Zayn Malik's Long Lost Sister (Unedited)

81. Calm

"Yo, wait," I waved my hands in front of my face in disbelif, everyone sitting at the table in silence. I look at Yaser, everyone other than myself sat quietly at the table. "You're not gonna kick his ass? I mean, Patricia cheated on you with this man."

"Why would you ask that?" Landon asks, his eyebrows raised in shock.

"Do you want me to hit him?" Yaser asks, his voice gentle.

"Yes, I want you to hit him!" I stammer a bit and look over at Landon, shaking my head. "I'm sorry, I don't but I do. This isn't right. None of this is right. Their reaction to this isn't right!"

"Calm down, pet." Patricia say, her tone just as calm and gentle as Yaser's.

"Don't you dare." I say, pointing my index finger right at her. "Don't tell me to calm down. What the hell is going on? It's too fucking calm right now, what's everyone's deal?"

Liam excuses himself from the table and walks over to me, slinging an arm around my shoulder and turning me around to face my back toward them. He slowly guides me away, his voice hushed.

"It's okay, alright?" He says reassuringly, his thumb tracing back and forth over my arm. "Maybe they just want to keep calm for you."

"That only worked when I was younger, when I was oblivious to situations and how they should be. And this," I motioned behind me. "This is weird."

"Just try to calm down. Hear them out."

"They'll tell lies. I don't want lies."

"Whatever they may be, just-" Before he could continue anymore, I start shaking my head and he moves in front of me, his hands trapping my face between their hold and he brings his head close, his cool breath hitting my face. "Whatever they say today doesn't have to change how you feel about them, Marley. You choose how you feel, and no one can blame you for feeling the way you do."

I don't respond, afraid I'd say the wrong thing.

"The sense of betrayal that you feel is understandable. You trusted them- all of them. So even if you speak to them for an hour every day for the rest of your life and never truly forgive them, no one could blame you. You aren't wrong."

"I'm not wrong." I say quietly. I don't understand why I repeated him that way, but it felt like the right thing to do. I nodded slowly and he moved his hands down to my shoulders.

"Come on," Liam says softly, peering over my shoulder. "Your boyfriend is getting jealous."

"Finally. Someone with the right reaction." I mumble.

Liam and I walk back to the table and I hesitantly sit between him and Landon, my gaze down on the wooden surface in front of me and peaking over all the graffiti marked down.

"Marley," Zayn says, his voice small in a way that didn't differ the sound. "I speak for all of us when I say that we're terribly sorry. I know that none of our reasons for this makes sense to you right now, but we do truly love you, and we all consider you family- our full sister. Dad considers you his daughter."

I felt Landon shift beside me a bit, his thumbs running over each other as his hands come together on the table. I peek up at him for a moment before looking back down at the tags.

"I can only imagine how hard this is for you," Zayn went on. "I never wanted your time here to be hard on you. I was selfish and stupid, and I searched long and hard for you for years in secret and when mum finally granted me permission to expand my search and ask for help, I took that immediately. I wanted you- no, I needed you in my life. In our life. Our family was never whole, not until the day you showed up, not until I saw you in person did everything feel back in place. And I never wanted to go back to feeling like there was a missing piece within the walls of our home."