Saying Goodbye

It’s just one day.

One twenty-hour period to get through and then it will be over.

Somehow, this little momento is the only thing that seems to get me through the day. As I lean against the fountain, water wetting my jacket and messing up my hair , I wonder how I got here.

I was supposed to be playing at an all night gig, at some place that looked like it had been fucked up since the Resistance era, but somehow I ended up here, outside of some joint in the city.

As I bring cigarette that was in-between my fingers to my mouth, the only thing that seemed to keep me sane all these years, I look at the people around me.

Some people look at me, wondering if I am the Zayn Malik, and everytime they try to get a look at my face, I turn my head to the right, hiding it under the stars and the night sky.

But, in a place like Paris, darkness seem to be a privilege.

My hand shakes as I bring the cigarette to my mouth again. Instead of getting groupies with my band mates, here I stood looking at hot couples kissing as if love was some fucking fairy tale from one of those movies.

Disgusted, I flick my cancer stick to the ground and put it out with the heel of my shoe, pulling on my fingerless gloves and walking away.

Standing there, looking at all those couples staring at each other, as if they were in some kind of paradise, pissed me off.

Years ago I learned what love was and what it could do to a person. If you put your heart in the wrong hands, it could mean the end of the person you were.

Love is like a disease. It gets on your blood and infects you heart. It eats at a broken soul and seep through non-healed wombs.

Love and me just weren’t allowed together.

I learned that a long time ago when the first and only girl I loved, took my heart and threw it away. Just like every other broken hearted person out there, I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if the person who broke my heart, never did.

I pulled my hood over my hair, getting tired of the way the people were staring at me now and walked down the sidewalk, the smell of open bakery’s filling up the cold night air.

Up ahead I see the Eiffel Tower and music seems to be coming from some little music group from below. A girl dances in the middle of the crowd, moving as if she has the grace of a swan.

Having nothing better to do, I move pass the sweaty bodies of the people around me and make my way within the group.

Through people’s limbs, I see the girl sway to the right, as if she can hear something none of us have the right too, and then she raises one leg in the air while her back arches to the ground.

Her skirt moves around her legs, the light bouncing off the hues and little bells at the end. Her brown hair sways as the clip that once held her hair, falls to the ground, bouncing.

When she comes back up, taking a deep breath and going again, people start to clap.

For some reason, I am mesmerized by this girl. The way she moves, the way she is moving along as if a crowd is not watching her sleazy little display,s ends something through me.

“Excuse me,” I say, pushing by people, wanting to get a better look. I hear something buzzing in my back pocket, probably my friend Harry, telling me that he just got done screwing some girl and now he wanted to get busted ass wasted.

Pulling my jacket closer to my body, I finally make it to the edge of the dispersing crowd and there the girl stood in front of me.

She swings to the right, moving her hips as if she has done this her whole life, and she gracefully glides her hands to the air, rolling them over each other.

Bangles fall down her arm and with her eyes closed, she spins on her toes, her hair wraps around her as she spins and spins, matching the movement and the melody of the song perfectly.

When she stops, she bows, her arms still out. Her hair covers her face and when I think she might be done, she jerks up and brings her arms in the air again and opens her eyes, a smile spreading on her face.

She drops the pose and bows again, and when everyone around me starts to clap, I stand there frozen where I am.

I know who the dancing girl is and now I know why I was so interested in her before. As she walks over to the people who created the music, grabbing a hat off the ground, I watch her go, wondering how, in this moment, everything seems to stop.

People around me start to move, going back to the things they did before the dancing girl put on a show, and instead of following them, I follow the twinkling sound of her bracelets.

I move around people, navigating my way to her as if there is a whole sea between us, and in my heart I know there is.

This is the girl who left my heart broken in a store parking lot, years ago, basically telling me that the six years we were together was nothing more than a dirt on her shoe.

That was love for me.

Her and a broken heart.

Her back is finally into me when I finally get within hearing range. When I hear her laugh, I stop in my tracks. What the hell was I doing? What purpose did I have, looking into the face of a ghost?

A girl who should mean nothing to me?

I shake my head and decide tonight was not the night to visit a past that I would rather keep hidden. I angle my head toward to concrete, determined to get past her unnoticed, but my efforts go noticed.

“Z-Zayn?”

I stop at her voice, the way I used to, and I curse under my breath. I take in a deep breath and when I hear those bells behind me, I turn around and look at her.

How is that after so many years away from a person you cared about, you can see them again for one moment and know everything about them.

I knew by the way she bit her lip that she was nervous. The way she brought her hands behind her back that she was trying to hide the way they were shaking.

And, goddammit, I knew by the way her eyes were looking up at me, those rivers of blue and her,telling me exactly what I didn’t want to know.

That saying goodbye all those years ago meant everything and nothing at this moment.

“Ana,” I breathe out, her name tasting sour on my lips. She smiles shyly at her name, as if she isn’t use to people calling her it anymore. She takes a step forward, but when she sees me tense up, she take two back.

“I never thought — what are you doing here?” Curiosity fills her voice and how is it that I don’t want this.

I don’t want to stand there and act like we were some fucking long lost friends asking about the weather. I wanted to take her face in my hands and feel every crease, every fault, just to make sure she was alive.

I wanted to know her breaking point, I wanted to make her cry, lick up the tears, tell her everything about me that she already knows. My mind can’t handle the craziness that was her, yet my hears demands me to give this a chance.

A chance.

“I have a gig here.” Her eyes brighten up and she weeps that long, brown hair behind a pierced ear. When did she get so many piercings?

“That’s right, you are some big shot pop star now.” She smiles again then looks at her fingers.

“How — how long are you here for?” She whispers to the ground and I look away. My hood to my jacket has somehow fallen off and I run my hands through my hair.

“Just tonight.”

Silence fills the air now as if we both can’t figure out where to go from here. There is so many things I want to ask her, to know the answer to, but this moment does not seem like the time to ask.

I open my mouth, getting ready to ask all those things I wanted to know for so long, but instead I hear the music behind her and my lips only produce one sentence.

“Dance with me.”

Notes