Sparks

It’s raining in Long Beach. I sit by the glass windows that align the wall, staring at the deserted beach forlornly. I can’t sleep. Three o’clock in the morning was never this sad. I hear the shuffling of feet behind me. Zayn. He’s leaving at six today, the tour moving to a different city. I feel his long, limber arms wrap around my torso, my eyes never leaving the window.

“Good morning,” he breathes out quietly into my ear. I want to respond, I really do, but my mouth just can’t form the words I want to say, so I just keep them shut. He silently moves next to me, and soon, we are a tangle of limbs lying together on the window seat of a beach house.

“What’s wrong?” Zayn asks, and I merely look down at our clasped hands and shake my head.

“Nothing,” I reply, unable to voice my true thoughts and feelings.

“I know you, Limba, and I know when something’s wrong.” He says in that quiet voice I’ve always been in love with. I guess I can’t hide anything from him.

“You’ve been pushing me away,” I reply in a small voice, feeling like a child. Zayn puts a finger under my chin and lifts my face.

“What are you talking about, Limba? I’m here, aren’t I?” I don’t want to say my answer, but I’m already in too deep.

“No, Zayn, you’re not.” I say, shaking my head. He looks at me through his eyelashes, and I know I’ve hurt him. “You’re here, Zayn, I know that, but your head is always somewhere else.” I explain. “I don’t even know if you’re listening to me when I talk half the time, and—“ I break off, knowing that my next words will be ones Zayn won’t like to hear, “it’s scaring me,” I finally breathe out after what seems like forever.

“I—I don’t understand,” Zayn mumbles, and I know that he knows what I mean, he’s just afraid.

“I’m losing you, Zayn. And please don’t deny it because it’ll hurt even more, and I don’t think I can handle that,” I say, shaking my head and taking my hands from his, my eyes bright from tears threatening to fall.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, his hands on my cheeks, my expressions exposed for Zayn to see. His thumb lightly goes over the tears that have escaped, leaving salty trails in their place. “You aren’t losing me, and you never will,” Zayn says, but he and I both know that that’s not true. I’ve already lost him, and I tell him that. My heart breaks even more when his face falls, and he accepts the truth.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and that’s all he can say. I sit up and silently climb off the window seat and shuffle over to my room. I look behind before I shut the door, and I see Zayn, still sitting, defeated.



Once the door is shut, I take a few pillows and several blankets and walk out the front door, settling myself on the porch, which is covered by a wooden awning. I curl up and close my eyes, wishing this morning away, even though I know it will never leave me.

I hear the screen door shut, waking me from my temporary slumber. Zayn sits beside me once more, and we are leaning against the wall, not speaking.

“I’ll admit,” Zayn begins in a hushed voice. “You did lose me. But it wasn’t because of you, it was me. I lost myself. I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, and I thought what I had wasn’t enough for me.” I look at him, expressionless, unemotional, but inside, I am screaming and crying, wanting to know why I lost him.

“But then I remembered I had everything. I had great friends, I had fame, I had money, I had you.” And all of a sudden, I’m furiously shaking my head.

“What?” Zayn asks innocently, but not pretending. He really is innocent in all this.

“You had fame? You had money? Is that what really matters to you?” I say, and I can’t help the small fraction of disgust in my voice.

“Well, yeah,” he says confusedly. “But not entirely, no!”

“Zayn, this is what I meant when I said I lost you,” I say, now my turn to feel defeated.

“You still aren’t you, you aren’t the Zayn I met two years ago.” I want to collapse.

“I don’t understand, what are you talking about?” he asks.

“Zayn!” I exclaim, exasperated. “You’ve become so engulfed in money and fame that you don’t even realize what’s truly important! You’ve become so—so greedy, I don’t even recognize you anymore, and it’s a wonder you even recognize yourself when you look in the mirror.” I bite my lip to keep it from shaking. We fall silent. I’ve run out of words to say and I’m just tired.

“No,” Zayn says quietly, incredulously. “I don’t recognize myself anymore.” Before he leaves, he kisses my lips swiftly, then gets up and walks away. I can’t even feel the sparks I first felt when we had our first kiss because they taste bitter, now. Like a crackle, a firework that has been lit, but doesn’t take off into the sky. I don’t let myself cry until I know he’s inside. I get up, abandoning the pillows and the blankets, and walk into the rain, my feet sinking into the damp sand. Once I reach the shore, I fall to my knees and scream. I scream and I emit choked sobs and my face falls to my hands, my tears mixing in with the rain so I cannot tell whether my hands are feeling tears or precipitation.



I don’t know when I fell asleep in the sand, but when I wake up, I am clean, warm, dry, and lying in my bed. Zayn is asleep beside me. When I check the clock on the desk beside me, 10:09 flashes back at me. I turn to the other side and face Zayn. His sleeping figure makes him look so much more vulnerable, and right now, he looks like the Zayn I realized I fell in love with five months ago. I let one tear slip past the walls I’ve put up, but no more than that.

Zayn’s face shows a flicker of emotion, and I am scared that I’ve woken him.

“No,” he mumbles. He then turns so that he’s facing the ceiling. “Don’t go, please, don’t leave me,” he says, this time, a little louder. I realize he’s sleep talking.

“I can’t do this without you,” he says quietly. “I can’t do this without you.” And a tear slips past his closed eye, too. “Limba, please.” His voice sounds strangled. “I don’t think I’ll ever be the same if you leave. Limba Barton!” he gasps, and all of a sudden, he is awake. Through all his sleep talking, I’ve come to realize that Zayn found himself in his sleep. Zayn never changed, he just had a cloud over him. Our conversation earlier was necessary for him to find himself, and I’m glad we had it, because when I scoot closer to Zayn and look into his eyes, they are lighter, brighter. It’s like he has awakened from a bad dream full of greed and chaos and selfishness. He breathes raggedly when he takes my face into his hands once more.

“I’m sorry,” he says, truly meaning it. So I kiss him, and I feel the sparks I first felt, alive and exploding.