“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at the situation!” He rakes a hand through his hair in frustration, and I feel like mirroring the sentiment. “I want you, Gianna! Everyone can see it but you, apparently.”
At this stage I’m just glad no other guests are lingering in the hallway or desperate for the toilet while Zayn and I have it out in public.
“I can see it, but I’m fucking ignoring it!” I resist the urge to stamp my foot. Just. “I won’t be sucked into a physical relationship with you so that when you’re finished with me you can move on like none of it matters and I’m left in tatters, picking up the pieces of my life again!”
My chest is heaving with a storm of emotions. Anger, frustration, desire, denial, jealousy- and something else entirely I’m not willing to acknowledge- all mixing together like an experiment in a beaker that’s about to go BOOM.
I need to get out of here before that happens.
“Let’s go,” Zayn declares, apparently reading my mind in the way that he does. I don’t argue with him this time, knowing my attempts will be futile, and just follow him to the cloak clerk and then out to the valet, where Zayn’s car is already parked front and centre of the hotel on proud display.
I snort to myself with zero amusement as I slide into the passenger seat. It isn’t until we’re driving back to my apartment that I realise Zayn didn’t even grab his awards before we left.
25
“It’s not true what you said in there,” Zayn breaks the silence between us as he stops at a red light. A group of drunk women cross the street in front of the car while we wait. “I don’t just want you physically.”
I swallow as my heart trips over itself and wrap my coat tighter around me, the frigid air bitingly cold against my face. Zayn notices and turns on the heater before he continues, “You said inside that all my dreams had come true. I told you they had, except the one that counts.”
My heart starts racing to an erratic beat.
“What’s the one that counts?”
I feel his gaze on my cheek. He waits quietly for me to meet his eyes.
“You,” he says softly. “Always.”
Tears spring from nowhere, pricking the back of my eyes.
“I want all of you, Gianna. Every single little thing that you’re willing to give.” His eyes flash with resolution. My pulse quickens. He continues, the red light forgotten. “You are the only one I’ve ever wanted. That will never change.”
My heart goes still. Haven’t I daydreamed about this moment for ten years? The moment Zayn returns to claim me, to claim what we once had? I feel lightheaded; the moment taking on a surreal-like quality.
“But why didn’t you tell me that in the hotel room? Why did you wait this long?”
I know this is the part where I’m supposed to tell him I want him too, because I do, with every fibre of my being, but I have too many questions. Our years apart have changed me, opened up my eyes to the world and the people in it and how stupid I am to blindly trust people. How can I trust my seventeen-year-old judgment? Is Zayn still the same person I fell in love with?
“You didn’t recognise me, Gianna.”
Hiss voice falters as he turns to the road and notices the light’s shifted to green. “Did you expect me to waltz in and declare my love for you when you thought I was some random guy paying to have sex with you?” The vehemence in his voice grazes my skin as he clenches the steering wheel with white knuckles.
“It’s not how I imagined it happening, sure, but I still didn’t think it would take you this long.”
“You imagined it?” He falters as we drive down the busy street, so contrary to his usual stoic self-assuredness. I’m sure Zayn’s going well below the speed-limit, prolonging our arrival to my apartment and the end of our night together. His car hums in protest, as if it wasn’t made to drive so slowly. I will him to drive slower.
“Of course I did,” I admit quietly, twisting my fingers in my lap.
“Even while you were married?”
“Yes.” I focus on the lively night-life happening on the other side of my window. People laughing, walking,completely oblivious to the life-altering conversation taking place inside our car right now. “I never thought it would happen though, if that makes me sound like less of a horrible wife.” I glance back down at my hands. “It became more of an escape towards the end. When things got really bad… I dreamed you would come and rescue me.”
My quiet confession breaks my own heart, remembering how broken I was in my marriage. When I glance up at Zayn, he looks troubled as he glares out at the road.
“I’m sorry I didn’t,” he says, his voice breaking on the last words, “before he-,”
“No,” I cut him off, horrified to realise he’s blaming himself for what happened. “It has nothing to do with you, Zayn. You’re not responsible for my choices, or the actions of anyone else. That’s not what I meant. I meant to say you were my life-line even when you didn’t realise it. Even when I didn’t realise it.”
“If I had come back when I said I would you never would have married him,” he says between clenched teeth as a grimace rips across his face.
