I’ll only go as far as admitting I was glad the opportunity toleavepresented itself because it turns out I don’t actually think my heart can take another hit. I can live with thinking Zayn decided I wasn’t worth coming back for. I can’t live withknowingit. And yes, there’s a very big difference.
I kick my ankle boots off near my front door and pad bare-foot into my kitchen to make myself a very strong coffee, but stop in my tracks when I notice a stack of papers on the bench that are still half-bent from the post.
That’s odd. I could have sworn I cleared the bench before I left earlier. Picking up the papers, I recognise them as forms and information Zayn’s law firm sent me after our first appointment to keep for my records. I thought I had putthem away in the cupboard over the bench. With a frown, I rack my brain, trying to remember whether I had pulled them out again. Then, I’m jostled from my thoughts by a loud knock on my front door.
I throw the papers back into the cupboard and hurry to the door, wondering who on Earth would come over this early in the afternoon. I don’t have plans with Mum this week because I am busy with my start back at uni, and she’s the only person I know who isn’t at work.
I look through the peep hole and my heart plummets.
“What the fuck?” I ask, pulling open the heavy door and propping it against my hip.
“That’s the third time you’ve greeted me this way, and now I definitely have a complex.”
Zayn stands in the hallway with his hands in his pockets as if he isn’t skiving work to be here to… what exactly? I have no idea what he’s doing here.
“What are you doing here?”
He cocks his head expectantly, and I feel my eyes widen in alarm. I can’t let him into my apartment. Yes, I know he’s been here before, but that was different. That’s when I thought he was David, and I had just been drugged and wasn’t thinking clearly. Now my thoughts are clear as day and the thought of Zayn being in my personal space makes me feel way too vulnerable.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh, as if he can read exactly what’s going through my mind. “Let me in please, Gianna.”
“Didn’t you have an appointment after I left?” I ask in a desperate attempt to avoid this happening. Did he just bail out on his work commitments to follow me home?
“Fuck the appointment. We need to talk.”
I may not know this grown-up version of Zayn, but even I can tell he isn’t someone who’s made it to where he is bythrowing work to the wind and acting spontaneously. However, the heavy set of Zayn’s jaw tells me this conversation is happening whether I like it or not.
I step back with a sigh and open the door wider in reluctant invitation.
Zayn steps past me, and I shudder at the scent that trails him. I’d rather not be thinking of how damn attracted I am to him while he’s about to break my heart for what I hope is the last time, but since I was sixteen, I’ve had absolutely no control over how my body responds to him. I can’t see that changing in the next five minutes.
He doesn’t wait for me but heads straight past the kitchen and walks the extra few steps until he’s standing between my two couches in the living room. My apartment is pretty tiny; it was only ever meant to be a weekend retreat for Daniel and I to use when we stayed in the city, but I love it. It suits me and my single lifestyle perfectly.
Zayn turns to face me and I don’t miss the subtle way his gaze coasts over the room before landing squarely on me. I follow behind him, stopping when I reach the back of the couch, as if placing a large item of furniture between us will somehow shield me from his verbal blow.
“It took me a minute,” he says, bemused, as he leans back on his heels. “But I realised why you came into my office just now guns blazing.”
“Is that so?” I cross my arms over my chest, ready for the onslaught.
“The girl that was in my office. It’s not what you think.” He watches my face for any kind of reaction to his words, but I refuse to give him one. My face is a blank mask to rival his own.
“You seem to know me so well. What do I think?”
A dark smirk touches his lips. “Idoknow you so well.You pretend you don’t feel what will always be between us, but I know you do. Just as I do, too.”
I rub a hand over the sudden pang in my heart. It’s no surprise he still feels it too. We’ve always had what I can only describe as explosive chemistry. And that’s exactly what it did all those years ago. Explode. And now it’s best to let it fizzle out than to give it the fuel it needs to build up and explode in my face again.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“She’s my sister.”
Shock drops my hands by my sides and my chin to the floor. “But… you don’t have a sister?” I stammer with a slight shake of my head. If Zayn had a sister, I wouldknow.How could I not know this?
“Turns out I do,” he says calmly, taking in my flustered reaction to the news. What does he see written on my face? Shock? Confusion? Somewhere deep down… relief? I’m not even sure why, but it’s there, growing more prominent by the second. “I found out about her when I was shipped off to live with my dad.”
I grasp my hands together and stare down at my clenched fingers, trying to process his words. It’s like an internal wall around my mind comes tearing down in that moment. I had hundreds, nothousandsof questions I wanted to ask Zayn about what happened to him after he left, but the moment I found out who he was it’s like I shut that part of my brain down. The part that craved him, thatlovedhim. I didn’t want to know about his life after us. About what was so much better that in the end he had decided not to come back for me. But now I’m starting to realise that was stupid, and selfish. I needed to know. We both deserved that closure.
Would it be hard to hear? Yes, it would shatter me.
