All is Fair: Zayn Malik Fanfiction

Chapter 20

Harry is driving us to the restaurant. I pick at my fingernails, chipping away the polish. I feel sick. "What were their names again?" I ask.

"Olivia and Zayn," he says. The pain in my stomach intensifies at the sound of his name. "That is the fourth time you've asked," he reminds me.

"I just want to make sure I get it right." I really just want him to change his answer. Maybe he was mistaken the entire time, and he actually meant someone else.

What is bothering me most is that I feel Zayn knows I am Harry's girlfriend. Harry had to have told Zayn about his relationship with me; he told Louis, right? If Zayn invited us for the sole purpose of seeing me again, I will be pissed. I told him I never wanted to see him again. He knew that. It is still true.

As we pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, I am literally shaking. Harry looks at me. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just cold," I say, even though it is warm in the car, and even though he knows it. Harry just dismisses anything he does not understand about me as a female thing, and I let him.

We apparently get to the restaurant first; Harry requests a table, and soon after, a waitress brings us to one.

I look over the same page in the menu multiple times. I cannot do this. In moments, Zayn will be here. I will have to associate with him. In minutes.

My heart is going crazy. Beating so fast that it seems regularity is missing from it. Harry looks up to the left. No.

He stands up. No.

He starts to speak, but I honestly do not hear what he says. "Jessie," he says. I look up at him, refusing to look at the others that I know are there. "This is Olivia and Zayn."

I stand up and force myself to peel my attention away from Harry for a second. Olivia. She looks nice. She is pretty. I shake her hand, try to smile, and mumble something.

She moves away, and Zayn is behind her. I see him for the first time in three years, and, my God, has he changed. Three years has matured every aspect of him; his jawline is more defined and covered in dark stubble. He is wearing a t-shirt, and I can see tattoos trailing all up his right arm. He even styles his hair differently, into a little quiff that makes me smile a bit.

My first thought is how are we going to act? Do we show that we know each other? Everything is going so fast, though. I let Zayn decide.

He shakes my hand. His hand is soft as it used to be, but his touch is firmer. "Hi, how are you?" he says. I can tell that his voice is a little different, too. Not just in how deep it is, though. It sounds more confident and relaxed than I remember.

"I'm good, thanks." We sit down, and my brain finally allows me to tune into the outside world again. Harry sits next to me. I sit across from Zayn, but I refuse to look at him now. Not when I can chance him looking back at me.

Harry is talking, starting up our conversation with one of his stories that makes everyone laugh. Zayn and Olivia are fixed into it. I have heard the story before, and it is definitely an attention holder. Olivia is smiling and laughing at Harry's words, and I can hear Zayn do the same. His laugh sounds almost the same as it did in high school, just the slightest bit deeper. I remember I loved his laugh. My eyes flicker toward Zayn. My mind is taking a while to believe that he has changed so much. After eyeing him for some time, I focus into his tattoos. I really like all of them, the ZAP is a little interesting, and I am confused as to why there is a girl on his arm. I move back onto his eyes. Brown, soft eyes that I used to get lost in have not changed much. It is nice to see something that has stayed constant on him. It reminds me not to be nervous; I used to know him well, we used to talk as friends, before all the shit happened of course.