Your Creation • Zarry

73. I don't know how to say no

I must have read that text message at least a dozen times over.

"if you can't then you're not the person I thought you were."

That's the part that really stuck with me. I kept thinking about the way that Zayn ended it, as if he was starting to question the type of person I was and that hurt me, because the last thing I wanted was for Zayn to feel like I wouldn't be able to understand him.

The truth is that I actually did understand Zayn better than he thought. Maybe what Camille meant to me was what Gigi meant to Zayn and for me to think it was okay to have that double standard between us was feeling a bit wrong, and maybe I just hadn't been sensitive or empathetic enough to really grasp what he was going through because I was always just so focused on myself and my issues. There was so much more to him than even I knew about. There were people and friends in his life who were around him every day who experienced things that I didn't. Zayn was going through some difficult situations as well as dealing with a lot of other emotions that I just wasn't a part of, that maybe I couldn't help him with, and maybe I hadn't really stopped to think about it enough.

A big part of it all was that I was so busy with tour that I didn't really have the time or headspace to dedicate to nurturing the emotional side of whatever our relationship was and I realized that what I really needed was to sit down with Zayn and just talk about everything. We just didn't talk enough, and by talk I meant have a mature conversation about how we really feel and what's going on, so I shot him a text the following day.

Me: Are you free two weeks from now? I have a short break in tour if you can come to London. We should talk then.

Zayn: I will be there..

I flew back to London after Tokyo with about five days off before I had to fly out to Argentina and Camille was busy with some shoots in Paris for two of those days, which gave Zayn and I enough time to meet up and try to figure this whole thing out once and for all.

He showed up to my house late on the night after my return back in this crimson pleather bomber jacket with matching red loafers that looked like the ones I wore, tan trousers and a patterned shirt like he had just stepped out of a GQ photo shoot. I mean, Zayn was always a pretty fashionable guy but most of the time when I saw him he was in jeans and a hoodie pulled up over his head, always trying to blend in, so I just wasn't expecting to see him like that.

"You look good," I said, greeting him as I opened the door, feeling like a total bum in my Green Bay Packers sweatshirt.

"Thanks, so do you" he replied with a short chuckle, making his way inside. "Green Bay by Gucci, right?"

"Yeah they've partnered up. Green and gold for the fall."

"My favorite colors," he replied, taking a seat on my couch and I smiled a little.

"Do you want anything?" I asked politely.

"Don't play hostess, it's formal and weird. It's just me, Harry. I don't need anything just come sit down."

"Okay but can I at least get you a drink?"

"Sit."

"Okay."

I always went right into proper mode, that natural polite mindset, running around getting things for people and being polite and stuff, especially whenever I felt awkward, nervous or shy, because then it just put the attention on the other person instead of on me, but I should have known that Zayn would see right through that tactic of mine and he was not having it.

"No small talk," he began, taking off his jacket and throwing it on the arm chair before slinging his arm around the back of the couch where we were sitting. "Just tell me how you feel."