London Calling

Zayn was walking through the vast Winnipeg airport when he was yanked by the collar into a fast food line. He looked at who had pulled him and instantly relaxed when he saw Jonathan looking at the menu that hung from the ceiling. Zayn had been worried about how he would find Jonathan in the airport. It was a big area to cover when you were just one person and he had a feeling that the longer he took looking for Jonathan, the more time someone had for recognizing him. He had been walking fast through the crowds of people while trying to keep his head down and look for Jon. It had been a difficult task. He hadn’t even thought about calling Jon because that would’ve been too easy. “Do you want anything?”

“No, I ate on the plane, thanks for being subtle,” Zayn replied referring to Jonathan not yelling his name across the airport so he didn’t get harassed by fans.

Jonathan shrugged, “I’m a hometown hero here. It’s better for you and me both if we are discrete.”

Zayn nodded in response as Jonathan ordered and stayed quiet by his side while they were waiting to receive his food. Jonathan grabbed the bag out of the workers hands with a smile and a thank you before taking it and walking to the direction of the exit. Zayn immediately followed, rolling his own carry on along. Jonathan hailed a taxi and they loaded their stuff into the back of the yellow car. They got in on either side and the cab drove them to Jonathan’s address. Again they were silent for the ride, only sharing pleasantries with the cab driver.

They pulled into Jonathan’s driveway and Zayn was surprised by how modest it was. It was apparent to him that Jonathan had done well for himself by being able to help put his sister through school. He thought the young captain would’ve splurged a little on his home. They carried their bags into the single story home. It was smaller than Zayn imagined he would get. It was neatly furnished and cleaned. It was stuffy from not being used and hot in the spring heat. Zayn followed Jon from the kitchen and into a hallway. He pointed to a closed door, “Bathroom.” He pointed to a door directly across the hall and informed him, “Guest room.” They walked to the next set of doors. He pointed to the right, “My room.” He pointed to the next room to the left, “Jen’s room.”

The boys unpacked and did their own thing for a while, both sensing the other needed to think about what was going to happen in the early hours of the morning. They were both deeply concerned for Jen. Zayn couldn’t stay still. When Jonathan went out for a run, Zayn took his sketch book from his bag and began to sketch the only thing that had been on his mind. He closed his eyes for a few moments and recalled his favorite memory of her.

They had been at the restaurant trying to get to know each other. She was dressed in light jeans and a purple cardigan with a matching tank top underneath. On her feet were black TOMS with white skulls on them. Her hair was messily gathered on the top of her head and her glasses adorned her face. He wanted to say that she looked like a sexy librarian, but the skull shoes would beg to differ. She was shy, but she was also feisty when the time called for it. This was the best look Jen had. The one when she woke up and didn’t give a shit what she went to school in, she just wanted to be comfy. She wore jeans that were as soft as sweatpants and a slightly oversized shirt. She rarely ever had her hair down because she thought it was too much effort to keep it nice when it was down. She usually favored her contacts, but she had days where she just wanted to rock her black frames.

He spent the most time drawing her eyes. Those were what he needed to get right. They could be so expressive with someone she trusted. Her eyes easily gave away what she was feeling, but to someone she didn’t know, she shut off her emotions. Her eyes that could be so expressive were completely void of emotion. It was one of the reasons Zayn had found it so hard to read her sometimes. He loved her eyes; it was his favorite feature of hers. She always said that her eyes were the color of poo, matched her hair color, and were just generally dull. He always agreed to disagree with these statements because he loved looking into her eyes. He could always tell when she was truly happy by the gleam in them at that moment.

On his paper he tried to recreate that gleam. He spent an unknown amount of time on them to make sure they could do the real thing a little bit of justice. The next thing he spent the most time on was her lips. He didn’t know whether it was because he kept getting distracted by thoughts of kissing those very lips or if he needed to make them as perfect as her eyes. They were also the hardest for him to draw. He took out his worry of never being able to be with his girlfriend again. It was dramatic to think about, but she was in some real danger. She had survived and encounter with this psycho once, who knew if she could get that lucky again. After he was happy with her eyes and mouth, he filled out the rest of her wavy hair and quickly finished the drawing.

He looked up and noticed a freshly showered and dressed Jonathan leaning against the door jam with a smirk on his face. Zayn shut his sketchbook embarrassed but he knew that Jonathan saw his picture of his sister. Zayn didn’t like to toot his own horn, but he had spent a lot of time on that drawing, a glance at his watch told him hours had passed. There was no way that Jen’s own brother could mistake his laborious efforts to capture his sister’s beauty with his pencil. “How long have you been standing there?” Zayn asked self consciously. He really didn’t like it when people watched him draw. Like Jen, it felt as if he was bearing his soul to someone when they saw him draw.

That’s what drew him to Jen in the first place. Somehow they had sensed each other had an artistic soul. Their passion for their works of art forged a bond that had been easy to make and hard to break. They both know how important to each other their art was and knew how trusted they had to be by the other to be shown that art. Zayn guarded Jen’s notebooks like they were his life force and spent hours at a time reading her words. He couldn’t believe she had the ability to string words together to make such a beautiful image. In her own way, Jen drew as well only she used words to paint the picture. She had an incredible talent of getting a solid and tangible picture into the reader’s minds to create a perfect scene. She was the words to everything he had ever tried to draw. She had beautiful words to match his beautiful scenes. They were two sides of the same coin that hopefully would never be parted from each other.

Zayn jumped and hurriedly closed his sketchbook when he heard Jonathan’s voice from the doorway, “Come on Monet, let’s go get something to eat so we can come back and get some sleep before we go out on our adventure.” He got up and replaced his book and pencil in his bag before following Jonathan to his truck. Jonathan drove them to a small diner not too far from his house. The pair took a booth in the back and almost immediately an elder lady dressed in a pink waitress uniform came up to them. Her hair was dyed bright red and it matched perfectly with her bright red lipstick.

“Jonathan Toews!” she said in a chiding tone, “Did you leave your sister in Chicago? Shame on you!”

Jonathan grinned while putting both hands up in surrender, “She’s with our parents and she doesn’t know her boyfriend and I came in early to see my family,” he informed her as she gave Zayn a menu. “I’ll have the usual dinner Mrs. Smith.”

She nodded and wrote his order down and looked up at him with a sympathetic smile, “The day has come to let her spread her wings hasn’t it Jonny?”

Jonathan nodded and replied, “Too soon, too soon.”

Mrs. Smith then turned to Zayn with her steely gray gaze. Though she aged and couldn’t move as fast as she could when she had been younger, her eyes remained undoubtedly stayed as sharp as ever throughout the years. Her critical eyes took in Zayn’s blue jeans and white muscle shirt. Her eyes raked over his olive skin and various tattoos. She looked like a mother examining her daughter’s boyfriend and it made slightly uncomfortable. This woman clearly knew the Toews family and seemed to be important to at least Jonathan, so he wanted to make a good impression. When she finished her examination, she turned back to Jonathan with a raised brow, “Not quite what you were expecting eh?”

Jonathan shook his head in the negative but stayed silent as Mrs. Smith turned back to Zayn. “What do you do boy?”

“I’m in a band,” he replied immediately. He knew that the interrogation had started and he was determined to do as well as possible in order to get this woman to like him.

“What are your intentions with Jennifer?”

Zayn didn’t know what to say. He could always go with the standard, ‘she means a lot to me and I just want her to be happy.’ But he knew that wasn’t the truth. Zayn never wanted to give her up. He wanted her by his side for however long he lived. He never wanted to find out what it was like without her in his life because she was such an integral part of it now. She gave him confidence to be himself, knowing that someone appreciated the artist in him before the singer. He loved that he and Jen had so many things in common. They were a package deal and Zayn was selfish and intended to keep it that way. No one else would be good enough or ever compare to her. He used to laugh when people told him they had found their soul mate at such a young age, but now the joke was on him because he had indeed found his soul mate at twenty one years of age. “I love her,” he shrugged and stated simply. That was the only feasible answer he could give. His happiness was hers and vice versa. They hadn’t said I love you to each other, but somehow they both knew it was true.

A small smile graced the elder lady’s lips as she voiced her threat, “If you break her, I break you. Do you understand me boy? She has had too much pain in her life already and she doesn’t deserve anything but the best.” Zayn quickly nodded. She closed her small notebook with a nod and put it into her white apron. “Good. Now I have to get some meat on your bones. I’ll be back with your meals.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow as Jonathan chuckled. Mrs. Smith had walked away already. “That is my parents’ neighbor. She’s seen all of us grow up. She doesn’t know what happened to Jen, but she has this sense about her to pick up on what another person’s feeling. She knew Jen had been struggling emotionally for a while. She was the one that actually gave me the idea to take her to Chicago with me.”

“She seems…nice,” Zayn tried.

Jonathan laughed again, “She likes you don’t worry. If she didn’t you wouldn’t be sitting here in perfect health. She may be old, but she has some moves. She taught my sister self defense before she went to London. It was a sight let me tell you. I have never laughed so hard than seeing an old lady put my brother on his ass.”

Zayn laughed and prompted Jonathan to tell him more about his family. He had heard a lot about them from Jen, but now he wanted to see her through someone else’s eyes. Jonathan immediately launched into their life stories. He told stories about her when she was a kid, some embarrassing that he had to swear to keep to himself and some completely adorable that melted his heart. Jonathan told him how hard it had been moving away from her and David when he attended Shattuck Saint Mary High School in the states to play hockey and how great it was when they would come and visit. He was four years older than her, but it didn’t matter to them. They had gotten along and were the closest of siblings. Like Zayn, Jonathan found her incredibly annoying at times, but he wouldn’t change her for anything.

They barely noticed when they received their dinners; they were so immersed in conversation. In payment for his stories, Zayn told his own about his younger sisters. Jonathan was greatly amused when Zayn retold a story where Safaa had chased him around the house with nail polish demanding to paint his nails when he got home from his first tour. He told of the time he tried to teach Waliya how to skateboard. He had been on the receiving end of many girl talks from Doniya.
Zayn found it incredibly easy to talk to Jonathan, especially about his worries that his family was suffering at the expense of his fame and career. Jonathan understood where he was coming from; though he wasn’t as famous, Jonathan still found that his sister received criticism for depending on him. He knew she could easily move out and find a job to take care of herself. She was perfectly capable; they just preferred to live together. They were both intense in following their dreams and needed the other there to remind them to take a break every once and a while. The family had gone to great lengths to keep Jen’s incident out of the media. They had taken a settlement with Doran in order to do so and he had received a lesser sentence because of that. Not that it mattered since he escaped. For the most part no one outside the police and hospital had known the incident occurred and the Toews family was extremely grateful for this. It helped that Jen had been a minor at the time and the media had rules about releasing minor’s names when a crime was involved.

Zayn told him about the time that bullies took to Twitter in order to spread a rumor that his youngest sister had cancer. He also shared that they had said that he and his oldest sister had different fathers. This had hurt their family deeply because they were all close and Zayn knew that his parents were so in love that it pained them to even think of the other cheating on them. He confided in Jonathan that he sometimes wished he could go back to being a regular person on the street to save his family from hearing bad things said about them. He loved the music and he loved the other boys like brothers, but sometimes the fame was too much for him to bear. He had a great price to pay in order to follow his dreams and he was glad he had someone else other than the boys to talk to about it. Jonathan had to move away from his family at a young age in order to pursue his NHL dream and even now he only got to see his family a few times in the year like Zayn because of his touring. The two bonded over how lonely it could be and how their band mates and teammates respectively had become like a second family.

It was getting late when the boys realized the time passing and the hurriedly downed their food and drinks. Jonathan went up to the register to pay Mrs. Smith and give her a tip. He also asked if she needed a lift home, but she said that his father was coming to get her at the end of her shift. Jonathan asked her to keep his presence in Winnipeg silent so he could surprise his family the following day and she easily agreed. With a red lipstick stain in place on his cheek, Jonathan led the way back to his truck. After rubbing off the lipstick, he drove them back to his house and they went their separate ways to get a few hours of sleep.

Zayn couldn’t sleep. He was just so worried about where Jen was and what she was doing. He wondered if she was calm or if she was on the verge of freaking out. He was mad that she hadn’t told him what was going on, but he was glad he had figured it out so he could be there for her. He knew she just wanted him to be safe and it angered him that she would act so reckless in order to preserve his life. He didn’t give a flying fuck who this Doran guy was, he knew they would’ve found a way to handle it together. Jen didn’t have to go through this alone, it wasn’t admirable, it was stupid. Zayn had a bad feeling about it and he found himself thinking that Jen might be doing this in order for her to be able to die and not suffer through life anymore.

It made sense to him if she thought that. He didn’t know how anyone could cope with the loss of a child let alone someone so young. Sure it was terrible that she had been a rape victim, but it was every parent’s fear to die before their children and Jen hadn’t even gotten a glance at her baby boy before he passed. He supposed that was something that would bother any expectant mother. Their thoughts would be full of what their child would look like, what they would want to be when they would grow up, and what kind of person they would become. It was scary to have a first child, but it also could be a very exciting time. He could imagine what a good mother Jen would be and how excited Jonathan had said she was when she began to show. She had loved her baby from the start and she had suffered the loss of him too early in life and that would always leave a scar on her heart that would haunt her daily.

She avoided young children like the plague and Zayn knew it was probably because she hadn’t been able to see her child grow up. He knew she couldn’t help but think what he would be like and how he would look. She would wonder if he would be brainy or a jock like his uncles. She had only told him the baby’s name once and that was when she opened up to him about the whole event. Even just saying the name Timothy Christian caused her to sob uncontrollably. He would’ve been hope for his mom and all she got was more pain. She had lived so long thinking that people were just out to get her. He doubted she had ever had a moment’s peace since then and he knew it must be painful for her to think about her past. Everyone said to forget the past and look to the future, but it was hard when the past was so terrible. Perhaps she finally had a chance to be with her son in the afterlife. He understood, but that didn’t mean he would let it come to pass or think that it was the best choice. She was his world now and he would never stop trying to prove that her future was going to be bright and full of love. He understood her pain and he would mourn with her when the time called for it, but he would also prove that she could have a happy future with him and maybe a family with children that wouldn’t replace the one she lost, but would fill her heart until she died from a long and healthy life.

When he saw it was four o’clock on the digital clock laminating a small space in blue, he got up and dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a jumper. He put his sneakers on his feet with socks. He made his way to Jonathan’s room to see the older man put on a t-shirt with his sweat pants. Jonathan gave Zayn what was supposed to be a smile but turned out to be more of a grimace. They made their way to the truck and Jonathan drove them to the designated place. They parked along the street in the main area of Winnipeg across the street from a club called Ivy. He followed Jonathan’s gaze to a dimly lit alleyway. His breath caught as he imagined a younger version of Jen trying to fight for her life in the dirty alley with only a lone streetlight to help her see her attacker. He had felt sad for her before, but now he was just pissed. He was ready to come to her aid this time and beat the shit out of the man that broke her. As the man in charge of making sure she healed, he would make sure to eliminate the cause of the hurt. He knew he and Jonathan could take this guy because they had the sheer force of love and anger driving them. Doran didn’t stand a chance.

As time went by, Zayn became more anxious. He could stop from wringing his hands together and his knee from bouncing as he looked from the clock on the dashboard to the alley. His heart was pounding in his chest in anticipation. As the minutes passed, Zayn’s sinking feeling increased. It seemed like they had been waiting for an eternity. Finally at 5:10 a.m. he burst, “Are we sure this is the right place? We should’ve at least seen Jen by now. Where the hell are they?” Zayn’s voiced was rushed and full of worry. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if they didn’t get to her in time. Once again he felt his anger rise up at Jen for keeping this from anyone that could help her. They were going to have a serious talk if they both got out of this alive.

Jonathan growled and hit his steering wheel roughly. He was quite after and Zayn could see the wheels turning in his brain. He was in deep thought as he kept vigilance on the alley and by 5:15 he slammed both hands on the wheel and screamed, “FUCK!” His voice was full of complete anguish. He took one last look at the alley before he started the car and sped to another destination. Zayn would have feared for his life if he hadn’t been plagued by worst case scenarios going through his mind. What if they didn’t find her in time?