Love is Blind

I pulled my fingers through my hair over and over, until I’d rid it of every tangle the wind had caused. Being back inside my warm building brought all the feeling back to my fingers and toes. I wanted nothing more than to head up the elevator to the top floor, where our apartment was, and not leave until it hit summer again. There was nothing colder than a New York City winter.

As I pressed the call button to bring the elevator down to the lobby, my phone began ringing within my pocket. I didn’t check who it was – when it was a phone call I rarely ever did – and brought my phone straight to my ear.

“Hello,” I said, hopping inside the elevator as the door slid open. I immediately heard the static and knew the call would probably drop soon. It almost always did inside the elevator. All I could think about was the call dropping until I heard the voice on the other end.

“Ava?”

The sound of his voice sent my heart three feet through the floor. It was so low it could have been in the parking lot for all I knew.

“Harry?”

His name felt sour as I spoke it, as if I was speaking the name of Voldemort himself. It felt like it had been years since I’d said it. In reality it hadn’t been long at all, but it still felt wrong just the same.

No other words could fall from my lips. Every thought that I had was stuck somewhere in the back of my mind and each of them were so unwilling to come forward.

Luckily, he spoke before I had to force myself to. I’m not sure if it was because he had something to say, or because I’d been pausing for far too long. Either way, he spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone carrying the softness of his voice. “I must have hit the wrong number.”

“That’s alright.”

The both of us paused again. The conversation was dead – it had died before it had even been brought to life – but neither of us knew what to do next. There were so many things that I wanted to say to him, mostly the things I hadn’t been able to say before.

I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to say words that would hurt him as badly as he hurt me, but I couldn’t.

My father had taught me to hold myself together when things got bad. He said you couldn’t get into business if you couldn’t flash a smile at every prick you met. Being nice got you to the top. So did secretly crushing everyone around you, but that was beside the point.

Taking a deep breath, I let words fall from my lips as naturally as I could. “Harry, I’m in an elevator right now, and my signals going to cut soon. It was nice talking to you though.”

“Same.”

The second he uttered the words, I clicked off my phone. I didn’t want to say goodbye and I didn’t want to hear him say it either. I didn’t know if he had planned on saying more, and now I would never find out. It was better that way, though.

When the elevator hit the floor to my family’s penthouse, I typed in the six digit code that opened the door and stepped into our bright foyer. Every light was on, even though no one was home. My father always refused to turn them on.

As I tossed my keys onto the side table by the door, my phone began buzzing in my pocket again. The second it did, I felt my heart began to race. It had to be Harry again. It just had to.

I hadn’t even answered and my throat already felt raspy. Talking to him once was bad enough, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle it again.

Harry had taken the confident girl that I used to be and shoved her into a place far away from where I was. Hearing his voice only pushed her further away from me, but I couldn’t run forever.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my phone from my pocket. It only had a few more rings before it would go to voicemail, so with one final push I brought it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ava.” The sound of Zayn’s smooth voice filled my ears, pushing the breath right from my lungs. It was the exact opposite of Harry’s, but it still brought on the same feelings. “I’ve got a couple hours free tonight, so I was wondering if you’d like to grab something to eat.”

His voice was sweet and confident, everything I always expected from him. He’d always been that way, but despite the fact that he was so opposite from everything that Harry was, I couldn’t help but feel the same way towards him as I did towards Harry.

The terrible feelings I had attached to Zayn were only heightened by the fact that I’d talked to Harry just moments before.

Zayn hadn’t done any of the terrible things that Harry had. He was trying to be nice to me – something Harry hadn’t done since we’d broken up. He was trying to be my friend.

I knew he didn’t deserve for me to feel terrible things about him. He’d never done anything wrong. But I couldn’t help how I felt.

One day I’d have to put all those feelings behind and form new ones that belonged only to Zayn, but I couldn’t at that moment. I had only just begun speaking to him again and I wasn’t used to it yet. I couldn’t handle it yet.

I would one day, but not yet.

I fabricated a lie – an easy one about spending time with my father before he went away from business – and Zayn accepted it without question. I could practically hear him smiling on the other end, as he made me promise to see him before he and the boys left New York at the end of February.

When I promised that I would, I knew it wasn’t a lie. I would see Zayn again, and when I did, I wouldn’t let a single thought of Harry pass through my mind.