Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

49ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                         49ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

    "There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky" 

On Monday, he shows up desperately looking for Harry. He says something about ‘needing him for something important’, and claims having tried to call him on his phone; which Harry doesn’t answer.

It surprises Elisha because the knock on her door is sudden, sparkling just this very small piece of hope that it might be Harry, he might really come back; but it’s burnt down to ashes when she spots Zayn instead.

They talk for about five minutes – he says he’s knocked on Harry’s door as well, and figured maybe he would be with Elisha. Which is a questionable thought that pleases her somehow, albeit not accurate. She wishes, though.

He leaves when she denies him his friend’s presence, then, and that’s about that.

On Thursday Zayn comes back again.

Even though he admits to having solved his problem without Harry, he says he still hasn’t answered his phone. Leesha hasn’t even bothered to try, really, because he probably needs space and she needs to get over this and believe that if she fell in love once, it might happen twice, with someone new.

Also, if Harry hasn’t answered his best friend, why would he answer her?

The thought seems to bug both of them, and she invites him in, not sure what to do when the look on his face is completely puzzled. It’s surprising – for her, at least – when Zayn actually accepts the invitation and sits by the end of her bed, waiting for explanations she’s not sure she has.

An hour later, and he’s convinced her to talk about everything.

She starts off mentioning Chrissie, hoping that somehow that’ll explain his disappearance (and maybe convince herself that her statement had nothing to do with it, that Chrissie was the only real problem).

Later, for some reason, she finds herself talking about their deal and what they had both agreed to, ending up with a confession of “I didn’t think I was able to fall in love, Zayn” that can’t possibly be louder than a mere, broken whisper.

When the black-haired guy leaves, he looks like feeling sorry and disappointed, hurried, maybe. When he voices the sentiment, though, it’s when Leesh realises it hadn’t been hurting half as badly as it started at that point.

Because when he whispers an “I’m really sorry” back, her whole being crashes down to small pieces.

--

Silence has become way too constant ever since, and the thought itself is simply unbearable.

Most of the time is spent with dumb horoscopes or some random piece of paper Elisha always ends up folding in a thousand different ways before tearing it off easily and dumping it into the trashcan. Each time she opens a new tab the url fills completely with just a click, so many times has she visited the same page.

Whenever the bell rings over the door, she instantly smells the strong scent of male cologne and fresh shampoo, muttering a small and frustrated ‘Hi, Zayn’.

It’s frustrated because most of the time he’s sitting there out of pity, trying to grow some sort of intimacy with the woman so he can somehow fix the absence of the one she actually enjoys spending time with. And it isn’t that Zayn is a bad company, or a bad guy, at all. Because he isn’t. To be fair, Leesh likes him just fine, didn’t think they’d fall into conversation so easily; yet, the background still yells ‘pity’, and that’s so thick it’s almost palpable.