Chapter 7:
I was immediately greeted with something I haven't received in years. Something I hadn't felt since my mother passed. I felt compassion, love, and joy the first thing in the morning. It was lovely, waking up in the only place I ever called home and seeing the people I considered family so united and happy to see me.
Tricia and Sara both chirped, "good morning" and passed me a tray piled with two chocolate chip waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, different assortments of fruit, and a cup filled with hot chocolate.
"No milk, no traces of peanuts." Tricia says, making me smile enough to showcase my dimples.
"Thank you so much." I smile sincerely, following Zayn to the stools to the island table.
Sara was content drinking her berry strawberry smoothie while sitting on the marble countertops. Her tiny legs dangled off the edge, staring at us tentatively. I know this little girl better than anyone. She doesn't believe us.
I wait until Tricia excuses herself to receive a call before turning to Zayn. I couldn't stop the smile forming on my face. The jelly he placed on his toast migrated onto his lips. I knew I had to sell this or else Sara would begin to ask questions- not only to me but to everybody. We had been there for one night and barely spoke to each other the entire time. With my eyes telling him to trust me, I lean in and press my lips against his. He kisses me back softly, clearly shocked my actions. His hands placed themselves on my thighs as he pushed me to his direction. I pulled away once I thought I had taken the jelly off, but I still hadn't.
So, I do what any logical crazy person would do.
I lick the jelly off the side of his mouth, before turning to Sara. Her eyes were wide and she seemed speechless. Until her mother came back and she shrieked, "gross! They like... love each other mommy it was so gross."
"Aw my babies." Tricia said excitedly, hugging both Zayn and I from behind. I dropped my fork mid bite and hugged her back. The love I have for this woman is one beyond compare, and I feel horribly for deceiving her.
But, in complete honesty, it is for the best. She can't stay up late worrying whether her son is okay or not, she needs security and if I can provide her that I'd lie a thousand times over.
For this family, I'd do anything a thousand times over.
"Where's everyone else?" Zayn asks, looking up from his phone to make eye contact with his mother.
"Your sisters and father are all at work but you'll see them all tonight at dinner."
"Is Neil coming too?"
"Who?" I interrupt Zayn, feeling weird as his hand traveled to my thigh. I don't know why he did this, it's not like anyone could see it so what's the point?
Oh, wait, I know the point. It's just to make me nervous. He's such an ass, he knows the affect he's had on me. He knows that since the first day we met, when I found him swimming in my pool one faithful summer afternoon, that I'd always be damned for him.
"Doniya's fiancée."
"Agh I'm so excited. I love love." I say, barely concealing my excitement. The wedding was a two weeks away.
"I know first marriage then grand-babies..."
Zayn quickly took his empty plate and put it in the sink, not bothering to excuse himself. Or apologizing for cracking his mother's porcelain plate by dropping it in the sink so carelessly. I excuse myself quickly and follow after him, apologizing to Tricia while walking down the stairs to the foyer. He was already halfway down the parking lot.
"Zayn!" I yell after him, putting on a random sweater from the coat hanger and running out the door. I run down the blocks which compose the long stairs before catching up to him on the final steps.
I reach out to take his hand to stop him from moving further but he just bolted out of my hold aggressively. "No ones here you don't have to make a show."
"Zayn what's wrong?"
"Marriage.. babies? What the fuck she's only twenty three, what does she know about love?"
"She knows that she feels it?" I say, confused as to why he was so angry. I walked behind him, struggling to keep up with his pace before getting an idea. I jump onto his back, in a piggy back position, making him slow down before stopping completely to drop me off. I pulled him down to the grass with me, looping our arms together and not letting him leave.
"Zayn why are you so upset?"
"That shit makes no sense. We go to school, graduate, find a job, get married, have kids, then die?"
"Why are you being like this? Marriage is beautiful, it's the beginning of life not the end." I say, not daring to look at him. The heavy, prickling feeling diagnosed as anxiety danced around my chest as I spoke with him honestly. I don't know why, but that feeling was around whenever I say what's my mind. Which, I rarely do anyways.
I never say what I think on important topics because I don't want to seem annoying, or pathetic, or just dumb.
Pathetic reason, I know.
Annoying? Check.
Dumb? Yes, baring my thoughts to you right now definitely is.
See? Even sharing my thoughts with you, a fictitious being I created in my head, makes me nervous. Yet I can't stop thinking and wondering and hearing the voices and feeling everything heightened and weighing.
The whole world is on me, and I can't stop it.
"That's all bullshit." Zayn snaps me out of my thoughts.
"How?" I say, half there half in another dimension mentally.
"As soon as Doniya says I do, she'll be putting all her faith and trust into one basket and she's inevitably going to get hurt."
"How would you know? You've never even tried commitment." I say under my breath, but he heard it.
"Don't. You know why I am the way that I am and you know I've never wanted that."
I don't blame him. Who'd want that with me?
"This fake relationship is the closest you've ever been to an actual relationship and that's extremely sad." I say quickly, anger still hidden deep inside me for the years of heartbreak Zayn caused me.
Causes me.
"No, I know allll about relationships. Just the fun ones." He jokes, suddenly in a lighter mood.
How does he do that?
"The 'oh shit it's noon and she's still here ones' or the 'fuck maybe this cold sore is herpes?'"
"No the, 'oh my god Zayn! Faster!' Ones."
I roll my eyes immediately, looking down at the houses beneath us on Knott's hill. This is where Zayn and I used to come and hide in the cherry blossoms. This is where he kissed me for the first time, just behind the tree. We laughed and played soccer on this hill until I finally convinced him, after hours of begging, to play house with me. House as in I was the mom and he was the dad to my doll. Even back then I liked him so badly. Our moms let us stay up here for hours, and only around eight when the sun began to set would we be forced back home. Those days turned memories seem like a life time ago.
"You're absolutely disgusting." I say, practically gagging at the thought of him with a Primbrooke slut.
"Yet you kissed me anyways. Might wanna check out that spot... might be a cold sore, might be herpes I guess you never know with me." Zayn says in a joking tone, not caring about any of my insults. It bothered me, how nothing I said could ever get to him.
Maybe it's because I'm not important enough to have any real affect on the tornado of emotions that is Zayn, or maybe it's simply because I overthink and he underthinks.
I study and he parties.
I go to church on Sunday mornings and he's just getting home from another endless party at the same time.
I'm stressed about a test, and he's stressed because he's living without any real impact- while at this age his sister had her second masters.
I cry around four AM sometimes because that's the hour my mother's flesh became ash. Zayn's rolling out of some stranger's bed at that time.
After all this we both wonder is it really worth it?
Doesn't make a difference, I guess, since we're both miserable at the end of two very different days. Looking out onto our neigborhood from the hill, I wondered how we started on the same trajectory yet life maneuvered us so far apart.
Or maybe, and this might be the head over heels lover of love inside me, but just maybe... we aren't so apart after all. Maybe his path is beside mine, just hidden behind some cherry blossoms.