“Gianna, you know you’re always beautiful, but I must say that I have elevated you to bloody supermodel status tonight.” She beams, spraying a light cloud of hairspray over my hair. “You are going to steal the show when you walk into that room!”
I can’t help the smile that crawls across my lips. Every girl needs an Anna in their life.
“Thanks, girl,” I say, standing from the stool and appraising myself in the bathroom mirror. I don’t know what magic Anna applied to my eyelids, but my irises lookgreener than moss, reminding me of a conversation that took place many moons ago.
“Now go get him.” Anna gestures for me to pass through the bathroom door and hands me my purse as I go.
“You mean go suss out the venue,” I correct her over my shoulder, but the tremor in my voice gives away my nerves and Anna shoots me a sly grin.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant.” Sarcasm drips from her tone as she shoos me down the hallway to the front door. “Tell Zayn I said hi, and that I fully approve of my dress getting some action tonight.”
When I slideinto Zayn’s passenger seat and shut the door to the cold outside, there’s an instant tension in the air between us. Zayn’s knuckles are white where he grasps the steering wheel and he stares out the front windscreen. If I’m not mistaken, it seems like he’s making a concentrated effort not to look at me. The sky has already darkened and the vibrant lights of the city start to slowly blur through the dark windows as Zayn indicates and pulls the car into Friday night traffic.
“You look beautiful,” he says carefully, keeping his eyes on the road. None of the relaxed familiarity that’s been growing slowly over the last few weeks currently harbours space between us.
In fact, there’s a sharp edge to his presence tonight.
“Thanks. You look good, too.” Of course he does. In his black tailored suit and stylishly ruffled hair, he looks like a dark god that’s ready to sit back on his throne and order the mere peasants beneath him to do his bidding.
“What’s this event for again?”
“The Law Awards. Sorry, it will probably be quite boring,” he says, oddly not sounding very sorry at all. I don’t think I could ever be bored in Zayn’s presence, not that I tell him that.
Melbourne slowly passes by outside my window as an unfamiliar song plays softly through the speakers.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask after the silence between us becomes a bit too much.
Zayn’s gaze flickers to mine for a brief moment before returning to the road. “You don’t need permission, Gianna. Ask me whatever you want.”
“Why did you come back?” My heart stutters as the words fall from my lips.
I don’t know why I chose this moment to ask him again, but he doesn’t answer, and from the blank mask that’s dropped into place on his face, I think it’s safe to assume there won’t be one. We sit awkwardly in silence for a moment.
“You said I could ask anything.”
“I didn’t say I would answer.” He sniffs and rolls out his shoulder like he’s physically brushing something off himself.
“What happened to your mum after you left?” I’ve been wanting to ask Zayn about his mum for weeks now. He hasn’t brought her up once.
“She died of an overdose a few months later.” A cold edge creeps into his voice. “I never saw her again.”
Even though Zayn had a complicated relationship with his mum, and I had a few choice words to say about her too, I feel a stab of sorrow.
More so for Zayn, who always craved love and attention from the woman who constantly put illicit substances andother men before him. I had hoped over the years that maybe she had gotten clean and mended some of the hurt between them, and I’m saddened to hear Zayn never got that.
I know Zayn doesn’t want to talk about his mum. He didn’t back then, either. But also like then, I need some answers.
“Did you speak to her after you left?”
“You say ‘left’ like it was my choice to be upended from my life here and sent to live with another incompetent parent. I didn’t justleaveto go on a holiday. Or because I had some amazing fucking opportunity I didn’t want to miss out on. I wasmovedbecause my mum wasn’t capable of caring for me. Not that she was before that, either, which you very well know.” His knuckles turn whiter at his outburst, and he grips the steering wheel like he’s trying to strangle it. Another reminder that deep down, my tortured boy still lives inside this new, polished, put-together version of Zayn. “But to answer your question, no, I never spoke to her again.”
My heart lurches as it always does when I think about Zayn being yanked from my life without warning. The feeling hasn’t gotten any less harrowing over the years. “That’s not what I meant. I know it wasn’t your choice to leave.”
“Do you? Because I feel like I’ve been punished for it every day since.”
“Not by me.”
“Especially by you.”
