ocean sequence: running on my mind boy, forrest gump (3/3)
--
(in the gospel of john, jesus went unto the mount of olives, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them).
niall takes zayn to the airport, walks him through the terminal, up ‘til the walkway of the jet. it’s horan property and zayn tries to thank him for the ride but whenever he does, niall just snaps ‘shut the fuck up, malik’ so he does.
“your dad and i will talk to the school. we’ll get you on the graduation list. i’ve got a suite for you in the hotel…stay as long as you like, yeah? don’t forget to call or write once in a while, you twat.”
“thanks, nialler.”
“shut the fuck up, malik.” niall lifts his cap to ruffle through a shag of freshly dyed blonde hair. his mouth is twisted in annoyance but his wide blue eyes are burning with affection.
zayn starts, nervously, “niall, i - ”
(and the scribes brought unto him an adulterer and they say ‘the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?’).
“please watch over him. i know you will. i - i never wanted to hurt him. or you.”
niall watches zayn wring his hands, blinking blankly. then he’s yanking zayn hard towards him, throwing his tough, wiry arms around zayn’s shoulders and swearing into the crook of zayn’s neck, “christ, zayn.”
(jesus lifted up himself, and said unto them, ‘he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone’).
“now, you listen to me, you don’t worry about me or liam or anyone.” niall whispers fiercely, hands on zayn’s face and eyes blue and bright like the sea, “nobody can save you but yourself - and you’re worth saving, zayn. it’s not a war easily won but if anything is worth winning, this is it.”
(and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, and jesus was left alone).
“don’t let the world’s dirt and dust find ways to live under your skin.” and niall presses his mouth into zayn hair. “you don’t owe anyone anything.” and niall’s spine is straight and flat and zayn knows it’s pure fire and resilience beneath. “learn to let go.”
and niall’s voice bleeds strength over the starting hum of the engine, his eyes are surprisingly soft like warm crinkled linens, “i hope you don’t come back. there’s nothing left for you here but memories and tragedy and i hope you’ll realize this.”
he kisses zayn one last time before shoving him towards the steps, “go.”
(and jesus said: go, and sin no more).
--
ibiza is hot.
it’s blue everywhere, the food is sweet, and the people are…happy. zayn experiences none of this the first week, holed up in his room with the curtains drawn, shuddering his way through withdrawal.
the second week, he ventures out; draws, drinks, and smokes an obscene amount.
the third week, he lights up louis tomlinson’s french cigarette by the pier and louis returns the favor by asking zayn to move in with him.
and that was that.
--
louis is all golden skin, crinkly eyes, and bronze sculpted hair. louis is ambition wrapped up in fame and youth and no boy has ever reminded zayn more of liam.
and what it is, zayn thinks, is companionable loneliness. being with each other didn’t stop the loneliness, just that they could be alone together.
living with louis is surprisingly easy and peaceful. he spends most of his time writing. on a typical day, he’s up in the morning before zayn, punching at his typewriter with a cigarette between his lips, chirping, “oh, there’s sleeping beauty.”
louis is pretty and flirty and so incredibly annoying that zayn has actually volunteered to run errands. then in the afternoon, zayn goes out to sketch, louis continues to write, then at night, louis makes supper and it’s good. louis preens secretly but covers it with sharp banter, “i’m convinced martha stewart stole this recipe from me. reckon i’d sue, be as rich as niall, - ”
zayn’s grin is rueful because he recognizes that biting insecurity.
after dinner, louis might make a few calls or put on some tunes or water his garden. zayn sketches more in the back porch, chain-smokes, and pretends like the gap in his chest could be filled. once or twice, he gets the shakes while he’s out and louis carries him back into his room, hands him an aspirin, sets a glass of water on the table and tells him, “one day at a time.”
over the course of the week, they slip into a comfortable groove. they go out for gelato or martinis; there’s a nice place down by the beach with a handsome bartender. one night, zayn got blackout drunk and woke up with frosted tips and swore he’d never drink with louis again. some days they just hang around the house - louis shows zayn his collection of antique typewriters (“wow, you’re even more cracked up than i am”) and louis cracks a blonde joke or two.
he could swear they’re having fun, but louis never asks ‘are you happy here?’
they’re both too haunted for that. too guilt-ridden, full of sorrow, and incomplete to really know what happiness could be when they’re missing vital organs.
zayn wakes up once, pulled from sleep by a light, repeated nudge against his ankle. notoriously bad at regaining consciousness, he groggily grunts, “hm-mm?”
“you don’t sleep naked, do you?” comes a quiet voice at the end of the bed.
“what?” it’s dark outside, which means it must still be some ungodly hour. he can barely make out the figure but it’s slender and glows with a faint tan.
“what. are. you. wearing.” the intruder persists, throwing the words at zayn’s lagging comprehension.
zayn scrubs his hand over his face, bewildered. he shifts beneath the sheets, feeling the cotton light on his skin, “i don’t - um, not much…i don’t think. i’ve got m’boxers, i think.”
an exasperated noise of annoyance. okay then, so it’s louis. he’s standing with his hands on his hip, “but you are wearing something, yes?”
“yeah. louis? is - is something wrong?”
“no.” louis deflects briskly, walking over to the vacant side of the side. he flips over a corner of the blanket and slips in beside zayn. “just go back to sleep.”
zayn is still clouded with sleep, wondering aloud, “what’s going on?”
“nothing. i’m just a hallucination from your heroin withdrawal.” louis snaps but he sounds very tired.
“oh.” he lets his head drop back onto the pillow. “that would explain it.” and closes his eyes again. next to him, the bed rustles and dips, then there’s a brief warmth of skin brushing past his calf that confirms to zayn this is definitely not a hallucination but zayn understands so he doesn’t call louis out on it.
in the morning, he wakes up to the sound of typing. there’s a fresh cup of tea on the breakfast table and louis greets him, bathed in sunlight, without looking, “you snore.”
zayn knows there’s a leviathan gap between adoration and acceptance. he did fuck louis’s one great love. he isn’t stupid or naïve enough to think louis’s forgotten that.
so louis never asks ‘are you happy here?’
he’s here; what more does he require.
--
how to fill the spaces where love used to live:
sit yourself in front of the mirror - stay there until you memorize your own eyes, dark and grieving and framed with lashes. memorize them the way you once memorized his.
have faith in the simple human matters. think not of the sun rising or the raining falling. but trust that the post will make it, that the streetlights will be lit, that the waiter remembers ‘no tomatoes’.
take up meditation. clear your mind, sit lotus style, and breathe slowly. take this time to savor relaxation, contact spiritual guides, build internal energy, receive psychic visions, get closer to god, see past lives, take astral journeys, and develop compassion, love, patience, generosity, and forgiveness.
do not go out dancing.
do not burn old photographs, but put them away carefully.
wash your sheets so you smell only of yourself again.
--
“it’s funny.” louis remarks one night after a little too much sangria on the back porch. he hooks his shakespearean chin over zayn’s shoulder, peering down at dreamy arches, gently smudged outlines, sharp corners, but the center in soft focus. “the habits we form…you sleep next to someone for years, and when they’re gone, the bed just feels so…empty. you feel so empty. and suddenly you can’t imagine how you could’ve ever spent all those years before…sleeping alone.”
“louis - ” you’re drunk, is what zayn goes to say.
“ - don’t take that as an invitation, zayn.” louis’s crisp soprano interrupts primly. there’s a quiet calm breeze floating through the air and zayn can feel louis’s bronze fringe tickling the back of his neck and louis’s alcohol flushed cheek resting on the pulse of his neck, “what’s your habit?”
“breathing.” zayn answers, gazing out into the stretching darkness. the ocean looks like velvet after sundown in ibiza, the waves rolling, rested, soothed. all the stars are out tonight, a cocktail of burning supernovas drunk with fire and night.
louis’s voice gets small - zayn knows louis is secretly very sensitive - “how do you do it? how do you let go?”
and zayn laughs because fucking hell like he knows, he’s still struggling himself, drowning his demons beneath the sea, but louis’s eyes are very lost and a hollow sort of blue, like maybe they’re missing pigments of green, so he tries, “first, you convince yourself that you have to, that if you don’t, you’ll die. so then you do and you realize that…you can.”
and yeah, it’s weird, learning how to breathe again. the first couple times, he was sure he couldn’t but then he opened his lungs and gasped deeply and the air tasted fresh and cool. it gets easier from there, just knowing that he can…be…without liam, that maybe some things can be just as simple as breathing.
“that sounds terrifying.” louis behind the façade of money, notoriety, rivieras, is awfully vulnerable.
“yes.” he agrees, butting his temple lightly against louis’s. “this is the world. wonderful and terrible. but don’t be afraid.”
louis goes into his room that night and stays there.
--
how to fill the spaces where love used to live (part two):
adopt a louis. let it adopt you back.
when you are alone and curled into yourself in a bed so deep you’re drowning, stretch yourself wide and breathe fully. inhale oxygen, peace, the cosmos. exhale carbon, malice, the loneliness.
let yourself only see what is in front of you - the ivory beach, the vibrant marketplace, the chipping paint of a ’26 typewriter.
replace desirous lavenders with vivacious peonies.
take cups of tea the way you once took shots - without thought, with abandon, with hope.
eat even though your tongue is made of wool.
shower even though you skin feels raw.
--
everybody has a different cure for heartbreak.
the nutritionist told zayn he should eat more root vegetables, said that if he had more carrots, he would become grounded, rooted, then his head would not keep flying away to where the darkness lives.
(louis objects to the idea. louis hates carrots.)
the psychic told zayn that his heart carried too much weight. for twenty dollars, she’d tell him what to do. he handed her the twenty. she patted his hand, smiling, ‘don’t worry, lovely, you’ll find a nice girl soon’.
(at the bar, a very beautiful lady approaches him. her name is perrie and she has hair like spun-gold. she offers to buy him a drink, he says ‘thanks but no thanks’. she doesn’t really have what he wants.)
the psychotherapist told zayn he should spend an hour a day sitting in a dark space with his ears plugged - conquer his fears.
(he tries that once but he can’t stop thinking about how strange it is to be hiding in a closet so he comes out.)
the yogi told zayn to stretch everything but the truth. focus on the out-breaths. he said everyone finds happiness when they care more about what they can give than what they get.
(he phones tricia, and for the first time in a long time, he calls her ‘mum’, and he stays on the line while she cries.)
the pharmacist told zayn paroxetine, sertraline, xanax, prozac.
(he presses it to his lips and thank it for another day he’s here before swallowing it with crisp cold water.)
zayn doesn’t deny that he has bad days, that he’ll catch glimpses of neon soles of a passing runner or a flash of dark curls and have to smoke until his hands stop smoking.
and yes, there are times when he will want to call him - liam - he’s been practicing saying his name in the recess of his mind. he will go as far as holding the phone in his hand. he imagines telling him - liam - the unimaginable things like ‘you live in the space between my heartbeats’ and ‘i dream of you more often than i don’t’ and ‘my body is a dead language and you pronounce each word perfectly’.
but he won’t.
he’ll call his niall or his baba, then he’ll go to the cinema by himself (sometimes action, but mostly foreign), sit until he’s immersed in another world. he still smokes like a chimney, but he does a pack a day, then he’ll go to the coffee shop and read the post (sometimes economics, but mostly entertainment) until his problems seems less significant.
today, he’s taking a long walk on the beach. it’s hotter than most days but zayn doesn’t mind it. he finds a quiet spot down towards the villas and plants his feet in the sparkling water, feeling the sand slipping and sliding between his toes with the tug of the wave.
he pulls off his straw hat, turns his face towards the sun, and breathes. he can feel his heart pulsing, corroded but still sturdy, and the air is smooth going into his lungs, his sides expanding, every rib moving to accommodate the stretch; his body adjusting to his mind.
he smiles and the ink on his skin sings.
everybody has a different cure for heartbreak, but zayn has discovered you only need to know one thing and that is: incredible change happens in life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.
--
how to fill the spaces where love used to live (part three):
switch your cologne for something cleaner, that doesn’t remind you of sex and him.
wade into the sea, say ‘thank you’ to the sun for the light and ‘thank you’ to the moon for the current.
call your mother. call her ‘mum’ - let her voice cover yours. listen to what she has to say, the apologies she has to make, even if that doesn’t always make things right.
your chest is going to ache and you’ll attribute it to the weather.
your sheets are always cold, but remember that in the middle of the night, you overheat and that gives you nightmares.
drink more water, because you always tell yourself to anyway. tell yourself that it will fix everything. don’t be sad when it doesn’t.
learn that there are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes wide open (such as ‘honey-colored skin’, ‘long legs’, ‘freckled shoulder’, ‘blinding smile’, ‘sweet eyes’); and the other you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a ghost in natural colors (‘big, bright mouth’ and ‘fresh face’ and ‘green’).
remember not to forget either; do remember to forgive.
--
“i ran into that darling girl at the market. the one you wouldn’t give the time of day to. what’s her name?” louis is unpacking the groceries in the kitchenette. his voice is airy and travels like bells as always.
zayn is shading in a corner on his sketchpad, “perrie.”
“perrie, right. what a sweetheart. was short a fiver and she swooped right in. saved me quite an embarrassment in front of the fruit stand. i gave her some of my apples. anyway, why don’t you go out with her?” louis has a very convoluted, and what he thinks - tactical, way of arriving unceremoniously to a point.
“w - what?” zayn reels, “why? did she say something?”
“no, no. don’t reckon she even remembers me being with you. i was just - ” louis puts down the milk and turns. his eyes are cerulean and pensive, “you’re doing so well, you know. i was just thinking if you’d start…seeing people again. and perrie’s nice. and she’s interested.”
and she’s not liam. it’s not explicitly said but it’s implied. louis is watching zayn’s reaction very intently, for the telltale twitch or stiff spine but zayn hasn’t paused in his sketch, just shrugs, “if it’s meant to be, it will be. there’s a point when fate meets destiny. i think when it happens, you just know.”
zayn can hear louis’s eye roll from where he sits, inside by the back porch, but louis is also smiling looking satisfied, mimicking with mystical hand gestures, “ooh, destiny.” then, “oh fucker, i forgot paprika.” then, “oi ghandi! be a dove and bring us back some paprika.”
it’s zayn’s turn to roll his eyes, strolling over to the door and slipping on his jacket. louis skips out of the kitchen to see him out, grinning impishly with his forget-me-not blue eyes crinkled sweetly, “cheers, darling.”
the spice cart louis insists on is down by the pier about 10 minutes from the house. it’s sunny out today, as it is most days in ibiza, and very breezy. zayn’s just about debating rather or not to light a cigarette when he stops short at the sight of a long, lithe figure leaning against the railing of the shore.
shoulders that can hold up the universe, tanned arms, legs that outran the entire world.
liam.
this is liam - actually liam.
in zayn’s dreams, he thinks he’s painted this image of an idolized statue of liam, composed of perpendicular lines and wide spaces. but liam in real life is much softer. he’s inevitably solid and golden, like the medal he won for great britain, but he’s also 18, hesitant, and shifty. liam is gangly with his lengthy limbs, maneuvering them this way then that. liam scuffing his converse on the concrete. liam smiling nervously and wringing his hands and when he opens his mouth, it’s liam’s voice, deep and tender and worn, “hi.”
zayn’s head is positively spinning.
when he manages to speak, it’s surprisingly steady considering he thinks he just had a mild thrombosis and he totally didn’t take his xanax today, “are you lost?”
liam smiles dotingly. he tilts his head, the light is dizzying on the planes of his cheeks, and zayn’s heart folds like an origami. he answers quietly, “perhaps.”
“i don’t think i can be of much help.” zayn huffs a laugh and tells himself to remember to breath.
“that’s okay.” liam shrugs, stepping closer shyly. “things are sweeter when they’re lost. i know - because once i wanted something and i got it. it was the only thing i ever wanted badly.”
“and?”
“and when i got it, it turned to dust in my hands.”
“i’m sorry.” zayn apologizes.
liam’s brows knit, he shakes his head, “it’s not your fault - ”
“no, liam. it’s not my fault. and it’s taken me a hell lot of time to figure that out. i blamed myself for your ambition and i blamed myself when we failed. all i think of ever is that i love you, but i was miserable, liam. you never did notice… too busy running until…i don’t know how you got so far. from then on, all you did was forget. and all i did was forgive.”
liam looks tortured, gold fading to copper, “you never said - ”
here is the repeated image of lovers destroyed, you asked for it:
“we can say it all we want but they’re just words and we ran out of things to say a long time ago, didn’t we. there’s only so many ways to say ‘i love you, i love you forever’ and ‘right next to you’ when we never believed each other when we said it.” zayn swallows even though his throat feels rough, “so i’m sorry that winning the medal didn’t turn out to be what you had expected. but if you’re here just because what you thought to be your dream collapsed on you, then you’d better go.”
zayn turns away. his eyes are stinging. he concentrates on the harbor, on a small cruising sailboats swinging in the breeze, and reminds himself to open his lungs. in his peripheral, liam is standing with his head bowed, his chest rising and falling slowly.
nothing. zayn had known.
but suddenly, “it’s the twenty-third.”
and it’s like this. there’s a moment where zayn’s mind goes blank and he’s just staring, then like he’s been struck by lightening, it all comes back and it’s every smile and every touch, every kiss and every laugh, and he remembers clear as day, the first time he ever saw liam on a football field when he was 7 years-old and thinking ‘i’m home’.
“i’ve been here for two weeks, zayn. i saw you, that day on the beach, and i wanted to talk to you…but you looked happy…happier than i’ve seen you in a long time with me. i thought about leaving, that maybe we’d be better at loving each other separately.”
liam’s skin is the color of a savage harvest and his mouth is soft like autumn, “but all night i slept and dreamed i was running. there was a mountain road…olympus, maybe…and flowers so beautiful i wanted to pick them all and press them in a book. that way i could keep them - and they wouldn’t change.” liam’s voice cracks and it’s like watching solar flare, “i think you were running with me. i think you’ve always been - running beside me.”
zayn gazes into liam’s eyes and it’s so bright, like he melted an entire sun. and liam’s hand is covering his, calloused and burning, and it’s quiet for twenty-seven heartbeats.
“if the only thing we have to gain in being with each other is each other.” that’s liam pulling him close. “my god, that’s enough.” that’s liam’s forehead pressed against his. “my god, that’s plenty.”
but it’s zayn that closes the gap and kisses him, tasting the truth off liam’s tongue.
my god, that is so so much light to give.
--
(in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth).
zayn malik doesn’t believe in heaven, but if he did, he would think he was there.
“if i believed in heaven, i would think we’re there.”
heaven for zayn, then, is life on a cruising sailboat on a clear summer day in the middle of the mediterranean with the heat beating down on the back of his neck and his feet dangling in the water.
(and god said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light).
liam is floating on his back in the crystalline waters, laughing, “what happens when you die if there’s no heaven?”
zayn doesn’t really want to talk about this, but liam is grinning roguishly, so he sighs and grudgingly obliges, “when we’re dead, we’re just dead. we’re dust.”
(god called the dry ground ‘land’, and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’, and god saw it was good).
liam splashes him just for the sake of it. zayn rolls his eyes, sulking back onto the deck. liam follows, climbing up the ladders and zayn watches the waves roll off the rivets of his muscled back, the way the sea stood up and hugged him, as though liam were responsible for keeping it blue.
(so god created mankind in his image, in the image of god he created them).
“that’s too bad. i would miss you, when i’m dust.” liam takes a cup of iced rum and presses it to his face. liam never gets sunburned, zayn speculates it’s because he’s a piece of the nova’s core; liam says spf.
“you can’t miss anyone when you’re dust.” zayn snaps, mood soured.
liam’s by his side in a flash. he kisses zayn’s cheek, his mouth sweet like rum and raspberries and the galaxy. he puts his arms around zayn and liam’s still all wet, zayn squirms but liam doesn’t let go, “tell me what’s wrong.”
“it’s stupid.”
“tell me anyways.”
(the lord god said, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’).
zayn twists in liam’s grasp until they’re face-to-face. liam’s bones feel like arrows beneath his palm and there’s a constellation of freckles on liam’s shoulder. he focuses there, murmuring in a rush, “if there is a heaven, then there’s probably a hell and chances are, that’s where i’m going and i wouldn’t see you again; what would i do without you?”
they’re eighteen and on top of the world and they finally have each other again.
(so the lord god caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh).
liam laughs, but it’s very gentle. he traces zayn’s brow with his thumb before kissing him tenderly, “you’re a part of me, made from me. i think that’s why you always had the ability to stand alone, because you’re complete, whereas i will always be missing you. where you go, i go - i am never without you.”
(zayn is flesh of his flesh; bone of his bone).
“you’re right.” zayn concedes before they kiss on it, searing and strong, zayn’s hands on liam’s hips.
(zayn is called ‘zayn’, for he is taken out of ‘liam’).
then they head down into the bedroom, liam’s mouth slick on zayn’s neck, liam whimpering into zayn’s chest, hands scrambling as zayn rocked slowly into him, and they made love on it.
(and they become one flesh).
“there isn’t any me. i’m you.” liam says much later, when they are back on the deck to watch dusk turn into night, “don’t make up a separate me.”
and zayn malik doesn’t believe in heaven; but he believes in liam.
(they were both naked, and they felt no shame).
--
L.
i have named the planets after us:
mercury (we met sunday on a football field)
venus (we fell in love quickly after that)
mars (we had our first argument about the color of darkness)
jupiter (but we’re gods, remember, and nothing can separate us)
saturn (not the seeds that spouted roses that spouted thorns)
uranus (not heaven and certainly not the angels)
neptune (not that blue ocean we found raging in your heart)
pluto (nor the black night that nearly tore us apart)
Z.
there were evenings, and there were mornings - the eleventh year.