Icarus | Z.M.

55 | Facade

Victoria Tomlinson

In all the years I had been going, I had never been excited to leave Italy.

But I was glad to be leaving, glad to be going home to see Cujo. Because the past three weeks had been a shit show.

I didn't want to go but I didn't want to stay. I was dreading the time that the plane was going to land, and I had to go back to life, living with my family. The end of the month was approaching, and I'd be attending one of those stupid family dinners. Unless everything went to shit and I was dead before that, a small part of me wanted that so that I wouldn't have to deal with all of this shit.

It was a long flight back home and I wanted to sleep and rest before I got back to the second shit show that was home. The ten hour flight was the only peace I was going to get between leaving and arriving, so I wanted to make the most of it by sleeping the entire time.

Hazel was joining me, the bed in the back was big enough to comfortably fit two people.

After the incident with Midas, my friends had stopped going out drinking and partying at night. The last few days of Italy we spent in the house, whether we were out on the balcony in the sun or inside and trying to make the most of our time. It really wasn't safe enough to leave, not for any of us.

Especially after what Zayn told me last night.

The necklace he had given to Midas when he came to get me was a fake. he had given Midas a fake necklace, a cheap one he had got from a market in town in Italy. From a distance, the sparkle of the fake diamonds held in a closed fist could be mistaken for any necklace.

It was probably going to be really bad to give Midas a fake, as soon as he realised he was going to rain hell on us all. But Zayn had almost died trying to get that necklace, he wasn't going to just give it up that easily. There would have been a punishment from my father if we had returned home without the necklace, when that was the sole reason we had gone to Italy.

Hazel and I probably weren't going to sleep, even though we both wanted to. We had just been in bed, scrolling on our phones in silence, or occasionally showing each other something funny that we saw.

After about an hour of that, I rolled onto my side, propping my head up with my hand to look at her.

"So..." I began.

She dropped her phone to her chest and glanced at me, "So?"

I grinned, knowing since we were trapped on a flight she wouldn't be able to escape me. "You and Niall?"

I received a flat look from her, "You and Zayn."

"Nope." I shook my head. "I asked first,"

"What about me and Niall?" she played dumb, but even in the dim lighting I could see the way her cheeks blushed.

"Spill." I told her,  "Don't play dumb."

She only just shrugged like she had no idea what I was talking about. But I could see that she bit the inside of her cheek to try and stop herself from smiling and being all giddy.

"I can see it on your face that you want to tell me."

"Okay" She caved almost immediately, I knew she wanted to tell me about it. She rolled onto her side to face me, the happiest smile on her face. "But we agreed we'd keep it on the down low until we actually know what we're doing." she clarified, seriously, but was trying to convince herself more than me when she added, "Like... we aren't anything."

"Besides madly in love." I was trying so hard to suppress my own smile.

Hazel only rolled my eyes and shoved my shoulder, groaning in frustration of my persistent teasing. She rolled over to bury her face into the pillow, hiding the blush I knew was on her cheek.