"Hi Ms Lynd," Zayn says with a smile and handshake. My mother holds the door for Zayn to come in the house. He hesitates, but he comes inside, looking at the ground and keeping his hands in his jacket pockets.
I stare at him from the couch, but he doesn't see me. I rush to come up with an answer to why he is here, and the only logical thing that I can think is that he's doing this on purpose to hurt me. After a few seconds of silence, he looks around the house urgently. "Is Safaa ready? I'm supposed to take her to meet her friends for-"
His eyes grow wide as he turns his head and sees me on the couch. I can see the smallest smirk start to form, but he erases it before anyone but me can notice it, and continues talking, the whole time looking me straight in the eyes. "-to meet her friends for ice skating- Hi," he says to me.
Right then, Safaa and Eve run down the stairs, thankfully breaking our stare. I hear Safaa squeal. "Right! We're going ice skating!" She immediately turns to Eve. "Do you want to go with us? You were invited."
I cough. Eve glances at me, and I try to convince her no. She looks worried, but reluctantly at first, she answers without paying too much attention to what I was trying to tell her. "Sure... if it's okay with my mom."
She looks to our mother with the most pouty face I'm sure she could manage, and I feel like the pressure makes my mom feel obligated to say yes. "You can go." Then her eyes meet mine, and I know she is planning something horrible. "But why don't you take Jessie with you? It's Zayn alone with the girls. I just want everyone to be safe."
"Well, actually, Jessie and I were going to go out," Isaac chimes in. Everyone looks at him; my mom with fire behind her eyes, me with gratitude, Zayn with the best poker face I've seen, and the girls with obvious disappointment.
"Jessie's going to be here all week. You guys can go out tomorrow," the woman suggests, but she definitely means it as a command. She stares me down until I nod, agreeing to the forced date.
Her eyes brighten up, and she grins, moving her look to Zayn. "So, Zayn, is it okay if she goes with you guys?"
He shrugs. "As long as it's okay with her, she can come."
There is no way my mother will let me say no. "I'll go," I say quietly and quickly, and Zayn looks at me with a look of deep confusion.
"Okay," he says back just as quickly.
"Awesome," Eve says, and then the two girls go into planning the event.
I look back to Zayn, who I think is more happy about this than anyone. He smiles at me as I stare at him blankly. "Give me a minute. I have to put my things away and get my jacket," I tell him.
He nods, and I walk to the front door where I left my suitcase, right next to Zayn of course. I grab it, and leave him a nasty look as I walk past him, but he gives me his attempt at a sincerely apologetic look. It comes off with chuckling, so all I can reason is that he thinks it's all a joke.
I walk past my mother to the stairs. She grabs my forearm and pulls me to her. "Make it up to your sister, okay? Just pretend to have fun at least. I don't know what your problem is."
I roll my eyes. I wish she knew what she is putting me into. She huffs and let's go of me, and I skip up the stairs.
I run to my bedroom. When I get there, I drop my bag on the floor and throw myself onto my bed.
I grasp the first pillow I can reach and hold it against me. "Do not cry," I tell myself out loud. Tears stream from my eyes on to the pillow unwillingly anyway.
I cannot believe that this is happening to me. He is in my family's house! During the holidays! Is he that low? Low enough to harass me when I'm trying to visit my family?
"I really tried," Isaac says as he walks into my room. I sit up on my bed and wipe my face. "I'm sorry."
"It's ok." I sigh an uneasy sigh. "Why is he here?" I ask with tears starting up again.
Isaac sits on the bed next to me. "Jessie, I don't think he knew you were here."
"What other explanation is there?"
"Think about it. What did he ask when he first came into the house?"
Where Safaa was. I look at Isaac and I can see that he knows I know the answer.
"And what happened when he saw you?"
He stuttered. He was surprised.
He raises his eyebrows to try to incite me to think about everything. I jump off the bed and go to my suitcase to get a jacket. "I still don't believe it. What about when mom offered me to go with them? He didn't stop anyone then."
I pull out the contents of my suitcase and put them in a heap on the floor.
"Could he have? If you were in his position, would you say no?" Isaac asks. I find my jacket in the heap and stand up once I have it. "Come on. At least try to make it up to Eve for her birthday. Try and have fun."
I turn around and see his sincere expression, and I know he is right. "Fine," I say.
"Good." He smiles and leaves my room, probably thinking his conversation with me was successful.
I watch him leave, and then I go to my bathroom to fix up my makeup a little bit. Just enough to erase the tears that were there.
After I finish, I walk out of the room and put my jacket on. As I make it to the stairs, Eve and everyone else seem to be relieved. They get up off the couch and we walk to the front door.
"That was way longer that five minutes," Eve says to me with so much sass.
"No it wasn't," I argue.
"I have to agree with her," Zayn says. I glance at him, and he's slightly smiling. "It was at least ten minutes."
Nothing that he says makes any impression on me other than anger now. I am trying to remember what Isaac said to me, though. Try to have fun for Eve. "Whatever. Let's just go."
Zayn opens the door for us, and the girls go first and thank him as they walk through. I rush after them through the door without saying anything to Zayn, and I can hear my mother scoffing in the background at my apparent lack of manners. Zayn says goodbye to her and shuts the door.
He unlocks the car, and Safaa climbs in the passenger seat.
"Safaa," Zayn says to her. "Move."
She starts to get out of the car. Nope. There is no way I am sitting next to Zayn for the entire car ride.
"Oh, no that's ok," I say. "You can sit in the front. I'll sit in the back." She stops and sort of smiles, and climbs back into the seat, while looking at Zayn to make sure it was okay. I move to the back of the car and open the door.
"You sure?" Zayn asks before I sit down.
"Yes." I smile as wide as I can with my mouth closed and sit in the car and shut the door.
Eve sits next to me and Zayn gets into the driver seat. A moment later, we are on our way to the ice skating rink.
As we drive down the streets, I remember Harry. He told me to be careful. I'm trying to. But it's much harder when I am being forced to be with Zayn. I decide that I will tell Harry. I will text him everything that happened and is happening. I check my pockets for my phone.
Shit.
I left it at home. I sigh. I cannot get in trouble with Harry again. When I get home, I am telling him everything, and just apologizing over and over. Then he will know it is not my fault.
"You okay?" Zayn asks.
His voice brings me back to reality, and then hardens my attitude. "Yeah." I say snappily.
I watch him smirk in the rear view mirror, showing some white teeth and then running over his bottom lip with his tongue. Then his eyes flash to mine. I am still glaring at him, and he readily understands why- I know he came to my house on purpose today. He gives an apologetic shrug and pout that I easily count as bullshit.
The drive to the ice skating rink is silent on Zayn's and my part, but is thankfully continuously filled with the chatter of Eve and Safaa. From what I hear from the two, a bunch of their friends are going ice skating, all brought by their mothers. It makes no sense to me why Zayn would want to be there to.
We make it to the rink. Parking is horrible. Zayn drops us off at the front and goes to find parking, and the three of us girls go inside. We pay for an hour and for rental shoes, and then there is a long line for the shoes that we have to wait in, but Eve and Safaa see their friends up front in line and go wait with them. I hang back alone, because I am not really keen on socializing with 11 year olds.
The whole building is dimly lit by fluorescent lights. Loud, Top 20 pop music plays through the room. The people here are mostly teenagers, with the few exceptions of young couples and those professional ice skaters that everyone is slightly annoyed by. I would rather do nothing than be here, and the environment is adding to the stress that I've already had from today.
"Listen," a warm voice whispers in my ear from behind, and I flinch. The body belonging to the voice draws nearer to my body, almost touching me, and I can easily feel how he tries to confine me. I don't even doubt who the person is. His hand takes my right arm at the elbow and slides gently to my wrist, while his other hand stays at my waist. "I wasn't actually planning on staying here. I think the moms have it covered," Zayn says. He uses my wrist to slowly turn me around to face him, my face arriving inches from his confident one. I force my arm out of his hand, and he still gives his smirk. "I was wondering if you wanted to get out of here with me."
Eve and Safaa put on their shoes on the benches behind him, surrounded by other young girls. I imagine me here with a group of preteens, or me with Zayn. It's still not enough to convince me to leave with Zayn alone. Definitely not enough. "No, I do not." I walk up to the shoe person and get my size. I go to the benches and begin to put my skates on. Maybe if I avoid him he will leave by himself. He could, right?
He comes and sits next to me, with a pair of ice skates big enough for only himself, which throws out my last chance of hope of not being with him. He bends down and begins to put his shoes on. "Well that's alright too, we can hang out here. Just you and me, on the ice. It's kind of romantic. Like our own little date."
I watch Eve and Safaa go onto the ice and figure out that the ice could be my escape from this idiot. I stand up. "You're horrible."
He gets up on his feet and stands in front of me, blocking me, as he likes to. "That didn't stop you from coming with me though."
"I was forced." I walk around him.
He catches my arm, another thing he apparently likes to do. "By your desire?"
I huff and try to shake my arm away.
He laughs. "Ok that was stupid."
When I don't stop struggling, his smile flips to a frown. "I was joking," he pleads.
"Ha ha," I say to his joke, and I stumble away to the ice. I make it, and once there, I get pushed around by a couple of young guys who halfheartedly apologize and skate away. I catch myself from falling, and then I fix my wrinkled clothes.
I begin to skate and realize that the solitude is a great opportunity for me to think. My mind is going crazy with thoughts of today. I am just so pissed at Zayn. It's honestly ridiculous that he's still acting like this. The fact that he showed up at my house bothers me most. I thought it was over with him. I did not think he was this obsessed. I just remember how when we first saw each other after high school, he told me he completely moved on. But now I know that even when my boyfriend was his best friend, it does not stop him from bothering me.
I see Eve and Safaa and decide I want to go meet them. I almost catch up to the girls when I feel someone pull me by the wrist. You're fucking kidding me.
"You weren't going to wait for me?" Zayn tugs me to his side and holds my hand so I can't skate away.
"Oh my God, why?" I ask under my breath. I cannot escape him for even a minute?
"I thought we were going to have fun, just the two of us." He will not let go of my hand, and it is really pissing me off that he does this specifically to annoy me. Does he get off on bothering me? Because it is starting to seem so. My hand is stuck to his like we are sharing handcuffs, and I know I am not getting out of it any time soon.
I give up. Let him bother me. Let him hurt me. I do not have the drive to fight him anymore, and I doubt he will give me a chance to win anyways. Emotions flood into me, all at once. Exhaustion from putting up with this boy, guilt from being with him without Harry even knowing, grief from knowing that Zayn will never leave me alone all hit me the worst and stress me too much. I drop my head into my free hand. I just need to get away from him.
I can feel him start to worry. He skates in front of me, still holding my hand, and puts his other hand on my other wrist. He attempts to move my hand from my face, but I swat his hand off. He retreats, but hesitantly tries again. I drop my hand from my face and stare at the nervous Zayn in front of me. "Why are you here?" I snap at him, with a broken voice. "Why did you come to my house?"
He furrows his brow softly. "You don't really think I knew?"
I sigh and turn away from him. He follows my movements to stay in front of me.
Jess," he says, and I cringe. I hate it when he calls me that. "I didn't know you were going to be at your mom's house today. It was a joke, I was joking."
"You know I lived there!"
"Yes. I know you lived there. I also know that you don't live there now." He lowers his head and his voice, attempting to look sincere, I suppose. "Jess, I didn't know you were going to be there. I knew Eve was your sister, and I knew that my mom asked me to pick up Safaa and Eve and take them to the ice skating rink for her. I hadn't even considered that you'd be there, though."
"You just stood there and pretended like nothing was wrong."
He lightly smiles. "So did you."
I skate away from him and to the exit off the ice. I hear him call me. "Jess," he pleads. I pray he doesn't come after me.
I go as quickly as I can to the bathroom, where only one girl is. I hope she is leaving. She isn't. She stays there and fixes her make up in the mirror. Girl, there are no attractive boys here, you're wasting your time. Go away. Ok maybe Zayn. But you're too young for him. And you don't want him. Although I keep begging her with my eyes to leave, she doesn't look at me, and never picks up on my messages. But then the door slams open, making the girl and I both jump.
"Jessie, talk to me." Zayn says as he stumbles into the bathroom, running into the trash can. "Whoops," he says. He looks up to the girl, who looks half terrified, and half like this is fate. Not your day, girl. "Hi," he says to her, and smiles. "Can we be alone?" He points to me and himself. Her smile fades. She nods and skates out of the bathroom, with disappointment outlining her moves.
I turn to the mirror, away from Zayn, and he comes behind me. "I'm not lying."
"I know you aren't."
"Then why are you still so mad?"
I watch him look at me in the mirror. I can see in his face that he actually does not know.
Fucking idiot. I spin around. "Remember Harry? Do you remember anything that happened two weeks ago?"
"Oh. Yeah." He smiles. "Why, do you want to remember it better?" He reaches for the top button of my jacket and starts to fumble with it.
I throw his hands off of me and start to skate towards the door. "Do you want to back the fuck off? Jesus."
He puts his hands up like he surrenders and lowers his head. "Ok. You're right. I'm sorry. I'm not like that, I swear."
I don't believe him, but there is for some reason a hint of honesty that I hear from him. I open the door. I start to think about what people will be thinking when Zayn and I leave the bathroom at the same time. "Yeah that's definitely not the Zayn I know," I answer sarcastically.
He grabs my arm as I walk out of the bathroom. "Shh."
"Let go of me!"
He let's go of my arm, and comes up near the door. "Did you hear that?"
He grabs on to the handle and opens the door wider, trapping my hand underneath his, but I do not think he notices. He is searching the rink intently. I can tell he is serious, so I try to figure out what he heard.
I hear people talking, basically. But then I realize the music stopped, and I can make out a girl crying, and that's what everyone is talking about- saying things like "is she okay" and "what happened or "is someone going to help her".
I begin to panic. Neither of us are watching our sisters. I look at Zayn anxiously. "That wasn't one of ours, right?"