. "But tomorrow, we begin. Do you have any cigarettes with you? Honestly?"
He shook his head and cracked a self-confident smile. "I'm not sure how I did it, but I didn't buy any since you came and threw them out."
"Zayn, that's amazing," I smiled, noticing the bandages in the corner and bringing them over to wrap around his fresh lacerates. "But, honestly, I think all we can do for smoking is just not to give you any cigarettes or get you near any. But I promise, I'm going to get rid of all the doubts any everything."
"Don't worry. I know you will."
Zayn's POV
It's fucking three in the morning - I've been awake for the past twenty minutes, having woken up from yet another dream. I found that no matter how hard I tried, the dreams kept coming back - the same ones. I tried everything I could think of: listening to my favourite songs before I went to sleep, replaying the band's funniest moments in my head...none of it worked. I even tried the guilt method, by saying to myself that my little sister's going to hate me if I have another bad dream. Nope, nothing.
In the dreams my little sister hates me anyway.
I was sitting up in bed, with my legs swung over the side, trying to get some relief by massaging my temples and drinking another cup of hot lemon water [which actually worked pretty well]. They did that in movies. But the only reason they got relief was because they followed a damn script.
I opened my eyes, concluding that I was getting nowhere, and the only way I was going to find relief without hurting myself was to talk about it. I hoped Saniya would be awake, if not - willing to wake up and listen.
I got off of my bed and sensed movement behind the curtain. I couldn't help but smirk because it was just so ... pink and Saniya hated pink.
"Saniya, is that you?"
She poked her head round the curtain. "You OK?"
"Just wanted to talk about...things," I said, vaguely. "You aren't doing anything are you?"
"Well, I just finished praying," she said, stifling a yawn.
I picked on that and quickly said: "Oh, right, it's fine then. We'll talk later -"
"Zayn, I think we should talk now -"
"No, it's not that important," I persisted.
"It is if it made you wake up at three in the morning to talk to me about it," she said. "Come on, we're sorting this now."
She took my arm and we sat on the floor around the bunk beds.
"Alright, talk," she demanded, unwrapping the scarf and letting her hair fall loose.
"It's the dreams," I started. "I've been having them for a while now, but they're more...effective..."
"Effective," she repeated, in a tone wanting me to elaborate.
"As in, they're making me feel more...guilty," I uttered. "Probably cause I'm further away from home."
"What do you dream about?" she asked. "What do you see?"
I found it difficult to say the next bit. "My grandfather," I managed, biting my lip. "And my aunt. And they basically...tell me that I let them down - everyone down, cause I wasn't there...when they - left." My voice cracked at the end, and I felt weak and vulnerable.
She bowed her head as a nod. "What, so you blame yourself, or something?"
"I feel terrible...cause I wasn't with them," I said, not making eye contact and instead staring at the ground.
I dared to look at her, only to find she was staring at the floor, lost in thought. Perhaps thinking of what to say. To anyone else, what I said was pretty personal, but to Saniya, I knew she thought it was the key to my self-harm.
"I think what you've got to realise," she began, thoughtfully, now looking at me. "Is that - and this is going to sound really stupid to you - it wasn't really your fault. Nor your mistake, or your slip-up."
I paused, not really understanding what she was leading to, and yawned.
"You need sleep," she said. "It might be interrupted, but get all you can."
I nodded; sleep sounded pretty good right now.
I got up and stretched. "Thank you," I said, knowing that those simple words couldn't pay back what she'd done for me. "For listening."
"You have to stop saying that sometime," she sighed, getting up too.
"Maybe you could help me with that too, then."
I paused before saying something else. "Can you ... Can you sleep out there with me?"
She raised an eyebrow. "What, like on the floor?"
I shuffled my feet. "Yeah, or you could share my bed or something -"
"No!" she quickly said. "But, dude, I'm right here behind a stupid curtain if you need me."
No!
"Yeah, you're right," I lied, appearing nonchalant. "Sorry, that was stupid."
As I turned to leave, I heard her sigh. "Fine."
"I waited for you!" He screamed at me. "I kept telling myself that you'd come to see me!"
"You came after I died!" She pitched in. "Fantastic, I barely remember the last thing I said to you- the last thing you said to me in fact!"
I wanted to tell them I was sorry; I wanted to talk to them right before they left, I wanted them to know how angry I was at myself, but my voice wasn't working. I could only look at the disappointment and neglect growing in their eyes.
"You promised me you'd stick by your family after I died," my grandfather spat. "Remember? The first time I went to hospital? Or did your precious band make you forget?"
Of course I remembered; I never forgot anything my grandfather said since the first time he went to hospital - I just didn't have the ability to tell him that. I breathed deeply (well, in my mind I did, I'm not actually sure how dreams control physical behaviour).
It's just a dream. Ignore them, they don't mean it.
My eyes burst open and I sat up automatically.
"Saniya," I hissed.
"Yeah?" she whispered. I almost jumped. She was kneeling by my bedside.
"You're awake?" I asked, stupidly.
"Well, considering that I responded to you before and I'm talking to you now, no."
"I can't sleep," I said, ignoring her sarcasm.
"I know," She replied, her tone more serious and caring. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes."
"Five minutes?" I queried, confused that she hadn't picked up on my bad dream eariler.
"Zayn, dreams only last for the last five minutes of your sleep," she replied. "They only feel longer, because -" She picked up on my quizzical look. "- Right, yeah, now's not the time."
I nodded. "Yeah. I wasn't screaming or anything, right?"
"No, but you were shaking like mad, though," she said.
I heard her move around and then saw her silouhette. She appeared by my bed with a torch and a book.
"How about I read to you until you fall asleep? Harry Potter must give you some good dreams," She held up a book. Not just any book - my favourite one: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I guessed that she'd bought the series with her.
"My favourite book," I grinned. "Sounds pretty good to me."
She began reading, and a solid smile was upon her face. I guessed that she liked the Harry Potter's too.
She had reached the point where Harry had just arrived at Hogwarts, and closed the book. "Wait," I said, as she got up. "Read more. Please?"
"How are you still awake?" She chuckled. However, she came back and opened the book to where we reached.
"It's my favourite book," I repeated. "It's hard to sleep when I hear it being read."
"My favourite series," she smiled. "It's hard to sleep when someone wants me to help them by reading it."