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destiny, that doesn‟t mean it can‟t still work, Zayn. Most people who

fall for each other aren‟t, I don‟t know, their love isn‟t written in the

stars.”

Zayn makes a broken sound that‟s almost a laugh. “Love. That‟s rich.

Love. Romance. All of it. It‟s always been bullshit, and I‟ve been

trying so hard to believe in it, like if I just worked hard enough at it I

could make it come true. Christ.” He‟s flicking his pack back open

again and Louis really doesn‟t know how to play this.

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“That‟s, Zayn, that‟s not true,” he attempts. He‟s not sure what he‟s

saying, not sure how much he even believes it, but it‟s all he can think

to do. “It‟s not all bullshit.”

Zayn pauses with his third cigarette halfway out of the pack “Yeah?”

He puts the pack back down, and Louis hopes this means he‟s said

something halfway right. “You‟re telling me that you believe in love

and romance now? Why?” His mouth twists. “Because of you and

Harry? You want to enlighten me, then, Louis? Because I am fucking

lost, here, so if you two managed to figure something out I‟d love to

hear it.”

Louis doesn‟t say anything.

“Come on, Lou, share the wealth. What did you say when you told him

how you felt about him? It convinced him, whatever it was, so

convince me.” He drops the butt of the second cigarette and grinds it

out with his heel before leaning back against the railing and watching

Louis with crossed arms.

Sometimes, when Louis has fights with Zayn—not that this is a fight,

he thinks, but it‟s starting to feel alarmingly like one—he‟ll have these

moments of suspension in the middle of it all where he‟s suddenly so

aware of how much he doesn‟t want to be having the argument at all,

how much he wishes he could just disengage and they could just go

back to normal and act like it never happened. He feels like that right

now, but it‟s because there‟s nothing he can say to that that won‟t make

things worse, and he knows it.

Louis bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and stares at his bare

feet on the balcony and forces the words out. “Well, er, we haven‟t

strictly speaking—that is, there hasn‟t been one time where anyone has

exactly, uh, told anyone anything.”

Silence.

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It stretches so long that Louis has to glance back up to see what Zayn is

doing, and what he‟s doing is just staring at him, face frozen and

unreadable. Louis takes two steps back.

“What?” he says.

“Louis,” Zayn says, flat. “Tell me you‟re not fucking saying what I

think you‟re saying.”

He reaches for the pack and lights up again, his hands shaking.

“Look, Zayn, it‟s not the end of the world just because we‟ve never sat

down and, I don‟t know, fucking defined what we are,” Louis says. He

feels his back hit the balcony door. “It doesn‟t matter, stop freaking

out.”

Third cigarette hanging from his lips, Zayn just looks at him like he‟s

about to explode. “It doesn‟t matter? Louis, he‟s leaving.”

Louis feels his jaw clench on reflex. Oh, right, like Louis had fucking

forgotten that, thanks so much. “So?”

“So he‟s leaving and you can‟t even tell him that you want him to

stay,” Zayn says, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ,

the two of you have been shagging for what, six months, and you can‟t

even call him your fucking boyfriend. You can‟t even tell him you love

him, which you fucking do—” Louis flinches but Zayn doesn‟t even

pause “—but you want to look at me and hold up the two of you as

evidence for why love is real? You‟ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Fuck, Louis, if anything, the two of you are better evidence for us all

being fucking doomed.”

Louis feels like his blood his buzzing in his fingers and toes, like he‟s

sick to his stomach, like he‟s right on the edge of saying something

he‟ll regret. All he can manage is a tight, “He doesn‟t want to stay.”

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Zayn snorts again, bitter. “And you know this how? Because I‟m

assuming you haven‟t talked about that either.”

“Why would he want to stay?” Louis snaps. He needs something

stronger than wine if he‟s actually being forced to say these things out

loud. The whiskey is only a few steps away, he reminds himself. “He‟s

going to have a brilliant life in London, what would keep him here?”

Zayn looks at him like he‟s as sorry for him as he is angry, which is

just about as much as Louis can take. “You.”

Louis spits out a laugh. “Me. Right. Just look at the wonders I have to

offer him,” he says, gesturing expansively to his flat. “Who wouldn‟t

want a life with a, a failed performer who can barely pay his bills and

has no plans to do a damned thing with his life?” He rubs a hand over

his face. “He‟ll be able to find a newer, shinier model of me in about

thirty seconds, and who the fuck am I to stop him?”

“You don‟t think he gets a say in this?”

“If he wanted a say, he would have had one,” Louis says. “When have

you ever known Harry to not speak up when he gives a damn about

something? He hasn‟t asked about it because he knows what I know,

which is that this, this dalliance or whatever the fuck, has had an

expiration date on it from the beginning. Not everything lasts forever.

It‟s fine.”

Zayn turns away from him and walks to the other side of the balcony,

looking east with his back to Louis. “You two are so fucking stupid, I

swear to God,” he says, and Louis can see how hard he‟s gripping the

railing. “You need to get your shit together—actually, no, I take that

back,” he says, whirling around. “If you‟ve managed take something

this good and fuck it up this badly, then maybe the two of you don‟t

deserve to fix it. If you can‟t manage to fucking talk to each other—”

“Fuck you, Zayn, it‟s not that easy and you know it,” Louis says, and

he‟s vaguely aware that he‟s shouting and that his neighbors will

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complain but right now he doesn‟t give a shit. “You of all people

should know better than to act like it‟s that fucking simple for me.”

“Maybe I would,” Zayn says, throwing up his hands, “except you never

tell me shit, Louis! Yeah, I know that you‟ve got issues and can‟t deal

with commitment or vulnerability, okay, but I‟ve got no clue why! I‟m

supposed to be your best mate, and God, Louis, I fucking try, but it‟s

hard when I don‟t have a goddamn clue what your deal is. I don‟t know

if it was a bad break-up, or a lot of bad break-ups, or if it‟s something

to do with your dad—”

“Don‟t—” Louis snaps. “Talk about shit you don‟t understand.”

“Then don‟t fucking expect me to be able to read your mind, Lou!”

Zayn throws the third butt down into the street below. “For all I know

you‟ve got a great reason for being so fucking cagey, but you won‟t tell

me and that‟s fine, okay, that‟s fine but then you don‟t get to get pissed

at me when I don‟t understand why you do the shit you do.”

“Well then you could at least stop acting like it‟d be so fucking easy for

me to do whatever it is you want me to do,” Louis shouts back. “Just

because you‟re a 24-hour feelings machine—”

“Stop it, Louis, Jesus,” Zayn says, throwing his hands in the air. “I

don‟t give a shit what you say about me, but stop acting like there‟s all

this shit you can‟t do. You can, okay? You could do fucking anything,

all right, I know you and you could do anything but you‟ve decided that

it‟s easier just not to try, and I‟m done pretending it doesn‟t piss me the

fuck off.”

“Well I think the same thing about you and I manage to deal with it just

fine,” Louis says, too full of fury—who the fuck does Zayn think he is,

where does he get off telling Louis what to do when he doesn‟t know

what it would cost him—to think about whether or not what he‟s saying

is a good idea.

Zayn frowns and folds his arms. “What d‟you mean?”

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“I mean that is pisses me off to see you waiting around for some guy

when you could have literally anyone,” Louis says, hearing the nasty

note in his own voice and not caring even a little. “And you know it,

too, you know how many people want you, and you don‟t give a damn

because you‟ve decided that you can only be satisfied with the most

unattainable people possible.”

“It‟s not like I have a fucking choice—” Zayn starts, but Louis cuts him

off.

“Or maybe it‟s that you think being in unrequited love makes you more

interesting, more like one of the characters in the novels you love so

much,” he says, and he sees the look on Zayn‟s face twist but he

doesn‟t even try to stop himself. “And God knows you‟re obsessed

with being fucking interesting and deep and fascinating, since you‟ve

never been sure that you haven‟t just been coasting by on your looks,

which is the biggest pile of bullshit I‟ve ever heard since you‟re

fucking brilliant and would still have a job and a book deal if you were

the goddamn Elephant Man, you complete tosser.”

Not wanting to wait for Zayn‟s response, Louis pulls the balcony door

open roughly and storms back into his flat, going straight for the

kitchen and pulling out a glass.

Zayn follows him in as Louis cracks open the whiskey and pours

himself more than is probably advisable. “You think I want to be

miserable?” he says, bracing his hands against the counter.

“Fucking seems like it,” Louis says as a little bit of whiskey sloshes on

to the counter. His hands are shaking harder than he realised.

“You think I wouldn‟t do anything, fucking anything, Louis,” Zayn

pleads, “to have what you and Harry have? Or what you could have?

Why else do you think I‟m so angry?”

“Because you‟re a nosy bastard,” Louis mutters into his drink. He takes

a long sip, letting it burn all the way down.

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“Because I have tried so, so hard to find something real, and you two

fucking stumbled into it and now you‟re not even trying to hold onto

it,” Zayn says. “I‟ve been working my arse off trying to get someone to

notice me and you can‟t be fucked to tell someone you‟ve been

sleeping with for months that hey, you kind of like them as more than a

friend. And maybe I wouldn‟t mind if it made you happy, but it clearly

doesn‟t, which means I‟ve got to watch my best mate be stupid and

miserable. So excuse me for being a little fucking frustrated.”

Zayn‟s voice has dropped off by the end, down to barely a mumble, and

when Louis looks up, it‟s just Zayn on the other side of his counter,

slight shoulders and sad eyes and Zayn. Louis feels some of the heat

seep out of him.

The thing is that Zayn is his best friend. And sometimes he forgets how

important things like feelings and talking about feelings—things that

Louis abhors—are to him, and he forgets that keeping that from him

probably hurts. And that making fun of him all the time for his

ridiculous obsessions probably does sting a little. Especially since Zayn

is always trying to support him and help him out, after his own

incredibly annoying fashion. All right. All right.

Louis sets his glass down, rubs a hand over his mouth, and lets out a

long exhale through his nose.

“Okay,” he says.

Zayn stares back at him. “Okay what?”

“Okay, I get what you‟re saying,” Louis says. “Or at least I think I do.

But I think that you and I come at relationships from really, really

different places, and I don‟t think it‟s fair for you to put your own shit

on the way I am with Harry. It‟s not the same, and I think you know

that.”

Louis takes Zayn‟s slight incline of the head as permission to continue.

“And it frustrates me to see you so hung up on some guy when it all

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comes so easily to you, so I don‟t have much sympathy for you. It‟s

hard for me to understand that intense commitment to someone you‟re

not actually with, because I don‟t see how it could end well. But that‟s

me putting my shit on you. And I guess maybe that‟s not fair either.”

Zayn is silent for a moment, thumbing the edge of the counter. “I didn‟t

mean to make you feel worse about it,” he says finally. “You and

Harry, I mean. It just drives me mad. You‟re my best friend, all right? I

want you to be happy.”

Louis feels personally betrayed by the lump that catches in his throat at

that. “I know.”

“And I want you to tell me things,” Zayn goes on, looking back up at

Louis. “We‟ve been friends for ages and there‟s still so much you

haven‟t told me, and I‟ve always tried to make you feel like I was

somebody you could talk to about that shit, and it kind of sucks,