Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

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(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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And I will go on shining

Shining like brand new

I'll never look behind me

My troubles will be few

Supertramp – Goodbye Stranger

Melancholia. It had seized him too during our time apart, if "Meet Me In The Hallway" was anything to judge by. There was no easing into the album. No meandering around light-heartedly tuned sentiments while things gradually became more grave. He opened with the most daunting of the entire collection, as it reflected the condition I'd left him in when I dipped. This record was an indictment of everything I'd used to justify my leaving, and I don't think he'd ever let me forget that.

I was a monster. I understood that he didn't intend for me to feel that way, but he had sorely miscalculated the effect this level of honesty would have on me. It was beyond depressing. Apparently I'd really done a number on him. From his perspective, I'd left abruptly and promised to come back, but ultimately didn't. How hadn't I realized this was how it all played out in his eyes? To tell the truth, I'd never thought deeply about the effect the broken promise of my return would have on him. Of course he knew it was best for me to go, and that it wasn't my intention to deceive or forsake him, but whether that had been the intention or not, it was certainly now the reality.

'Gotta get better. Gotta get better. Gotta get better.'  What a haunting refrain. I'd rather fall in a dark pit and die than listen to it again. Was this the state I'd left him in? Had he been in this condition all along? All those grueling months when I'd obsessively watched the remainder of the OTRA Tour, subconsciously hoping they'd suck without me, was this what he kept pinned up inside? Had this inspired the perpetual scowl he wore morning noon and night in those days? Was it all because of me?

'Just let me know and I'll be at the door...just let me know I'll be on the floor...and maybe we'll work it out. ' The sheer naivety of an optimist. What a hair-raising memory. I could see him now, sitting on the floor in front of the door and blocking my exit. Holy fuck this hurt. A twisting of the knife was an understatement. I'd simply never been confronted with anything this unrelentingly honest before. Something that would demand the same degree of honesty in return, and I feared I wasn't capable of that yet. 

It would kill me. That is, if the frail, whiny tone hadn't murdered me first. He was my baby and he knew it and he was exploiting that fact. I was the one who was supposed to take care of him no matter what. It was an unspoken agreement. Yet I'd utterly deserted him. The themes and aesthetics of this album had all been crafted to make me feel the severity of his grief, by any means necessary. Even down to the pitiful cover art which featured him sitting nude in a pool of pink water, adopting my lotus rebirth symbolism from 2015. Almost satirizing it. Depicting himself small and drained and in need of saving.