Harry was at the bottom of the swimming pool, looking up. Bending around him he could hear the chat of the others, from the poolside where the floodlights had warped into irridescent loombands. If he could only stay down here, he thought. Stay here where he didn't have to define his feelings, or explain them, or start crying again.
He was leaving. Zayn was leaving. It was definite now; Louis had said so, looking up from his phone and raising his eyebrows as he stared into the distance.
Why couldn't he feel like he normally did? Usually his feelings slipped away from him, like fish you were trying to grab with your bare hands. And the harder people pushed for his answers, his explanations, his love, the more those feelings would flee, chasing away into the waters of his unconscious. Not now. Now he felt heavy; like he would be drowned by the lead weight of regret that was growing inside him.
Faces were staring over the side of the pool; Harry had been at the bottom for a good minute. He could hear their words getting louder, their sentences faster and higher pitched. He didn't care; wondered how long he could manage; whether he should just stay. His lungs pressed like deployed airbags against his ribs; his throat was tightening, urging him to take the next breath. As he was wondering whether he had the courage to drown himself, another face appeared through the ballooning water above him: dark hair, a stubbly beard, eyes like horizontal teardrops.
Harry surfaced, inelegantly, with a gasp as loud as the cheer from his audience.
*
"It isn't about... you know.... It isn't anything to do with..." Harry scratched the back of his head "me, is it?"
Zayn was sitting beside him; they were on a bench hidden by bougainvillea plants, explosions of reds and pinks made vivid by moonlight even though the blooms had long since closed. The sound of crickets hummed from the trees behind the villas. Zayn was sitting on the edge of the wooden seat, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped. He was looking into the distance where the others were talking with some of the other hotel guests, beside the pool.
"Ah told ya, man. I need to spend time with Perray. Ah just... gotta get real, you know. Ah can't do this any more."
"You can't... you can't do what any more? What, like – the band, the gigs, the travelling?" There was a pause. "Us?"
YOU ARE READING
Deep (Zarry AU)
FanfictionWhat if the real reason Zayn left the band was that he couldn't handle his feelings for Harry? WARNING: I WROTE THIS STORY IN 2015 . IT WAS AND IS TOTALLY FICTIONAL... I HAD NO IDEA THAT IT MIGHT SEEM MORE REAL AS TIME WENT ON AND ZARRY BOTH PUB...
