Forever Young

Noah was making a racket in the kitchen. The two of us went straight to his apartment after a long day of classes. Since Zayn’s conjecture about Noah’s sexuality, I watched my good-looking friend very closely. I wasn’t completely convinced that he was gay, but I wasn’t completely convinced that he wasn’t either.

He sat down on the couch beside me with a plop. I looked at him, confused; “Where’s the food?”

“What?” His mouth hung open.

“I thought you were making food back there? What was all that noise?”

“Oh,” he smiled, “No. I don’t cook. I was looking for the menu for that new vegan place. Here, you pick what you want. I’ll call in. They do delivery.”

I peered down at the menu and read through the a la carte items but occasionally stole a peek up at Noah. Vegan food? That was so unlike him. He liked burgers, double doubles from In-n-Out to be specific. Slowly, I handed the menu back to him, “Noah?”

He looked at me, “You picked already?”

I shook my head, “Not yet. But, I just need to ask you a question.” He just nodded, so I continued on, “Er, I don’t mean to be blunt, but are you gay?”

Noah’s face dropped, and I wished I hadn’t said anything. He clasped his fists together and looked away. I was about to open my mouth to apologize, but he turned back to me, “How did you know?”

My eyes widened and I gasped, “You really are?”

He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair, “Yeah… It was only recently that I sort of realized that I was gay. I don’t know if that’s the right way to word it, but yeah. How did you know?”

I sort of laughed, “I didn’t know. It was Zayn who figured it out.”

Noah’s body relaxed and he smirked, “Well, you know. It takes one to know one.”

My jaw dropped, “Did you just call my boyfriend gay?”

Laughing, Noah sat down next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, “No, sweetheart. But, if he ever does switch over, tell him to call me.”

- - - - -

Zayn’s hums came through my laptop’s speakers while I lazily doodled away on a random piece of paper. He was back in the UK, which meant we were back to the daily Skype dates. We weren’t really talking; instead we were simply just enjoying each other’s virtual presence. I had reluctantly admitted to him that he was right about Noah, but I left out that tiny detail about how Noah had a major crush on him. He had just smiled smugly.

Sometimes, if I imagined hard enough, I could convince myself that I really was physically with Zayn. All the moments that we shared were engrained in my memory, and whenever I felt a little down, I simply pulled up a memory of us cuddling or of us walking hand in hand. Not to mention, he left me a couple articles of clothing (of course including a varsity jacket) with his scent.

“How are your classes?” Zayn’s voice surprised me.

I shrugged, “They’re alright, I guess. It’s school, and school’s just ugh.”

He nodded understandingly, “Still, I’d give any thing to just go back to school and be normal for at least one day. I had to grow up really fast, you know? Like, I’m not complaining. I couldn’t ask for a better life, but sometimes I wish I could just go out and let loose and not have to worry about what the press has to say the next day. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

I sighed, “Yeah. But, you know babe you can’t be forever young. You made a sacrifice for something better, and that’s okay.”

- - - - -

I whistled when I got out of Noah’s car. We were standing outside of the walls of a pretty ritzy looking apartment building in Santa Monica. Noah had brought me along to check out the new apartment he was moving into. I examined the clean architectural cuts, the palm tree lined driveways, and the clear view of the Pacific Ocean. It was a total upgrade from his last apartment (if you could call it one).

“How are you going to afford this?” I asked Noah.

He bit his lip, “Well, my parents are helping me out a little. I have my job and…” He let his words hang before continuing, “Well, the place has two bedrooms and I was sort of wondering if you wanted to be my roommate?”

I stood there, stunned, “Come again?”

- - - - -

I sat in the middle of my new room with Zayn’s varsity jacket draped over my shoulders, exhausted from a day filled with hauling boxes and pieces of furniture. I hadn’t even bothered to unpack anything; instead I poured all my effort into making sure the Internet connection in my room was stable enough to host me and Zayn’s daily date.

When Zayn’s face flashed up on my screen, I instantly felt so at home in my new surroundings. I took him around on a little tour of my new home, making sure to save the ocean view from the balcony for last. We talked more about nonsense things, made silly faces at each other, and had a staring contest (which I won, but he swears there was some glitch in the Internet connection that made it seem like he blinked when he really hadn’t). As we were saying our goodbyes, Zayn’s eyes lit up.

“What?” I asked him.

He smiled like a little kid, “Please unpack your stuff as quickly as possible. I don’t like sleeping on the floor.”

I pulled my head back and asked again, “What?”

Getting up from his seat, Zayn smiled even wider, “I’ve just decided that I want to visit you. I’m going to go to Heathrow right now and hop on the next flight out to LA. See you in a few, babe!”

With that, he clicked exit and I was left staring at a blank screen.

He couldn’t have been serious. Right?

- - - - -

But he was serious. Approximately twelve hours later, the apartment was unpacked and organized and housed a third body. To say that Noah was excited about our new visitor would be an understatement. He was ecstatic and through the roof about Zayn coming to visit.

“If you two are going to sleep very, very close together – wink, wink – let me know ahead of time. I’ll blast my music as loud as it can go so you can make all the noise you want,” Noah had said to me while Zayn was in the shower.

I would be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind. I never asked him directly if he was a virgin, but I always had a hunch that he no longer had his v-card. I, on the other hand, was still untouched. And, after having a few little debates in my head, I had decided that unless there was a wedding band on my finger, there would be no panty dropping (even though my attraction to Zayn was so strong).

When Zayn came out of the shower, Noah excused himself. When he was out of Zayn’s view, he gave me a wink and did a little hip thrust. My cheeks flushed red and Zayn looked back at Noah, who was scurrying away. He opened his mouth but I shook my head, “Don’t ask.”

He walked over, smiling, and scooped me up into a hug, “Alright, I won’t. I’ll just hold you really, really tightly.”

We stood like that for a while until Noah cleared his throat and jiggled his car keys, “I’m going to do some more furniture shopping since our living room is looking kind of pathetic. So, you two can do whatever the hell you want while I’m gone.”

I gave Noah the hardest stare but he pretended not to notice as he walked out. When I looked back at Zayn, who was smirking at me, “I know what I want to do. I want to release some stress.”

With that, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the bedroom.

- - - - -

Zayn licked the creamy white liquid dripping down my fingers. I don’t know why he had insisted on getting vanilla ice cream in this heat, but he did and now I was a sticky mess. We were walking along the Santa Monica coastline, Zayn’s idea of the perfect stress reliever. He had seen the ocean from the window in my bedroom, and had a desire to explore. I gave in on one condition: we had to ride the roller coaster.

“As long as you’re holding my hand, I’ll be fine,” He had said to me.

As Zayn chomped away on the last bits of the ice cream cone, we filed into a short line of people waiting for their turn on the coaster. He looked up at the height of the roller coaster and gulped, “I probably shouldn’t have eaten ice cream beforehand.”

I patted his back reassuringly, “It’s not even that bad of a ride, Zayn.”

He rolled his eyes, “Sure, Keiko. Whatever you say. This isn’t stress relieving. If anything, this is giving me anxiety.”

But, I wasn’t having anymore of it. The line moved and we got into the coaster. Zayn pulled the bar down and reached to grab my hand, “Sorry in advance if I cut of circulation in your hand.”

We started to creep up the track and Zayn’s grip tightened. I just laughed, “Relax, Malik. I’ve got you.”

The coaster started to pick up speed, and Zayn let out the loudest scream. I didn’t even know he was capable of making such a noise. I couldn’t help myself and I burst out laughing, forgetting that I was zipping through the air on a roller coaster. When the ride was finally over, Zayn staggered out of the coaster. His legs were shaking slightly and his quiff was whipped into different directions, but he survived.

When he came to, he looked at me with wide eyes and yelled, “I survived!” And, then he planted one big kiss on my lips.

- - - - -

The night before Zayn’s flight back to the UK, we sat together and scrolled through the countless paparazzi pictures of the two of us around LA. We were picking pictures that I could print for my picture-memory wall. We didn’t bother to take pictures of our own, knowing full well that the shutterbugs were going to catch every moment of ours.

Zayn pointed to one where his arm was slung over my shoulder as we walked through the LA farmer’s market, “I like that one. Look how bad ass I look.”

I pointed to another one, which was more candid than the others, “Look how derp-y we both look. I like that one.”

Zayn scrunched his nose at me, “Why do you like all the weird ones?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess because they show that we’re normal people. I don’t like when things are too perfect.”

His jaw dropped, “Are you saying I’m not perfect?”

I shoved him playfully, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. But, you’re perfectly imperfect.”

He smiled and nuzzled my neck, “You’re not so bad yourself, Keiko.”