Stars Leave Black Holes Behind [HS]

4

"I'm off."

"Kay."

"See you later."

"Mhmm."

The door slammed. She sighed.

She didn't really know what Zayn was doing. What they were doing. They were good friends, yeah, maybe even best friends- the only friend she had.

But sometimes Valerie absolutely fucking despised his existence. Resented him just because his eyes weren't green and his hair wasn't curly. Hated him sometimes. Often, actually. And sometimes, often, he did too. When he was writing, sometimes he looked up to where Valerie was perched and stared at her with tears in his eyes.

And he would say, "I don't love you."

And Val would smile, probably cry as well, and say, "I don't love you either."

It was just that they never satisfied each other. Zayn was not Harry. And Valerie was not Elizabeth. She was too hard, too cold, too blue eyes, too brown hair. And Zayn was too angry, too feeling, too bitter, too sad.

They were completely incompatible- and maybe that's what lead them to each other, why they both stuck around. Because Zayn and Val were never going to really happen, never going to fall in love, never going to break each other's hearts. There was no risk of falling fast and crumbling hard.

It was a use-use friendship. But a friendship all the same. And Valerie liked Zayn despite her resentment. And Zayn liked Valerie despite his.

But sometimes, like now, Valerie really couldn't understand what it was they were truly getting out of it. Company. Yes. Company. But Valerie didn't always like it. Often she wanted to tell him to fuck off out of her house, their house, wanted to scream YOU ARE NOT HIM, wanted to scream and scream until brown turned green and he started shining like a star. She often had to swallow the urges, had to bite her lip so hard it bled.

Sighing again, Val walked to the fridge and opened it. All she saw was fucking fruit - so many oranges and bananas and apples that it made her eyes blur.

She had to close her eyes.

Zayn bought all the food - she probably wouldn't eat anything otherwise - and he knew about Valerie's hatred for fruit. He didn't know why, just that she did, so, naturally, that's what he mostly bought in an effort to get her to succumb.

Except she would never, could never, touch fruit again. Especially not fucking strawberries, which Zayn always seemed to insist upon, even in winter, when they were sour and stony.

Her blue eyes opened and locked onto the inevitable box on the second shelf. December was not a strawberry month but it didn't stop Zayn.

She slammed the fridge shut.

***

It had been a few weeks after he left when Val decided to finally just call him. To take a deep breath and temporarily have her shit together, just for a moment, just so she could say hi. She had called him, and he hadn't picked up, and she sort of just fell to pieces right there. Couldn't find enough glue to keep the sharp edges of herself together. And it wasn't melting that she was feeling. No. It was sort of just crumbling. Breaking. Ripping into shreds as she heard nothing but silence and fell to the floor of her kitchen. Their fucking kitchen.

And then there was this sound, tearing through the empty silence, and it was his voice. His magma, velvet voice that ran down Valerie's spine like molasses, sinking into the cracks and cricks of her bones and soothing the throbbing ache in her skull.

But it wasn't Harry. Not properly. It was a voicemail. It was a different voicemail.

"Hi, it's Harry, sorry I can't get to the phone at the moment, I-"

"Harry, when are you-"

"Stop- I'm trying to-"

"Harry!"

And then it was laughter, and then it was silent, and there was a beep and Valerie's breathing, and that was it.

Valerie didn't move from the kitchen for a while after that. She couldn't. Just couldn't feel anything other than that crippling sensation that had wrapped its claws around her throat and was slowly; so fucking slowly, suffocating her.

It was pain. Simple and unadulterated pain. The feeling of something raw. Something destructive.

And there was nothing left after that. Just that soft sound of his voice. And then hers. And then them, together, happy.

Val sort of died on the kitchen floor. Sort of saw her entire world being shattered before her eyes. Saw her beating heart break in two at the sound echoing through her ears.

And afterwards, Valerie had eaten a strawberry and tasted nothing, and she hasn't eaten fruit since.

__

Song: Neptune by Sleeping At Last

"Thread by thread I come apart, if brokenness is a work of art, then surely this must be my masterpiece."