Your Creation • Zarry

48. Don't let me go

March 24, 2015

I stumbled into my hotel room around two in the morning rather tipsy from an on flight rounds of drinks after landing in Indonesia just hours before. I was desperately trying not to think about how shitty my life was going.

The last year had been such a rollercoaster for all of us, like we were going, going, going way too fast and there was just no way to get off the ride. Our tour the previous year had been even bigger than our last one and now we were selling out massive stadiums, but the bigger we got, the worse things were getting.

The engagement seemed to be lasting an eternity and I had been growing impatient, annoyed, tired of watching Zayn play his role in the film and sometimes I even wondered if Zayn was messing with me, if he really loved Perrie and just didn't want to let me down, if he was just in it for the sex. He said he loved me. But he was always in a bad mood. Angry, tired, asking to go home, didn't want to do anything but fuck and sleep at two am and so I became petty, jealous, spiteful, all the things that Zayn hated, because he wasn't the Zayn I knew and I could feel him growing out of me, and maybe I was just overthinking, but just knowing Zayn and Perrie were still playing house made my skin crawl.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

Collapsing onto the bed, I stared blankly up at the ceiling, feeling an emptiness take over me. Zayn had been gone from tour for the last week. He said he needed a break, that he was too stressed out, but I knew that he no longer wanted to be there. I sensed it long ago before our last tour even started that his heart just wasn't in the band anymore and he was over it. I knew it, and nothing I could do was fixing it because even when I tried, it was never enough. We were both destroying this thread by thread, being pulled apart and worst of all, it was killing me that all we were doing was fighting. It had become unbearable.

I don't know how we ended up here; everything just felt like a blur at that point and I just wanted the world to stop turning for one second just so I could process everything that was happening; but I couldn't do that. I couldn't do anything I wanted to do.

And then my phone rang.

I groaned and reached over to look at who was calling. It was Zayn. I pressed the answer button, slowly bringing the phone up to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

I missed the sound of his voice so much, but I didn't tell him that.

"What's going on?"

I heard Zayn swallow hard on the other end and I suddenly got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and just knew that this conversation wasn't going to be a good one.

"Harry...I'm not coming back."

I wished that someone would've shot me, it would hurt less.

"W-what do you mean you're not coming back?"

"I'm leaving the band...for good. I can't do this anymore."

I felt my breathing quicken and my eyes started to well up with tears. This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening.

"So you're not coming back to tour? You're just done now?" I fired back, as the tears started to roll down my cheeks.

I heard him choking up on the other end as his voice became shaky.

"Harry I just...I can't do it anymore. It's all too much...I don't wanna be in the band. I don't wanna tour...I don't wanna make the music...I...I just...I just don't want that life. It's fucking me up."

I heard him start crying and suddenly my heart broke into million tiny pieces as the tears kept pouring out of my eyes until we were both sobbing.

"Zayn...what, what the fuck am I gonna do without you? I can't do this without you..."

"Harry....stop..."

But I couldn't stop.

"You can't leave, we need you. The fans need you...I need you."

Zayn started crying harder.

"This can't be about us right now, I need this for me..."

I started crying even harder.

"But Zayn..."

"Harry just don't..."

"Please don't leave me. Don't let me go..."

I never felt more pathetic in my entire life, I was practically begging him to stay. As shitty as things had gotten in the last few months, I really couldn't picture being able to complete the On the Road Again tour without him. I knew that I would go mad.

"All...all we do is fight Harry, where have you been? We've been fighting for months over every fucking little thing...what even happened to us? Everything is a bloody mess now and I can't do it anymore. I just can't. I can't breathe..."

He was right and there's nothing I could do but bury my head in my hands and cry even harder. I kept fucking it up. We kept fucking it up. I didn't know how to undo the mess that we made but I always thought we were stronger than anything, that we would be able to tackle any obstacle in our way. I never thought that Zayn would actually give up like this.

"I don't wanna be alone," I cried.

Even in a room full of people, I always felt alone...unless Zayn was there. My heart still needed him.

"I mentally and physically can't do this anymore ok...I just can't and there is nothing else you can do."

I felt like I got punched in the face when he said that. There was literally nothing else I could do to convince him to stay. We had this conversation before about him not wanting to be there, not wanting to make the final album, about how much he hated the stadium tours and how all the songs he wrote were rejected by our label and he hated it and I knew it and I tried my best to make it better, but I wasn't making it better. We were too invested and the drama was shaking up the band, just as Liam had been worried about, and it was spiraling out of control. Zayn had already made up his mind.

Zayn was still crying on the other end and just hearing him cry was making me wish that he was there with me so we could at least hold onto each other. I never felt worse in my life.

"So that's it now it's just over? It's all over?"

That's when I started to feel angry, which usually coincided with my sadness at some point, like my heart was ripped out of my chest and stomped all over and it hurt.

"I...I guess so, yeah."

"Wow, ok."

There was a sort period of silence and I was holding back the urge to scream at him and tell him I hate him.

"So when are they making the announcement, tomorrow?" I asked, my tone turning cold and bitter.

"Yeah, the 25th..."

"25, huh? Way to fucking curse our number."

"Harry stop picking a fight with me...I'm so sick of this."

"Yeah, yeah. You're right. So sick of it, so sick of me. Go run off with Perrie and get married and have five kids with her I don't care anymore. Who gives a fuck about this stupid boy band with our stupid pop music you hate so much. Go be regular and smoke all the weed you want and chill out and be happy away from the spotlight, away from your secret queer life that you're so ashamed of. Yeah, you deserve it."

And then I hung up on him, buried my head into my pillow and cried myself to sleep.

NOTE: I'm very sorry about this chapter, it pained me to write it.