Perrie
His hand was over my waist and my face looked at his. He breathed rhythmically, his chest heaving at every exhalation. I gawked at him with what happened to be confusion; trying to make out what his state of mind actually was. But I was clueless. There was a part of me that wished Harry was here right now. He knew exactly well how to solve such mysteries. I took to staring at the ceiling for a while, and then back to Zayn.
He looked handsome even when he was asleep.
Feeling a little drained, yet not sleepy, I tucked him into the sheets and kissed his forehead. Switching off the table lamp next to his bed, and glancing in his direction one last time I walked out, my head still in a trance of confusion. I entered the living room, seeing a totally jobless Harry sitting on the sofa and fiddling with his phone. There was a sincere smile on his face as apparently, he answered the fan tweets.
"What are you doing here?!" I asked out of surprise and shocked.
"I'm always at the place you want me, babe," he winked his cheeky grin. Oh, Haz.
"I don't remember calling you here..." I scratched my head trying to remember hard like a ten year old kid.
Harry laughed heartily and ruffled his hair, "Only if you were a little smart sometimes, Pez," He troubled me.
I perched myself on the armrest next to him and looked at his contended face, "Answering some fans, now are we?" I asked blankly, staring at the Apple icon on the back of his phone.
"I was," he answered switching off his phone's screen and throwing it to the table, "Let's concentrate on you now." He smiled as I slid down next to him. He folded his arms and looked me as though he was my counselor and I was some stupid charity case that needed help with some personality problem.
"Gosh you make me uneasy, hahaha," I laughed, "What about me?"
His lips twitched into a cunning smile, "Certainly you wished I were here a moment ago, didn't you?" He asked out of nowhere.
I sighed lightly and with a smile, I nodded my head. My shoulders shrugged automatically and my hands pulled his. I sat there, Harry’s hand in mine.
"Good," Harry replied pressing my head like I was a kid, "See? I told you I was here cuz you wanted me," His hand reached for my shoulder now as we both sat there and stared at the switched off television screen, his arm around my back.
"I guess he needs some more time,” I started all of a sudden after a good two minutes' silence, "But Harry... Tell me one thing," I asked suddenly, the speed of my thoughts racing to almost trillion per second.
"Yes, love?"
I skipped a beat.
"Did I do such a wrong thing by cursing Rach that night?" I asked almost monotonously.
There was another long gap as he stared at my face. I let him to do it. Then he turned me towards him and his green eyes pierced my soul deeply. His eyes offered me sympathy which was something I needed the most right now. His hand caressed my hair once and a smile rose on his lips as his gaze followed his hand and stopped at my chin, "Everything happens for a reason, Pez," He assured me with a little pinch at my chin, "You did what you thought was right. You don't need to think much about it now. What's done is done."
"But it spoiled my life, Haz," I blurted out automatically, frustration evident in my voice, "I've lost Zayn... I've lost Rach... I don't even know what I have left of me, and whether that whatever left of me even wants to live without Zayn! I--"
"Shh," His cold fingers met my dry, trembling lips. His touch sent some terrible shivers down my spine. It was getting extremely cold outside but for some strange reason, it was kind of warm around Harry. I decided to neglect that for the moment..
"Perrie....," His voice trembled for some reason, "Sometimes... What we see, is not what it actually is. But sometimes, we neglect the most happening situations in our life. The truth is often overlapped by some or the other ways... But it has to come out eventually."
I heard him carefully and tried to relate. But I failed.
"Why are you telling this to me out of nowhere, Haz?" I questioned him in a confused state of mind.
"Because...," He continued, "We don't know what it is between Rach and Zayn and what you destroyed that day. But we do know what is between you and Zayn. As the time comes, eventually everything will be fine and the truth... Whatever it is has to be revealed. Don't you dare let down yourself because you lost him! There are just so many better guys for you out there. Who deserve you more," He looked away, a strange shine in his eyes captured my sight, "Who love you more."
I could feel the air between us warming up intensely because I wasn’t used to such closure with Harry. My eye lids were getting heavy, but Harry seemed to be a little low all of a sudden. I obviously couldn’t just leave him here like that.
"Harry, are you alright?" I asked him, making him look at me. I could feel his warm breath against my not-so-warm nose as he looked at me and did the most unexpected thing ever.
My boyfriend’s, well, maybe my ex-boyfriend’s best friend… He kissed me.
His cold lips met my dry ones and pecked on my lower lip. He kissed me just once and moved away from my face, his eyes staring into mine intensely; trying to decipher whether I liked it or not. His face was still very close to mine and his breath escaped from his open mouth and onto my lips as I felt his breath getting all shaky and dense.
Seeing that I didn't protest, he came closer to me and honestly, my body decided to stay where it was. His soft and plump lips met mine and kissed me contently now. I responded him back with a few kisses of my own, but I didn't protest. I couldn’t. Our lips moved in sync for what happened to be the longest time of my life. For a very anonymous reason, I wanted this to continue forever. My eyes had already closed themselves and to a great extent, I was enjoying this. I loved what was happening. I hadn't been kissed in a while... This was why I craved for more. Zayn hadn't---
Zayn... He’s sleeping in the room right behind you. He’s the one you love, you fool. This isn’t Zayn. He’s Harry. You can’t love him.
Just the mention of Zayn's name got me back to my senses and I tore apart just as he was going to massage his tongue into my mouth. His eyes opened immediately and his face looked awkward. Sorry?
"I'm sorry, I'm I--," He stammered and without a moment's delay, he walked out of the door... Just like that, leaving me in a bundle of questions.
Harry? Really?
*
Rach
The day had been extremely busy for me. I lay on my bed now, staring blankly outside the wide panoramic window, aimlessly. It was almost past midnight and I still couldn’t sleep. Blame the faults in my brain.
The city below looked ever happy, enough to make me feel lower. Lights bothered my eyes. I changed my side and turned to face the empty pillow next to me. Pulling the sheets closer to my chest, I remembered how my heart had almost stopped on Wednesday morning when I heard Zayn was in the ER. I swear my breath had stopped for a moment and my knees felt so weak that I could collapse. Gathering courage, I had been to meet him and the very sight of his face made me grow weaker.
I felt beads of perspiration on my forehead at just the mention f that wicked day.
I placed my hand on the empty sheets next to me and tried to smell for Zayn. I still remember how he smelt: Sweet, just with a hint of cinnamon and some lavender perhaps. The way I liked. It reminded me of that night we had sex... I smelt like him too.
Zayn was my weakness now and everything related to him made me… Panic. I had been trying to stop thinking about that person for what happened to be two days now. And comparatively, I was doing better. At least I didn't lock myself into my room for hours and cry my heart out staring at the strip of pics from the mall last Saturday. I felt fine.
How much ever I tried to control, a drop of tear escaped my eye and fell onto my pillow. I closed my eyes in patience and let it pass. I took a deep breath and decided to divert my mind. I still thought of those silly promises that we made when we were young. Was I out of my mind? Of course, we weren’t ever gonna keep it. A sarcastic laugh escaped my mouth as I laughed at myself being a silly fool.
I opened my phone and got onto twitter. Clicking on the 'tweet' tab, I typed in my state of mind.
‘So tired of pretending what I feel.'
My phone buzzed immediately, notifying me that Zayn Malik had tweeted. I opened my phone and checked it immediately:
‘@zaynmalik: Sometimes you pretend even when it is real… x’
I bet he had indirectly meant it for my last tweet because I distinctly remembered him telling me on the flight back home that stalking my twitter was his favorite job. I tried to relate. He obviously meant that it wasn’t necessary for me to pretend that I didn’t love him. He knew what I felt for him and that hurt me more.
I sighed deeply and decided to sleep right off. Tomorrow was the day we had been waiting for since quite a long time now. It was Saturday and it was Amanda's Rehearsal Dinner tomorrow evening. I was really looking forward to it, because a Rehearsal Dinner meant happiness, jokes and toasts. Honestly, it meant meeting new people at the party. But the thing I was not looking forward to was seeing Zayn. To be true, he was just the sight for sour eyes right now, but since I was having my little mission of getting over, I didn't want to see him at all.
Leaving tomorrow for tomorrow, I closed my eyes and fell asleep immediately. Thank God?
*
The next day evening fell earlier than I had imagined. The day had been extremely busy as I was in charge of all the major wardrobes. I had been roaming all around the place checking out on everyone. I really wonder what tomorrow's wedding would be like! My co-bridesmaids were equally engaged in all the works that were assigned to them.
I opened Pops' wardrobe and took out the green dress that I had planned on wearing today. We were staying at Soniya's huge mansion for today as we would be leaving for the church from here directly tomorrow morning. I was still new to this place and obviously I got lost like ten times in one day. But that didn't matter because I often bumped into either of my fellow bridesmaids and I was immediately rushed to the required places.
"Gosh, my mum is so irritating! I don't even know when she'll just stop shouting all over the place!" Pops walked in ranting, as I was adjusting the corset of my dress; the lace part behind where my hand wouldn't reach.
"Give me a hand here?" I asked and she immediately walked towards me.
"God, Rach! Why aren't you ready yet? Don't you know that the party starts in like five minutes! I mean, you still haven't done your hair and oh my good look at your face! You look exhausted," She began shouting at me.
"Calm down, girl! I missed you too!" I smiled with that puppy dog face. And she smiled back at me, calmed down and began doing my hair automatically. We hadn't seen each other since yesterday and now we just hurried up as soon as we could. We were done in about five minute’s record time and I think we both looked really quite well.
She was wearing a dress that was of a color pretty similar to mine, just a different shade of green. We both had tied up our hair and yeah, overall, the Indian dresses were really working on our bodies. They were long skirts, typically called Ghagras which fell till our toes and the tops just covered our chests, leaving the waist part open. We had our dupattas which are like a scarf, just a meter or two long, to take over our shoulders. As you could see, the wedding was quite well planned. Tonight was going to be all Indian style but tomorrow would be a traditional Catholic wedding.
We both took a quick look at ourselves in the grand mirror and started walking towards Amanda’s room; crossing our fingers and hoping she was ready. That would be such a time saver.
“Are we done, Amy?” I asked Amanda who was just slipping her feet into the sandals.
“All ready for the night!” She cooed in excitement and we all started walking towards the garden where the posh pavilion for tonight’s ceremony was set. Being a half Indian wedding, the traditional ceremony of henna was going to be taking place after the dinner tonight. Henna is a typical Arabic form of design. The special artists draw beautiful temporary henna tattoos on palms and it looks really very beautiful. I literally couldn’t wait for it! But the smell… Ugh… It gets to my head.
When we were young, I recapitulated, Zayn would often sniff my hands for the Henna because apparently, for the worse reasons, he actually loved it and then he would go all like, ‘I love how you smell, Rach,’ followed by a peck on my cheek. I used to always write our initials on my hand together and then Doniya Di would design nice forms to the sides of it. Of course we were just kids. Adorable; emotionally fucked up kids.
Ugh, memories are a bummer, man.
We walked into the garden, right behind Amanda. Adam joined us instantly as he pecked his fiancé once and the two of them were almost lost in the crowd, leaving me and Pops alone.
We seated ourselves on one of the big round tables which literally felt like sitting at the White House. I stared at the stage where now the younger girls of the family were presenting dances for the couple- Another Indian tradition. The place looked really happy as the entire family looked ever satisfied and the smiles on their faces made me happy too.
“Pops! Look at the girl, there! She’s so cute!” I pointed at a certain red head girl, probably from Adam’s family who pulled out some really cool Bollywood moves.
“Yeah! Hahaha,” Pops laughed along as we both clapped for the girls, “And that one too!”
Just then, Pops’ phone rang and she began texting you-know-who. I rolled my eyes and tried to concentrate on the show.
“They’ll be here any moment, I’ll be right back,” Pops got up, “Do you wanna join me?”
“No thanks, I’m fine here.” I answered blankly, looking away.
“Rach! Stop acting like that.” She shouted at me and just walked away.
I totally ignored that and didn’t think about it. I had many other things to think about. For instance, the whole goddamn wedding! I was really stressed about tomorrow and I just hoped all would fall in right place. Also I was extremely happy as my parents were coming all the way from India. It had been more than 6-7 months since I had last seen them after moving to New York and I was just so excited about meeting them again! I had so much to tell them! I couldn't wait for tomorrow morning now.
I felt happy.
Just as they say that every perfect moment is usually destroyed, I was shook off my happy thoughts. My eyes caught the sight of a certain group walking in through the driveway. It was them.
I could see five lads, maturely dressed in sherwanis, the Indian classics, followed by four ladies, one of which was of course Pops. I caught his eyes immediately. Just as I looked at him, he left the certain pink-haired female’s hand and said something to his band mate, Harry, who then looked at Perrie. She looked back at him and even though I was so far from them, I could feel the tension between the three of them.
“Hey Rach! It’s been quite a while since we last saw you!” Liam and Sophia walked towards me and joined me on the table. Surprisingly, all the girls from this group were wearing Indian traditional and looked absolutely beautiful, every single one of them.
“Yes, Sophia!” I got up and hugged her, “It’s good to see you!” I hugged each one of them as soon as possible before Zayn and Perrie reached our table.
“Likewise,” Harry cooed from behind. He pinched my nose and pecked my cheek before seating himself.
They all sat at our table and started enjoying their drinks, along with the show that was going on.
There were of course paparazzi waiting outside to catch a glimpse of these certain five guests and their missus' in the Indian traditional just to get those super excited Indian fans swooning over their sherwanis.
For a few initial moments, our table was awfully silent. It felt like a group of deadbeat humans expecting for a word or two from each other. His eyes were constantly on my face and I could see Perrie whose were at the table below. She didn't look up even once. I caught Harry looking at her and it wasn’t too late that I realized there was something happening here. There was some whispering between the couples, but I ignored it.
Finally Louis cleared his throat, "So, Rach, do you wanna dance with me?" He got up and offered me a hand.
I looked at El who just smiled at me approvingly. I smiled at her once and placed my hand into Louis’. He walked me to the dance floor which was a posh wooden surface, surrounded by tables similar to ours. The bride and the groom were already dancing and encouraged us to join them. I placed my hand on Louis’ shoulder as I spotted all the couples getting on the dance floor with their partners. Zayn remained still at his table, staring at me wide eyed, as though Louis was going to eat me raw. A smile crept onto my lips as Louis smirked at the way I looked at Zayn.
“God! The two of you!” He exclaimed in my ears as now our feet moved perfectly in sync.
“Now now, Louis,” I warned but he was the boss, of course I wouldn’t be obeyed.
“You should go back to him, Rach. He’s sick.”
“Look, I’ll do what I want to, alright?” I said rather rudely.
“Sure, babe,” He winked and rather changed the subject, “You’ve got some nice moves, girl, what are you, a dancer?!”
“Yeah hahaha, I used to dance when I was in high school.”
“That’s sexy!” He pinched my waist and as I was about to exclaim an ‘Ow!’ he tickled the other side of my waist. I laughed at him.
Just as I was about to punch him in the stomach lightly, Zayn walked in out of nowhere and asked Louis, “Excuse me? Mind if I--?” He offered me a hand and I had no other option but take it.
I placed my hand into his.
You’re hand fits in mine like it’s made just for me—Get over it Rach!
I sighed and placed my other hand on his shoulder as now he held my waist so close to him. His breath fell on my nose and tickled me a bit. But I couldn’t move. Our gazes locked at each other and I was lost. There were things that I had decided to say to Zayn whenever I was finally facing him, some harsh things. But tonight, it just didn’t come out. I fell in love with him all over again.
His beautiful liquid brown eyes got my breath stuck up in the throat. His black hairs were perfectly quiffed and I could smell him... Cinnamon... Lavender. I imagined of how badly I wanted to taste his lips right now. And not the romantic kissing, but a hard hair-pulling, tongue battling, super sexy make out session. I was sick of being so cold to him, but I just couldn’t accept all that happened the other night.
Why does your profession always have to come before your priorities? Why do the promises we make have to be broken every time?
I just looked at Zayn with what happened to be a blank, smug look. His hand slowly traced its way up my hair and then my face, to my chin. He lifted my face to look at him and well, just as his lips could meet mine, I moved apart.
My chest was heaving breathlessly and my legs felt super weak in the knees. I looked at him and moved my hair in a no gesture.
“Rach, I can explain--,” But before he could complete, I was already running into the house. I made my way into the huge mansion and started running upstairs, to my room. I wasn’t enjoying this party at all. The few last moments were still flashing in my head and I couldn’t help but sob because I had actually let him make me fall in love with him again.
I opened the door to my room and just as I was about to lock myself, I found Zayn standing at the door, right behind me. He pulled me inside my room and locked the door behind us. His hold on my arm tightened as he forced my back to the door and kneeled almost on my body.
“Now listen to me, Rach,” He ordered in the strongest voice that I had ever heard. I felt mute.
“Stop behaving like a coward, you fool!” He ordered my conscience, “Stop pushing me away. You know you love me and there’s nothing which can deny the fact that I love you back more than you ever loved me. Get that in your head, ok?! I’m crazy about you! My God, why can’t you just get that straight!” He laughed sarcastically, frustration evident in his voice. He was staring down in my eyes and god, his speech was so convincing that I was already drowning in my tears.
“Zayn,” I stopped him, “But Perrie? What about her? Would you just leave her like that?” I found my voice to be stronger than I thought it would be.
“You know what?” He went silent, “She doesn’t matter.”
With this, he just crashed his lips onto mine and well, all that I wanted a few minutes ago, was coming to me. There was passionate kissing as my hands wrapped around his neck and pulled chunks of his hair, his arms were around my waist and they pulled me so much into his chest that I could barely even breathe.
“Your still my girlfriend, Rach, You’re still my girlfriend, I love you so fucking much, God! This is crazy” He pulled apart to breathe, but as soon as he was done saying it, he was back to the desperate kissing. His hands slowly reached the top of my waist and tickled me there. I gave the most I could; something like it was my last time to kiss someone on the face of earth. God, it was so much in the moment, that his hands almost reached to unbutton my top, but as soon as he loosened the lace, I panicked.
It was me who tore apart and with an apologetic look, I just walked away, the lace of my dress dangling down my back.