Your Creation • Zarry

80. Arrow through me

December 2018

What I hadn't been expecting was the way that Zayn's second album hit me like an avalanche. I was laying down on the floor in my record room that day in London when I first heard "Icarus Falls" and the 27 songs that accompanied it, taking me back to the emotional journey I once went through when I had first heard "Mind of Mine" in full, but this time I truly wasn't prepared for how everything was going to effect me.

He basically detailed the story of our relationship through each and every song, which is what I had planned on doing for my second album, and it took me back to those times and places, those events, those moments that we shared and I felt my mind and heart go through this intense emotional experience just reliving them all. Zayn described our love as a force of nature, uncommon, unique, a spiritual connection, reminding me of when he once described the feeling as natural, and the way he used "come together" because only I would know what that meant. This world's filled, somehow I see you was the lyric that touched me in the purest way, making "Stand Still" one of the most beautiful songs I think I had ever heard in my life, because I really understood what he meant. Zayn's lyrics were by far completely and utterly romantic, sensual, honest and raw.

His artistry was a special wonder I knew that I would never not admire for as long as I live.

But I will say that the second half of the album really pained me to have to hear. Aside from the songs that were primarily focused on him being mad at me for all the shitty things I once did during a very hard time in our lives, that he obviously still wasn't over, some of the other lyrics of the songs that I hadn't heard struck me deep to my core and even though I always said that it was quite flattering that I ever mattered enough to anyone for them to write songs about me, it still kind of felt like he had just shot an arrow through me.

Don't wanna put my love in you, don't wanna make a headline and lose. Don't wanna be the one that you choose, cause I'm the one the one the one that you wish you knew.

You and me got differences, why you some different shit? Caught in cycle so pardon my psycho. Could have been right though. Guess that's how life goes. There is nothing that I can do for you. I think I need some fresh air. Feeling under pressure.

I can't do it, no baby, I can't do it. I only end up losing, ooh we're really fooling this. Agree to disagree, some things aren't meant to be.

I of all people knew that songs were written about how someone once felt in the moment they wrote it, or about a time when they felt that way, and I was betting on a lot of these songs being old material of his, but it still hurt me because I wasn't really sure where he stood with how he felt about us. Zayn and I weren't exactly in the best place with each other at that moment only because we still weren't talking and I just laid there on my floor overcome with too many mixed feelings that I felt totally frozen and lifeless. I just knew at some point soon we were going to have to have this conversation and some decision was going to have to be made about what we wanted to do moving forward and I was already dreading it.

My gate buzzer went off around 11:30 the following night and when I opened the door, Zayn was standing there, so I let him in.

"Hey," he greeted me as he walked into my house, proceeding to take off his corduroy jacket and I took it from him, hanging it on the hook.

I almost asked him if he wanted anything but I already knew better than to play hostess as he so delicately called it, and he was already in my kitchen helping himself to a drink anyway. I followed him into the kitchen silently, watching as Zayn poured us two glasses of gin and then he handed one to me.

"What are you doing here? I thought it was too reckless to just show up at each other's places without calling or texting first," I spoke, taking a sip. "I could have had someone over."