Your Creation • Zarry

53. Jamaica

December 2016

The breeze blew through my hair, which was much shorter now after having cut it all off, as I lounged in a hammock on the back patio of the Geejam Hotel in Port Antonio, Jamaica. This was the best I had ever felt in such a long time.

The year was nearly over but I was only just beginning. I was nearing the final stages of completing my very first solo album and I wanted absolutely no distractions. I had broken things off with Kendall literally the day after Zayn released "Pillowtalk," which went straight to number one and I couldn't get away from that fucking song, it was everywhere and I spent most of March completely pissed off at Zayn to be perfectly honest.

The thing that really irritated me was watching that interview he did with Zane Lowe for his album. Not only did he look annoyingly handsome but he also annoyingly claimed that he wanted to leave the band from the very beginning. I couldn't believe what I had heard come out of his mouth. It was like he had left and suddenly he became way too cool for everything, too proud to admit that he once enjoyed being there with us, with me.

If he had wanted to go from the very beginning he never bloody said anything to me or to anyone else for quite a long time and I felt like he was trying way too hard to separate himself from One Direction, which made me feel like he was trying to separate himself from me, too.

Maybe I was taking it all too personally, but I felt like a joke to him now and the first time we saw each other at the Pre-Grammy Gala in Beverly Hills we both completely avoided each other like the plague. I kept riding this rollercoaster of emotions, torn between loving him and hating him, wanting him back and wanting him to fuck off forever.

I just needed to stay busy so all I did was write.

When Zayn's first album dropped on March 25th the first thing I did was laugh at the audacity he had to put it out on the day he left the band, like he wanted to make some sort of statement, but I still laid in bed all night and listened to the whole album on repeat for hours and hours, knowing that I was the subject of almost the entire thing.

It was beautifully done, I will admit, and I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I hadn't gone through a whole range of emotions, track by track, trying to latch onto every word he sang. When Zayn said that he once looked at our love as a blessing but now it's just a curse, I felt that sting right to my core and when he sang that sHe wanted someone to love her in the right way I laughed ironically at his use of pronoun to describe me and also at the fact that he was not just someone, he was the only one I had wanted to love me. When I heard "Drunk" I was immediately brought back to our summers together and had felt myself grow weak and teary eyed and when he sang in Urdu the tears started flowing. When he said he was a fool for me I nearly turned the damn thing off because my heart could hardly take much more since I had written a song just like it which I had given to Ariana Grande and he knew it. Nearly every song on the album was somehow about me in some way and by the time I got to GOLDEN I was hugging my pillow tight and sobbing.

He hoped that I would still be fine but guess what? I wasn't. I wasn't fine.

And I knew that all of these songs were things he wrote about and felt over the last few years but it felt like it was the first time I had ever heard his heart and I wanted to call him so badly. I had my finger on the call button more times than I can count but I never tapped it. I had written out texts upon texts to him that I ended up deleting every time because I just didn't know what to say. I didn't want to look pathetic crawling back to him either, like a wounded puppy, and I didn't want to bother him and his new girlfriend either.

So I spent the year keeping myself as distracted as possible, just as I had been doing. I bought art, clothes, hung out with friends, worked on music, filmed a movie and by summer the news broke out that Zayn and Gigi's relationship was supposedly rocky and he headed to the one place that he and I always talked about visiting, which was Jamaica. I read that he ended up in Port Antonio where he stayed at the Geejam Hotel and that's exactly where I was right now.

If we couldn't go together, then at least we would both be there, even if we were apart and maybe in some strange way I was hoping that some of his energy was still lingering in the air here and it would somehow inspire me.

I had this ritual when I was in Jamaica which was basically just me retiring to my room at night and watching romantic comedies for hours and hours because they made me feel good. I pictured my life like a romantic comedy sometimes except it wasn't that funny, but I wished that it was, and somehow I always ended up gravitating towards The Notebook and when the opening scene came on it took me back to a specific memory.

September 2014

"I'm not watching The Notebook," Zayn said, trying to wrestle the remote out of my hand.

"Yes we are and you're going to love every second of it," I retaliated, snatching the remote away from him and pressing play.

I ignored his dramatic groan and proceeded to cuddle into him in the bed of my hotel room the night before our show in Tulsa.

He was the type of person who kept stopping the scene and analyzing it, asking a hundred questions and making comments, which was kind of annoying, but I let him do it anyway.

"So Noah is basically saying he's going to be whatever she wants him to be, yeah? That's kinda bullshit though, you shouldn't have to change who you are for someone," Zayn said.

"That's not the point, Z. He's being romantic. He's willing to do whatever it takes to be with her because he likes her," I responded glaring at him.

He broke into a goofy smile.

"I love annoying you."

I rolled my eyes at him, even though I wasn't really annoyed, and his arm squeezed me a bit tighter as I snuggled into his chest.

After a few dozen more comments throughout the film we got the scene where Allie showed up to Noah's house that he renovated and Zayn had finally stopped talking. I glanced over at him and noticed that he was suddenly really invested and I tried to hide my smile.

We were at the part where they took the boat out on the water and it started raining. Noah was telling Allie that it wasn't over for him and they ran into each other's arms and embraced in a passionate kiss and at that moment I looked over at Zayn again and saw a single tear fall down his cheek.

"Are you crying?"

"What? No - "

"You're crying. I saw that tear."

"Shut up."

I was grinning like the cheshire cat and I couldn't help myself, and by the end of the film when they passed away together, Zayn was proper crying and he couldn't have been any more adorable.

"Don't you dare tell anyone I cried watching the fucking Notebook," he warned me, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. I leaned in and planted a kiss on his wet cheek.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you little softy."

And then he quickly became rather serious.

"Harry..."

"Yeah?"

"You'll always protect us, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you'll always keep us away from the world. Nobody can ever know about us. Tell me you'll make sure of that."

I felt myself soften, wondering why he was suddenly acting anxious. I wrapped my arm around his torso a little tighter, trying to reassure him.

"I'll always keep us safe."

My mind had floated away into that memory while the film played in front of me and I felt my eyes watering remembering that moment we shared. I thought about what he had said about keeping us away from the world and I kept that in the back of my mind when I was recording and preparing for this album, because although I wanted Zayn to know my songs were just for him, the whole world didn't have to know and I would still protect us, even if we were no longer together.