Zayn sighed for the hundredth time today, and started gathering the books and pens that were strewn all over the Library desk he had been working on just a couple minutes ago.
He was working since eight in the morning, but the work laden with an endless downpour of research and heavy reading didn't look like it was going to get finished anytime soon.
It was now evening, and his entire Sunday had been spent in the Library searching for material in which he could research history and complete his previous assignments added with the assignments he had to submit on Monday, that was tomorrow.
He couldn't rely on Wikipedia, because it turned out, much to his dismay, that the teachers knew the information written on it and students bore serious consequences for not being 'innovative' with their work.
He had almost started to regret his idea of coming to this University. Every sacrifice he had made, and what for, to feel like he could pass out any minute?
Bradford was better, he muttered, knowing better, but he couldn't help it.
This University was all reputed and everything, but it dragged students like they were workers building pyramids.
He would have to pull an all nighter today as well, he thought while shoving his books in his backpack, not caring that he would have a hard time chaining it. After three to four weeks of labour, he had forgot all the newfound love he had stored for his backpack. Moreover, it was starting to look like he hadn't changed one since he was in kindergarten.
His glasses kept falling off the bridge of his nose, because they had been knocked out some days ago, when he was working and had accidentally fallen asleep, hitting his head on the desk which impacted his glasses as well. Now he had to constantly hold them while writing something, so they stay upright and not contribute in the volcano of his frustration that threatened to explode any minute now.
"Mr. Malik, you should hurry."
His jaw clenched, "I'm sorry," He said through his teeth. "I am but a tortoise." He said under his breath.
"What was that?"
He closed his eyes, muttering a quick prayer. "Where is Every today?"
"Why do you ask?"
He shouldered his bag, that limped by his side. "She is my friend? And I can ask about her because I am worried?"
Mrs. Helbing's lips thinned. "Oh yes, of course." She said, but she remained silent as she stared at Zayn.
His eyebrows arched, looking at the Librarian expectantly. "Uh—well?"
"Well, it seems like she needed a holiday, and I gave her one." She went back to her desk, and Zayn thanked god for the distance it put between them, he was rather feeling uncomfortable with her hovering around him, peeping at his work from behind while he tried to ignore her presence.
She placed the books in a stack, "Someone came to ask me for her, she said something about spending a day with her father, I suppose, some visit also, I can't remember her name, the redhead?"
"Gemma?"
She spun around her heels, her eyes glinting. "Yes! Her! She came to inform me about it, and of course, I didn't mind. I never ignore Every's request." For a second, she was lost in her world, before she jerked her head at Zayn and stared deadpan at him. "Well? What are you still doing here? The Library is closing."
"Yes, I'm sorry." He muttered and stalked out of the Library in an instant.
.
The moment he closed the door behind him, it dawned on him that Mrs. Helbing was right, after all. It was late. Night was falling, and maybe the stars had emerged too, but of course, he wouldn't see them. He had vowed not to. He missed them, but he couldn't help it.
He pushed his glasses up his nose once again, he wanted to take them off, because his eyes burned behind them but it was of no use. He would have to put them on in some time again and he wanted to stow every second of the day he could save. Or, at least, what was left of the day.
He smiled lowly at the titian lamps that paved the way. They weren't attacking his eyes, and he was grateful to anyone who had chose the colour of the lights to be so warm.
Quickly, he revised all the things that were still due while he walked towards the cafeteria with long purposeful strides.
Professor Prescott weren't happy with his thesis on What Katy Did and that had deteriorated his already oh so very high spirits about his position in the class, and last week's assignment on The Fall of the Third Riech had been an absolute blunder on his part, at least. Professor had surely appreciated it, but in his heart he knew he didn't deserve it. He had copied it, after all, because he didn't have a single minute to spare on reading that book and it bothered him a lot to deceive his literature professor like that.
Don't you worry, Lucas had assured him frantically, sometimes it's okay to cheat.
The way he had said it, though, felt like he was convincing himself more.
Lucas had been acting really weird lately, or as it was to say, weird-er. He had missed several classes after his 'first time' of missing any classes at all, and after that occasion, it had been a frequent occurrence. He hadn't missed any important class, like Professor Prescott's, but according to Zayn, every class was important enough to attend.
Lucas always looked at Zayn apologetically every evening, as Zayn stared at him with questioning eyes and crossed arms. He had wanted to ask what was going on, because Lucas looked so weighed down with the guilt of it, but when he still did nothing to prevent it, he assumed it was because he missed his friends. He couldn't meet them in the evening, as he was always studying for the classes he missed, but Zayn didn't see the point in that. Lucas was weird. And that was answer enough.
As much as Zayn wanted to, he couldn't give Lucas a pep talk, or tell him what to do and what not to. He was an adult, and not that good of a friend of Zayn's, so he doubted he would listen to him anyway. He was a good student, nevertheless, and Zayn couldn't find any other explanation as to why missing classes wasn't becoming a burden for Lucas.
It was because of him that Zayn wasn't in his dorm today. Zayn needed a different kind of solace to self study topics that most of the time bounced over his head, and Lucas had a habit of reading every word that ever existed loud enough for the world to hear it, like he was teaching an entire class full of students and not just himself.
Not to mention his habit of closing the door so rapidly every time he went out or came in, drove Zayn insane. It never ceased go give him a heart attack.
Zayn had concluded that the cause of his death that is to be carved on the grave would be, 'died because Lucas didn't have decent etiquettes'.
Talking about missing classes, Gemma invaded his mind suddenly. She had been missing some of the classes as well. She shared three of the classes with him, something he had realised over the course of two weeks. It took some time figuring out, seeing he was deliberately ignoring her existence and she seemed to be absent from those three classes now days, but he had figured the time table out eventually.
It helped him choosing the seat farthest from her.
October was coming to an end, bringing with it the winter Zayn didn't really desire this year. Winters had festivals, and he dreaded them for reasons he hadn't fully acknowledged. He doubted he ever would.
He pushed his beanie down, pressing his jacket to himself because he suddenly felt cold, shuddering when a thought crossed his mind. If it was the inconsistent weather that had cause it, or the sharpness of his own decisions, he couldn't tell.
.
He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t realise he had reached the cafeteria. The darkness was more prominent now, and the lights piercing the glass wall of the cafeteria was too illuminating for Zayn to bear with.
He clicked his tongue, it wasn’t like he had wanted to go to the cafeteria in the first place. It was what was behind the cafeteria that interested him.
Over the few weeks, it had became his second favourite haunt after the Library.
The wall where the cafeteria ended, had an alley behind it, through which you entered a small clearing in the midst of the wild trees that abounded the University’s boundary wall from at least half a mile away.
He didn’t know if someone had created it for a purpose, or why it was even relevant in a place like this, but he had found it while he had spared some time to wander around, and with time, he had also found no one really knew this place existed.
Most of the students just went to the cafeteria, he was confirm they didn’t also care.
He prowled around the cafe to get in the alley, it was dark, but he was now used to the twigs and foliage that got in the way, one had poked his eyes once, and if it wasn’t for his glasses he was sure he would be blind by now.
One of the street lamps illuminated the clearing enough for him to read, and sometimes in the wake of the torch of his phone he read and completed the work. It wasn’t anything new for him, he had years of experience in reading with low lights in the dead of the night. It was one of the reasons why he needed to wear glasses after that.
He hadn’t regretted any of it, though. Reading at night was a different kind of thrill, a different kind of rebellion and it exposed to him a freedom he didn’t know he even required to feel in those years.
The caution he had to endure at all times, the dread of being caught, it was overwhelming, but filled him with a sense of revel nevertheless.
He settled himself on the slightly wet grass, weeds scattered at every which way, doing very little to bother him and took out his books. He faced towards the lamp, the warm colour falling on his open book that rested in his lap, and started reading with his elbows digging his thighs.
.
Soon, he was overcome by fatigue. He hadn’t had enough sleep in what felt like years, even though it was only four or five days, he had lost count. Lucas was the member of the club as well, but he didn’t have a month of pending work and studies on top of the impending examination.
The thought of it filled Zayn with terror. He could see glimpses of his future, his terrible low grades that had never been a cause of his stress ever before.
He wondered what Professor Prescott would think of him, he was almost always unimpressed with Zayn anyway, or anyone, for that matter. And Miss Starla, who seems to like Zayn for reasons unbeknownst to him. It was good she had started to seem less intimidating over time. His language professor also seemed to like Zayn, but he wasn’t sure, he was a very vague person, in Zayn’s opinion.
He sighed, yet again, and fell on his back, caring little about his hoodie that he would only have to wash after it’s adorned with mud and wet grass.
He closed his eyes, praying he wouldn’t fall asleep when a certain crack startled him.
He stood immediately, looking around with his heart suddenly pounding. "Who’s there?" He voiced his thoughts.
The crack sounded again, and a silhouette emerged from in between the trees.
"It’s me." came a voice, small but husky.
He scoffed nervously. "Wow." He said. "That answers a lot of questions."
An impatient sound was heard and the silhouette came forwards, coming out of the dark. "It’s Gemma."
Zayn’s jaw dropped for a second, before he recovered, not wanting Gemma to feel like it bothered him. "Are you kidding me? How many times do you plan on scaring me until I die from shock?"
She closed the distance between them. Her hair were tumbling down her shoulders as always, shades of fiery red changing in the light that fell on her face. The only difference today was that they were somewhat tamed with the dark white beanie she wore over her head.
It was clear from her flushed face she had been involved in some excursion, because he knew she wasn’t sensitive towards the sharp wind that very much. How he knew that, though, wasn’t clear to him at all. He realised he didn’t want to get it cleared anyway.
Gemma shifted on her legs uncomfortably. "Well, I was told I’d find you in the Library, or here." She said, clearing Zayn’s doubts. "And, when I found the Library was closed I looked for you here and here you are." She shrugged.
"Who told you?" He asked, confused. "Only Lucas knows I come here."
She nodded, very much unfazed by whatever he had said. "Okay." She said, more so like a question. The distant look on her face gave him an impression she hadn’t heard him at all.
He stared at her, while she stared back silently. His eyes fell on the go-to coffee cup she was holding in her hand and scoffed internally.
So much for a I-don’t-understand-people’s-obsession-with-it.
"What are you doing here?" He asked finally, realising she won't initiate the conversation anytime soon.
"I came to meet you, of course."
He scoffed again, shook his head in irritation and sat down. "Whatever." He muttered, pushing his glasses up once again. "Do as you like, I'm studying."
From the corner of his eyes, he saw her approaching and tensed instinctively. She sat herself beside him and watched him as he tried burning a whole in the book with his intensified gaze.
Gemma was doing nothing but making his frustration boil to the point where he felt like he would explode, and he didn't want to take it out on someone. Not Gemma, at least. He was still mad at her, but he didn't want her to become the victim of his rage. She wasn't the entire reason behind it, and it would be wrong to do so.
He shifted, drawing a little farther away from her every now and then.
Suddenly, she jumped up, and before Zayn could register what was happening she yelled at him. "Give me an apple, now!"
Horrorstruck, trying to keep his eyes to not bulge out of their sockets, he yelled back. "I don't have any apples, what's wrong with you?" He had stood up as well in the process, not knowing when.
"You don't understand, Zayn! It's urgent!" She said fervently. "The doctors are coming, and I haven't eaten an apple in days, they are after me! My guard has fallen!" She came towards him.
He stared at her, dumbfounded. "What?" He asked, finding the situation rather amusing.
"Tell my family, I love them." She continued. "Haven't you heard, an apple a day, keeps a doctor away? I haven't had an apple in days, Zayn, and since you don't seem to have one with you, my descendence is nearing." She answered him solemnly.
He stared at her in silence for a long moment, and then started chuckling loudly. "What are you, mental?"
A smile crept on Gemma's face. "Well, well, I was trying to make you laugh," She shrugged, trying to unburden the weight of her words. "And, mission accomplished, I guess."
With the distance between them fairly small, he could see the same wilderness in her eyes she seemed to possess at all times she was with Zayn, or rather, it was her actions towards him that drove the fire in them.
He nodded slowly. He didn't understand her. He couldn't understand her at all.
Gemma sighed, composing herself and sat down, taking the cup of coffee she had left on the grass in her hands again.
Zayn sat down as well, and rubbed his eyes. There was no way he would be able to stay awake tonight.
"You have been avoiding me." said Gemma suddenly, and he jerked his head at her. She was plucking the grass from where she sat, looking down.
"Took you a while."
She shook her head. "No, I understood it the day you came with Every."
"So?"
She sighed again, and it occurred to Zayn, that something was wrong. "So I wanted to apologise, is what." Something was definitely wrong, he decided.
"I'm not mad."
She scoffed now, "Fool someone else. I think you have a right to be. I did freak you out that night, I told you I can be a bit extreme." She stared at him. "Good thing your scratches have healed."
He touched his face involuntarily. "Oh yeah."
She nodded. "Yeah."
Zayn looked at her. He wanted to search something in her face, but she was completely unreadable.
"Um," started Gemma, "This is for you."
Zayn glanced at the coffee cup she had shifted towards him, and all of a sudden realised, she hadn't brought it for her, but for him. In that moment, he felt like he could apologise to her as well.
Maybe he wasn't right in judging her all too soon, after all.
"For me?" He asked, unsure.
"You love coffee, don't you?" She wiggled her eyes at him. "So, as a token of thanks."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
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Haven't proof read so if there are mistakes point them out freely, but longest chapter, I guess?
Ahhh this was so fun?!
Thoughts?
A bit of a time skip, though. I think it was needed.
Do tell me what you thought of it because I have no idea what to ask really, but I liked writing this!
Vote and all if you liked it, and Happy World Dance Day!
Love,
Me.