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Zayn was used to making difficult decisions. He was no stranger to putting himself in complicated situations, or, alternatively, being thrown to the fire by forces beyond his control. Life was always kind of a bitch to him but that was not the point, his mind rambled while he walked down the hallway toward his destination. The point was that he should have had this particular decision under control. Only he didn’t. He really didn’t. He was basically shaking as he marched on and his heart was beating so hard it was a miracle it couldn’t be heard echoing on the walls. This University building should feel like home already to him but it still felt foreign and way too big, way too pompous. The tall ceilings, the fancy décor, the huge windows facing the beautiful campus gardens still felt like too much, like part of a world he didn’t belong in.
However, that wasn’t the source of his nerves. The source was the man behind the door he was two steps from reaching. He knew he didn’t have to do this. He knew the chance of something good coming out of what he was about to do were slim, practically null, but he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. Always the drama queen, like his mother used to say. Ugh. He gathered whatever courage he had left and took a moment to fill his lungs with crisp morning air before knocking.
“Come in,” he could hear from the other side. Fuck. That voice made him shiver, made him close his eyes and doubt his resolve, all in a second. Running away like a scared child felt like such a temping option it took all of his strength to actually grab the doorknob and turn it.
Inside the room, standing behind his huge mahogany desk, was Liam Payne. Professor Liam Payne, probably the most brilliant mind to ever grace the University, renowned biochemistry expert, almost a celebrity in his field. He was busy emptying drawers, transferring their contents into the cardboard boxes scattered on the top of his desk. He was so focused on his task he didn’t even look up to see who was at the door. Zayn should’ve maybe made his presence known once again, but he just couldn’t. For a second all he could do was observe every single detail of the man he had in front of him. His hands, those hands he obsessed over again and again. His clothes, more informal than usual now that classes were over for the year; black jeans perfectly hugging his legs and a white shirt barely letting Zayn see the muscles he still remembered discovering what felt like ages ago. His usually perfectly quiffed hair was a soft mess on his head, looking almost like a halo illuminated by the light that came from the big window behind him.
Zayn’s heart felt like imploding while he watched in silence, until he came to the conclusion that he should probably leave. Liam was busy and whatever he was trying to do was pointless anyways, wasn’t it? Only the doorknob was a bloody traitor and squeaked as soon as Zayn tried to turn it to leave. Damn.
“Zayn?” Liam called, and adrenaline flooded Zayn’s bloodstream, screaming in his veins, begging him to just go.
Still, he turned around, trying to remember how the hell poker faces worked, pretty sure he was doing more of a grimace than a perfectly nonchalant expression. “Hey… You busy? I can go…” he tried, pointing at the door, avoiding Liam’s eyes.
Liam immediately stopped what he was doing. The books he was holding finally found their place in a box and Liam moved from behind the desk, walking around it to get closer to Zayn. “No, no, it’s okay. I was almost done anyways. Come in, please,” he asked, and Zayn’s feet moved without his consent, putting distance between him and his escape route, leaving him awkwardly standing in the middle of the room, right in front of Liam, who was now casually sitting on his desk like nothing weird was happening. Zayn always admired that, from the first time he met Liam, two years earlier at a teacher’s meeting. There was Zayn, the new guy, finally having gotten his dream job teaching Art at one of the most prestigious Universities in the country. He was intimidated by the whole thing, feeling like he was going to have to spend years making a name for himself among so many important professors, clumsy and sailor-mouthed, the only one wearing casual clothes among elegantly suited men and women. And there was Liam, a fucking masterpiece. So beautiful he took Zayn’s breath away in a second. Elegant and classy, admired and respected by everyone even at his young age, simply amazing. That first short meeting had been a disaster, Zayn spilling cheap coffee on Liam’s expensive clothes. Zayn could tell the man was annoyed as fuck but he always kept his composure and his smile. Yeah, Zayn admired that trait. In that moment, through everything that happened between them after that, and specially now, Zayn was an inadequate, bumbling mess.
The silence seemed to stretch forever, deafening, while Liam crossed his arms and Zayn tried to clean the sweat from his hands, finally giving up, shoving them in the pockets of his jeans. Finding words was an almost impossible task. “So…” Liam started and stopped. He probably had no intention of saying anything, he was most likely just giving Zayn a chance to stay whatever he wanted to say, right? Fuck.
With his eyes fixated on Liam’s lovely birthmark, Zayn finally opened hi stupid mouth. “So… I heard you got a job offer. From Harvard…” he commented, trying to sound as unaffected as possible. Which was pretty impossible, really. Harvard meant another country. Harvard meant not seeing each other ever again. Harvard meant Liam getting the job of his dreams and moving on to a much better life. Zayn would stay where he was. Alone. Like he deserved to be.
“Yeah…” Liam’s confirmation shouldn’t hurt, but it did. It hurt even worse than when Zayn overheard the news in the professors’ lounge. Fuck. Zayn frowned, swallowed, tried to find something nice and congratulatory to say… all in vain. It was shit. He was shit. He was a shitty person for doing this.
“You gonna take it?” he asked, knowing he should be congratulating him instead. Knowing Liam would notice the bitterness in his voice. Knowing it was an unfair question.
Liam’s sigh was a clear indicator of exactly that. If this conversation had happened a year before, Zayn would be hugging Liam, throwing him a party, buying him things as office-warming presents for when he started working in the new place, the whole deal. Now he was frozen in place, feeling like Liam leaving was the worst thing that could have happened in his world.
“I’m thinking about it,” Liam finally replied. “I’m… I’m trying to figure out if I have anything here worth staying for, you know?”
For the first time since he entered the office, Zayn looked up at the man in front of him. Liam was looking back at him, intently, mirroring his frown. Fuck, the intensity of those eyes made him squirm just as much as the meaning of his words. Or at least the meaning Zayn wanted them to have. Ever since the beginning, he knew he would’ve given anything to mean something to Liam. He would’ve given so much just to be to Liam what Liam was to him. But that wasn’t an option, right? Still, his masochism made him open his mouth. “Oh… right,” he mumbled, looking back at his feet.
“Why do you ask? Were you hoping I’d say no? Or were you hoping I’d leave?” Liam asked, and Zayn looked up again, out of words. What did that even mean?
Zayn shrugged, using a finger to hike his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I… I don’t know…” he mumbled. How was he supposed to explain to Liam that ending things was not a synonym for wanting things to end? Some days it didn’t even made sense in his own head.
“Why are you here, Zayn? I thought you were over me,” Liam spat, and now it was his voice the bitter one. For a second there, Zayn thought he almost sounded hurt. Almost. Only that wasn’t possible.
Zayn looked up just as Liam looked down. Fuck. Oh fuck… The frozen expression on Liam’s face made Zayn feel like his heart started breaking again, the barely held together pieces drifting away from each other. “I mean, you’re the one that decided disappearing the same day I opened my heart up to you was an okay thing to do. You’re the one that ended everything, Zayn. Why do you suddenly sound so sad about me leaving?” he asked looking back up, the question a dagger in Zayn’s chest.
Zayn was so busy trembling he didn’t even have the strength to look away. He deserved the hurt in Liam’s eyes. He put it there.
The memory still burned hot in his chest like an infected wound. He was never going to understand what made Liam pay attention to him. How they ended up being very good friends in spite of having nothing in common was still an unresolved mystery. One day they were just coworkers sharing polite ‘good morning’s and ‘good evening’s and the next they were talking about life over whiskey at the local bar after class. One minute they were sharing funny anecdotes on Liam’s couch, laughing like crazy, and the next they were making out like desperate teenagers on his bed. One thing simply led to the other and that unreachable perfect man Zayn was incredibly infatuated with all of a sudden was a complete moaning mess, naked below him, begging for more, again and again and again. Because no, it wasn’t a one night stand. It wasn’t a one time thing, it wasn’t a mistake Liam didn’t want to make again. They barely managed to stay away from each other for months, spending entire nights together in bed, having the best sex of Zayn’s life, talking about everything, sharing something so deep it escaped Zayn’s comprehension. Until one night Liam decided to turn Zayn’s world completely upside down, confessing the Zayn he was the first after he lost his wife a few years before they met. His wife. He had a wife. He had a woman he loved so much he planned a life with her, and he lost her. He lost the love of his life. Liam cried in his arms that night, cried about the life he lost and how lonely he felt and how he thought no one could ever replace what he had. And the next morning Zayn left before Liam woke up, and never returned.
How could he? His heart was desperately trying to hold on to the hope that what they had was as real was he wanted it to be, the hope that Liam could one day feel the love he was already feeling. But then Liam made that confession and his brain screamed that no, Liam could never love him, not really. He was just an attempt at replacing the irreplaceable. That’s what Liam tried to say, wasn’t it? How could he stay? With a broken heart heavy in his chest he closed that door never to open it again. He was too old to entertain childish fantasies and dreams.
He never explained, never apologized. It hurt too much, so he let that wound fester in his chest. It was what he deserved, for dreaming, for falling in love with someone so unattainable, so impossible. He let himself suffer; he hated himself and tortured himself with the knowledge that surely Liam hated him too. Until he overheard that conversation three months later. Until he found out Liam was leaving, for good. And no, he was not in front of Liam to apologize, or with any kind of hope things could be fixed between them. He was pretty sure three months of complete silence from Liam meant he didn’t give a shit anymore, right? No, he was here to receive what he deserved. Liam’s complete indifference, and the painful confirmation that he was losing him forever.
Only there was no actual confirmation, and there was no indifference. There was absolutely no hint of indifference in Liam’s warm eyes. There was sadness. There was hurt. A pain so evident it was like looking in a mirror. There was something as intense as what Zayn saw that night in his eyes. And maybe that’s what made him say the words he thought were useless. Maybe they were necessary. Maybe Liam needed them. “I’m sorry,” Zayn croaked, trying to make his voice work over the knot in his throat.
“What are you even apologizing for, Zayn? Do you even know…do you… I mean…” Liam looked to the side, his eyes shiny and red. Shit.
Zayn took a step forward, suddenly desperate to console him. To make him smile again, to make it all right, as impossible as that sounded. Maybe all he could do was explain. He owed Liam that much. “I’m apologizing for… for not explaining. For not saying anything,” Zayn began, crossing his arms, hugging himself, or holding himself together. “I’m… When you told me about her I just… I understood you were never going to feel for me what I feel for you, right? You… You were just trying to feel less lonely, while I was there just… just wishing you were as mine as I was yours,” Zayn tried to explain, knowing he sounded childish and stupid. “What was I supposed to do? Stay and break my own heart loving a man that belonged to a memory? I had no choice…”
“We always have a choice…” Liam interrupted, looking at him again. Crying. Oh god. There were actual tears staining his red cheeks and Zayn felt like dying. “You… You could have told me what you felt, couldn’t you?” Liam asked. “You could have stayed and heard what I wanted to say to you in the morning. You could’ve given me a chance…”
Zayn frowned, feeling dread freezing his bones. What was he talking about? What else was there to say? What else was he supposed to hear? How could he have wanted to hear more when instead of ‘I love you’ Liam talked for hours about the love of his life? “What… what do you mean?” he asked, terrified of the answer.
Liam took a moment to wipe tears off his eyes with his fingertips, laughing the saddest laugh Zayn had ever heard. “That I love you?” he breathed out, looking at Zayn again, so intently Zayn felt the world stop. What? “That the day I met you was the day I started healing, that the day we kissed was the day I knew I could love again, that I just… I just needed to tell you the whole story first so you could understand how massive and amazing what your presence in my life had done was. Fuck…” Liam’s voice broke and a quiet sob escaped from deep in his chest. Zayn still couldn’t fucking move. “I placed my broken heart in your hands that night, knowing it would be fixed and full of love in the morning, but you were gone, and I was left in pieces once again…”
Zayn was completely fucking overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the realization of what Liam was saying. What happened and what he did. The fucking huge fuck up. Fucking fuck! Fuck… How could he be so blind? So fucking selfish and stupid? How… oh god… The entire world fell on his head on a second and all he could do was cry and mumble like an idiot. “I’m so sorry, I… fuck…” Everything was ruined, everything was completely ruined beyond repair, oh fuck. “I didn’t know, I thought… I thought I was never going to be her, I thought… I was sure that was you making that clear, I… Oh god, Liam…” Zayn covered his mouth with a tightly closed fist.
“After all we shared, how could you even think I was trying to push you away? Didn’t you feel how much I loved you?” Liam asked, arms crossed over his chest again, looking down, looking broken. Zayn did that. Zayn made him feel he was being left alone again by someone he loved. Oh god.
Zayn gave another step forward, close, so close; he could almost touch Liam if he wanted. And he wanted, so bad, but he didn’t. “I… I have no idea what feeling loved feels like, Li, remember? I… I’m not making excuses, I just… I’m a fucking idiot and I thought I was making it up, I thought I was projecting my own feelings, I thought I was imagining it, I… I’m a fuck up and I just… clung to the idea that it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be… We were just too perfect, Liam, how was I supposed to know it was real?”
Liam laughed again, the sound mixed with a little sob as he looked back at Zayn. “It was the realest thing I ever felt, Zayn. It was life changing for me. I found myself again, I learnt things about myself I never knew, I… I wanted everything with you, and then you left, and all I could do was beg Harvard to take me not because I wanted to fulfil my dreams, but because being close to you hurt too much. You were my dream, Z. Not Harvard.” The words tumbled out of Liam’s mouth in a hurry, his tone carrying a finality that made Zayn feel desperate and reckless.
“Please don’t leave?” he begged, getting closer to Liam, trying to keep eye contact, even if it hurt. “Please don’t leave me behind, don’t… I’m… I’m here, okay? I’m here and I’m so fucking sorry,” he pleaded again, even knowing he had already ruined things for good. How could Liam forgive him? Stay? No, no, that was a ridiculous idea but his heart hurt too much, crushed under the weight of too many words he never said. So they had to go. He had to spill them out, he had no choice. “I know I’m a fuck up and I know I ruined everything and I’m so so sorry, Li… No one in my entire life made me feel the way you do. No one ever deserves to feel the way I made you feel, there’s just no excuse for how stupid I was but… Li, I love you. I love you so fucking much and that night all I could think about was that all I wanted in this world was being the one person that could make you feel loved again. And then in the morning all I could feel was that I didn’t deserve that privilege. I’m not enough, I’m never going to be enough,” Zayn tried to explain. Maybe it wasn’t really necessary, they had spent so many nights just talking about these things, and Zayn had poured his heart out again and again, confessing every little insecurity to Liam, even the ones he never dared saying out loud.
“But you are…” Liam replied, and Zayn’s heart started beating faster. “You’re more than I could ever ask. And maybe we’re both fuck ups, because I felt the same thing when you left. I felt like I was never going to be enough, I was too damaged and broken to make you happy and you just ran because who would want to stay with me?”
“I would,” Zayn promised, without even thinking about it. Liam was everything. Everything he ever dreamed and never dared asking from life. He was far from being a fuck up, he was the love of Zayn’s life and now he was leaving. Remembering that little fact made his throat seize up again. “I would. I would choose you a million times. God, I would give everything to be able to show you that, Li, but… I’m too late, aren’t I? You’re leaving… You’re leaving and Harvard is-“
“Oh, fuck Harvard…” Liam exclaimed, moving all of a sudden, his arms reaching out, his hands grabbing Zayn’s paint stained shirt, pulling him closer. “Everything I’ve ever wanted is right here,” he confessed, a careful hand taking Zayn’s glasses off, depositing them on the desk by his side. Zayn exhaled, overwhelmed by the sudden closeness, by the unexpected intimacy, by that little gesture that reminded him of so many nights when Liam would do the same thing as soon as they were finally alone, complaining that his glasses always got in the way of their kisses. Adrenaline made Zayn’s blood boil, made his stomach do a somersault. Liam’s legs opened, making room for Zayn’s body. He wrapped one arm around Zayn’s body, artfully placing him right where it wanted to be. Close, so so close Zayn could feel the warmth of his breath, so close he could finally get lost in the sweet chocolate brown of his eyes. His free hand went to Zayn’s face, tenderly wiping tears away with his fingers, making Zayn feel like he was melting. Two seconds before he was absolutely convinced he had lost the right to even look in Liam’s direction for ever.
Even after Zayn’s tears were gone (at least cleaned, not that they ever stopped falling), Liam still let his fingers wander, exploring Zayn like he hadn’t seen him in a century and he needed to remember. It did feel like a century for Zayn, fuck, he closed his eyes, completely gone, completely lost in Liam’s careful touch, dizzy and confused. His arms finally moved to wrap themselves around Liam’s neck, a tiny flame of hope burning a hole in his chest. Still, he was too confused to dare let it burn brighter. “W-what are you doing?” he asked in a whisper.
Zayn could barely hear Liam chuckling, his heart was beating so hard and loud it felt like it was in his throat. He could barely hear himself whine when Liam’s nose touched his. Fuck. He furrowed his brows, sighing, electrified. He opened his lips when he felt Liam’s breath grazing them, and he definitely heard when Liam replied “Staying…” in a whisper, right between his lips, before kissing him slowly, deeply, with the patience of a man that knows he has all the time in the world.