𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐲 ( 𝐳𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 )

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭, 𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲

Zayn had made a bad situation worse and all for nothing. He didn't know why he thought Harry would take a note like that seriously but his efforts to get the note to Harry had set Trevor off in a spiral worse than anything Zayn had ever seen before. Trevor usually didn't drink much but the past few weeks he'd been coming home drunk every night and the alcohol made him merciless. He would usually be very careful not to attack Zayn's face just in case someone saw him, they were bound to ask questions. Trevor didn't think that was a problem anymore because it didn't look like he would ever let Zayn out of the house again.

Zayn could see it now, this is what his life was going to be like; a despondent and gloomy cycle of inexplicable pain both physical and mental that would torture him everyday till either his body gave up, showed a little mercy and set him free or till he could finally muster up the courage to do it himself. He was sitting on the floor near the window again, he had been sitting here not moving most days these days. He barely moved. He cleaned himself cause he had to after every beating, things would only be worse if Trevor saw him walking around with blood caked on. He doesn't know how much he's slept over the three weeks after the listening party, he finds himself waking up sometimes but he doesn't remember drifting off. Trevor also doesn't care if Zayn eats anymore which just means that Zayn hadn't eaten much either. He can never tell if the pain he feels is hunger gnawing at his stomach or just another bruise anyway. He's stopped sketching as well. It had been a form of escape for him but now he saw no hope of ever having a real life and sketching things he hoped for that he knew he'd never have just didn't help anymore.

He thought he'd imagined the knock at the door, but when he listened more closely it got louder. He didn't move for a second cause they never had visitors when Trevor wasn't home and Trevor never knocked. He made it to the door and through the looking glass he saw a girl at the door. Okay that was weird, as far as he knew none of the colleagues Trevor had ever brought home had been girls and furthermore it couldn't be someone from Trevor's family cause he hadn't spoken to any of them for years even before Zayn had met him and they lived in America. Even if he wanted to let this girl in the door was locked from the outside and he physically couldn't open the door so he decided to instead call out to her, " Um, hello." On putting his ear to the door he heard a rather cheery reply, " Hello Zayn. Harry's sent me to see if you're okay. Can you let me in so we can talk?"

Harry had sent her? What?? She knew his name and barely anyone did so he didn't really doubt that Harry had sent her cause how else would she even have known he had interacted with Harry. He thought he could trust her but regardless of that he couldn't physically let her in, this door was locked from the outside and he told her so. There was rummaging outside the door and Zayn was curious as to what it was that she was trying to do when the door knob jiggled and soon enough the door was being pushed in, walking in as Zayn made way for her she was saying something about how people really have the stupidest places to hide spare keys when she looked up at Zayn and stopped speaking immediately with a considerably loud gasp. " Oh my god. What happened?" Zayn realised she was probably talking about the bruises on his face. Some of them had started to fade, some were horrid shades of yellow and purple. He really couldn't do much to hide them so he decided just to shrug and the girl seemed to drop it.

" Hi, I'm Eric. I'm one of Harry Styles' personal photographers and his private investigator." Zayn chuckled a little assuming she wasn't serious about actually being Harry's private investigator cause he didn't think Harry needed much private investigation. She radiated a kind of joyous positivity and Zayn found himself wondering if everyone in Harry's team was a beacon of light. Zayn nodded and introduced himself and asked her if she'd like something to eat or drink. " No, that's quite alright. I just had coffee. I actually just need to talk to you real quick, I know I don't have much time cause Trevor must be getting home soon." Zayn was shocked for a bit, " Wait, how do you know about Trevor?"

" Zayn, Harry has been worried sick about the cryptic note you left him and the way he saw the man who was with you handling you. He put me up to looking into this and if I say so myself I have found out quite a lot. I don't have the whole picture though, cause no one apart from you and him know what your relationship is actually like and I don't want to make assumptions, neither does Harry. I know this has got to be strange and very out of the blue and it must be weird considering we've only just met and I'm probably asking for very personal information but we want to help you Zayn and the more we know the better so I need you to tell me what things have been like between you and Trevor." She looked at him with a look of quiet understanding in her eyes, like she wasn't going to judge or ridicule him for getting himself in the situation he was in.

He had never had anyone to talk to in the past three years, no one he could seek solace in when he felt so out of depth with his own life so he told her everything, he started with when he first met Trevor at 17 and how it really was beautiful when it started; how he really couldn't be blamed for how fast he fell cause he felt so certain of the arms he was falling into. How he felt safe and loved and treasured. It was almost like looking back at another life he had not lived, he felt nearly ridiculous talking about this beautiful life because he felt like he was plagiarizing someone else's story. Like if that story was his own how could this be too? He carried on, he talked about his family's death, about moving in, about been given barely a month to mourn the loss of the people he loved most in the world before he was to be subjected to abuse he really didn't understand or think he deserved. He talked of the worsening intensity of it and how after a point his brain just went numb. How sometimes if he focuses hard enough he can keep his body from really feeling any pain at all when the blows are still coming at him, it is a different story later when he is alone and he can feel every millimetre of bruised skin but then he is peaceful at just being left alone.

Eric sits through it all, at some point during his soliloquy she had slipped her hand in his and it stays there, showing her support while her eyes get misty. Zayn understands that she might not know what to say, what do you say to someone you've met for the first time who says they're in this toxic situation and they have no way out? She seems to collect her thoughts and was just about to speak when a shuffling sound near the front door captures their attention. " Fuck, fuck, fuck, Trevor's back. " They run to the front door and Zayn just about manages to push Eric into the coat closet near the door as the door opens. Trevor comes in, clearly drunk but also confused, " Did I leave the fucking door unlocked ?" Zayn shrugs with his eyes trained on the marble floor, his heart pounding in his chest knowing fully well how that door came to be unlocked. " Look at me when I talk to you." Trevor near screams as he painfully pushes Zayn against the wall right next to the closet Eric was in and holds him by the throat. " This is where it begins." Zayn thinks as he accepts what is coming, curling in on himself. He just hates that Eric can probably hear all of it.

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Eric makes her way out of the closet she's been in for the past however long, it couldn't have been more than 45 minutes but it felt like hours. She makes her way to Zayn who was on the couch curled in on himself, holding his mid section as if he was trying to hold himself together. The monster he lived with had gone into the bedroom to sleep away his worthless life at this point. Zayn really had barely made a sound through the whole ordeal, it was just the sickening sounds of his body hitting different surfaces and the sound of punches that made Eric aware of what was happening. She put the throw that was on the couch over Zayn's body which caused him to look up at her, she knelt next to him and whispered, we're going to get to out of here, I promise.