Zessa

chapter 17

lmao i'm aware it's been almost a year since the last update and all i can say is sorry, like life has been crazy, i've been focusing more on my poetry than my fanfictions, and i guess i've just been happier — and when i'm happier i write less.

will try not to delay you too much longer  — thank you to everyone who commented because i do read all the comments and they remind me to come back and keep writing this story for the people who like it (and for me because i love writing).

please enjoy and accept my apologies <3

Tessa

Zayn is smoking on the balcony. I am cross-legged on the living room floor with a cup of black coffee and half a banana I found in the freezer. On the corner of the television stand, a Bluetooth speaker is playing soft jazz — something else unexpected.

I hear him slip inside and shut the sliding glass door behind him, but I don't look up from my phone. My mouth is filled with things I don't know how to say: I'm sorry, I love you, I don't know what to do.

The clock on my phone reads 4:37 pm. I hear Zayn rummaging through the mostly empty fridge before sighing and relocating his search to the cabinets. He resumes smoking and the noxious smell permeates the space almost immediately.

"Can you not," I snap irritably. I instantly regret the harshness of my tone. "Sorry, can you just do that outside please?"

"It's my flat," he remarks offhandedly. Out of the corner of my eye I see him flick ash into the kitchen sink. "You can go outside if it bothers you."

I stand and face him, leaving my banana peel and coffee cup on the floor. "Are you serious?" My heart beats rapidly as I feel the heat of anger rush to my face.

He stares at me wordlessly, stubbornly, and the expression on his face is so comically passive-aggressive that it dilutes my rage instantaneously.

"What the hell," I sigh, and take the rest of my coffee out onto the balcony, which he had just vacated. I half expect him to follow me out and apologise, but of course we aren't apologising anymore. It's past the time for that.

It's cold outside, bitterly cold, and nearing dark already. I hug my sweatshirt tightly around me and cup my coffee mug in both hands for the warmth. I don't blame him for either the cold outside or the cold in his eyes. I put it there. I'm the one who can't crawl out of love with a murderer. I'm the selfish one.

A speckling of stars flares up in the blueing sky. The wind, which has been cutting through the suddenly too-thin fabric of my sweater, dies down to hardly a whisper. I take a deep breath of the bracingly cold air and my head clears.

My legs are almost frozen to the chair. Unfolding myself from the position I'd been in for two hours, I go back inside. The smell of cigarette smoke has dissipated and Zayn is fast asleep on the sofa with his headphones on and the Big Bang Theory is muted on the television.

The guilt rises insuppressibly. I take a seat on the end of the sofa and pull his head into my lap, pushing back his messy, unstyled hair from his forehead. His lips part and he mumbles incoherently before turning his face into my stomach and settling back into quiet sleep. I continue running my fingers gently through his hair, smoothing it back and curling it back forward in my hands until I am nearly asleep myself.

His eyes open without warning and he blinks up at me, surprise evident in the furrow of his eyebrows. "Tessa?" His voice is rough and slow with sleep, deep enough to remind me of another's.

"Hi," I smile down at him and reflexively run my thumb just under his lower lip, where the skin is so soft compared to the stubble across his jaw and chin.