Palas 3

14 - "Tell me all you want to say to me."

Zayn: Are you alright?

It's a question he send me three days ago after we were caught kissing by his sister. I haven't been able to answer him. Liam was right when he told me to let things be for just a few days and figure out what I need to do. 

He gave me two days off that Harry covered for me. He stopped by to check in on me and having just thought about the way I betrayed him, I couldn't even look him in the eye. It only proved to me that in the end I need to tell him. I know that it will hurt him, even after all this time. 

The next day after Harry left three years ago, Liam stopped by out of guilt. He explained that I reminded him of Rosie who once said something similar to him. We had a conversation that lasted the entire day in which I told him everything. Every fear I ever had, every problem Harry and I faced, everything about my two parents I was grieving for. In return he shared all he has been going through and it distracted me from my own worries. 

He explained that he had been suffering with nightmares ever since Rosie got arrested and was send back to England. She contacted him, but he declined her invitation. Since then she hasn't tried to reach out to him again, but he has heard stories considering they share many of the same friends back home. Whatever he heard was never good news and he feels responsible for it. He tried to save her from a young age, but failed. His dreams are always about that. Sometimes a girl comes along to better his dreams, but they come back just as hard after they break up. 

Then there was the fear of flying, one he had struggled with from a young age. His desire to travel forced him to step on a plane once in a while, but living abroad from his family that he has to visit didn't make it easier. When he found out that he traveled better with me, it only strengthened our relationship.

Liam and I always had a bond, but that day, with a secret no one could know off, we became inseparable because of it. It may be the only good thing that came out of it, but I think it also left us both wondering if we would still be here if we hadn't kissed that night. 

He might have left Palas to work as a nurse again. I also believe his love life would look differently back in England than it is here. I've felt guilty ever since he helped me move out Harry's and mine house and moved in with me because he didn't trust me on my own. I wasn't suicidal but definitely in the darkest place I have ever been. In a way, I became his new Rosie. Someone to take care of. 

It is also the time period where Ava started to turn on me. She slept around before she met Louis, but out of fun and I had different motives. With all that happened in her life, she always managed to stay positive and I respect her for that. I just am not an optimist like her, but she couldn't respect that. It were always little dips at my behaviour that showed that she didn't approve of it. Still she's one of my friends, but her outburst a couple of days ago made me wonder if I have a wrong standard for friends. 

Like with Liam we were sort of forced into our roles of friends at a point where our lives changed so much, that if I wasn't living in a foreign country, we probably would have grown apart. There's really no place for that to happen in Palas. I accept the fact that we've changed too much to stay friends, but I don't want to end it on a fight. 

So I buy a teddy bear and put a bow on it. I write a nice card, wishing them well with the pregnancy and walk over to their house. It is early in the morning, the only time I am sure they're both still there. 

Louis opens the door with a smile on his face. "Good to see you," he says and he pulls me in for a hug. "You look great," he adds and I frown a bit as I smile. "I mean it."

I wonder how it is possible to look great when you feel anything like it, but Liam said it as well after he stopped by at a quarter to seven this morning. Maybe it is the extra baggage that I have been carrying around for years, that is gone now that I am only out for the truth. It's a weight off my shoulders that others seem to notice.