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She’d always gone after the posh boys. The articulate ones with their blue button down shirts and blond shaved heads and brown sensible shoes; crisp and clean like the money they pretended to have.
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He’d always had a thing for brunettes. The confident ones with legs for days and olive skin and almond eyes, could capture the attention of an entire room just by walking in, well aware of their effect on people.
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Her relationships were like stars, glowing intense and bright and imploding just as spectacularly.
She was all vivid color and dazzling light and refused to dim herself down to let these boys seem shinier when compared to her.
(One time, when she dyed her hair red for fun, her boyfriend had asked why she’d done it.
“Like to keep things interesting, ‘spose,” she replied with a shrug, taking another sip from her milkshake.
“Seems like you just want attention,” he answered.
The supernova destruction of that break-up two weeks later was impressive.)
-
His relationships pattered out like the end of the rainstorm. A slow decaying trickle until eventually the dripping stops and by the time he noticed, it was too late.
He was a calm and quiet, consistent and hushed; not the moody intenseness they had expected of him, not a bad boy asking to be changed, just simply a shy one who didn’t know any better.
(“I never know what you’re thinking.” “I don’t know what you want.” “Why can’t you just talk to me?”
All questions they asked him that he didn’t even think he knew the answer to.)
-
He’s completely unmemorable the first time she meets him.
Of course she knows who he is (really, who doesn’t), but she’s so much more distracted by the cute blond one next to him that his weak handshake and quiet “hullo” barely registers, swallowed up by the chaos surrounding them. She ends up talking to and flirting with his friend for a few minutes, equal in the amount of light they both seemed to produce, so that later when he comes up and asks for her number, she sort of expects he’s just doing it for his friend that looks like sunshine.
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She completely enamors him the first time he meets her.
He knows who she is, yet never really gave her a second thought, but in person she radiates a brightness he’s only seen in the night sky. She’s laughing and joking with a lack of self-awareness he can’t help be jealous of. He can’t keep his eyes off of her, all her loud voices and wild gestures, making sure to constantly keep her in his peripheral just in case he discovers she’s something he just dreamed up. He doesn’t usually get nervous around girls, at least not anymore, but he doesn’t think he breathes until her number is firmly saved in his phone and tucked safely away into his pocket, feeling like he captured stardust.
-
She gets a text from him a few days later, her pink phone case vibrating wildly on the table. It’s her day off and she tries to push down her disappointment when she sees who sent the message. But she’s young and not looking for anything serious and she can’t see the harm in some simple flirting.
It continues on like that for a few weeks, occasional texts, always initiated by him. It becomes something she almost looks forward to, the one constant in a life that is filled with different people and places everyday. Normally she’d have already told the girls, have them dissecting each message for subtext, but for some reason she keeps this to herself. She has a feeling his friends know nothing either, and she likes the idea that this is a secret between them, something only they share. Even though she doesn’t expect this to lead to anything, she’s heard the rumors about him, she likes this sense of solidarity they’ve created. Just them.
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He usually shares everything with his band mates, from couches to clothes, and yet for some reason he can’t bring himself to tell them about this. He’s spent almost his entire life splitting things with people, whether it’s childhood toys or hotel bedrooms, that to have something that’s just his, something that doesn’t belong to anyone else, well, he treasures it.
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She stares at the phone in uncertainty when she gets a text from him asking if they can hang out when he gets back to London. She knows boys like him, knows what they’re after, and she’s not really interested in being the background to his star. But he’s funny, even through text, and she can’t help but wonder if she’d regret it if she never gave it shot.
(“I think I might be going on a date with Zayn Malik,” she finally reveals to Leigh Anne the next night, as they’re getting ready to go out.
“He’s fit as fuck,” Leigh-Anne states as she applies her mascara.
“He’s not really my type, though…” she trails off, still unsure.
“He’s everyone’s type, Pezza,” Leigh-Anne argues as she sticks the wand back in the bottle. “You should give him a chance.”)
She’s never been one to not give something a chance.
-
Even though he’s 50,000 kilometers away when he gets her response, alone in an empty hotel room, he can’t help but bite back his grin, embarrassed by how happy he is. He’s spent too much time in rooms with neutral colors, beige curtains and off white wallpaper, that he’s grateful for the specks of color she brings into his life. She’s the light at the end of a tunnel.
(“Think I’m going to take out that chick Perrie from Little Mix when we get back to London,” he announces to Danny on the phone later that day.
He hears an audible snort from the other end of the line, “Can’t believe she agreed to go out with an idiot like you.”)
-
She’s sitting in the theater, trying to come up with the nicest way to let him down at the end of the night. She couldn’t be more disinterested in this movie and can’t wonder why he thought this would even be a good idea in the first place. She’s deciding whether or not it would be rude to check her phone when she feels his hand grab hers, interlocking their fingers. She looks down at their hands, her red nails stark against his skin, and then up at his face.
(“I’m really glad you said yes,” he whispers intently.
There’s something so earnest about the way he says it, how his eyes get so big and how he gently squeezes her hand at the end that makes something in her stomach flutter. She starts reconsidering everything she’d been planning for the last 45 minutes.
She doesn’t even mind how boring the rest of the movie is, just focuses on how smooth his fingertips feel against her skin.)
-
As she’s about to leave the house for their second date, she notices a stain on the back of her dress (that’s what you get for leaving pieces of chocolate laying around the house) and spends a half hour picking out another outfit.
When she arrives at the restaurant ridiculously late, she sees the end of his cigarette burning in the night before she realizes it’s him. He’s leaning against the wall, with a couple of discarded butts surrounding his feet, but when he notices her, his face breaks out in a smile and the relief is palpable.
(“You came,” he breathes out in wonder.
“Thought I was going to stand you up?” she asks jokingly.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he admits, stamping out the last of his cigarette.
And again, there’s something so honest the way he says it, not like he’s trying to gain sympathy or pity, just explaining the situation, that it makes her heart ache a bit. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s pressing her lips into his and she feels him relax instantly, his arms moving to her hips and he rocks into her, forward and back. He tastes like cigarettes and something else she can’t put her finger on, but she knows it’s familiar, something calm and soothing. She decides she should put some more research into it later.
“C’mon, I’m starved!” she says as she pulls away, grabbing his hand and dragging him inside.)
-
Her mom laughs at her when she tells her they’re dating.
(“Never thought you liked those mysterious types,” her mother smirks.
“He’s really not mysterious at all,” she responds defiantly. “You’d like him.”)
-
His band mates offer him a couple of cheers of celebration and one huge group hug when he tells them they’re together.
(“Didn’t think you were into blondes,” Louis comments afterwards.
Niall’s mouth drops in mock protest.
He just shrugs. “Doesn’t have anything to do with her hair color.”)
-
At first she finds it hard to deal with how quiet he is sometimes. He’ll get stuck in his own head and she’s still never sure how to get him out. She wonders if it’s just because he doesn’t care, he’s indifferent to the whole thing.
But then she realizes the silence begets thoughtfulness. He sends her lilacs the day of her record release because he remembers the time they went on a walk and she saw them in a garden and said they were her favorite. He sends a delivery from the pizza place down the road they always order from because he knows she’s had a long day and he’s half away across the world. He whispers promises against her skin that he’ll take her to Paris and they’ll kiss under the Eiffel Tower, and even if she doesn’t fully believe him, she likes the thought anyway.
She realizes he tastes like the ocean, cool and calm, a place to go to get away from it all.
-
He had grown so used to people finding his quietness frustrating that that they just gave up and got hushed too, that he’s surprised when she just gets louder in response.
She’ll drag them out of the house, even if it’s just to get groceries from Tesco.
(“I have nothing to wear,” he’ll grumble.
“Here, borrow this,” she’ll respond, grabbing a jacket from her closet and throwing it at him. He knows she wont take no for an answer.)
He’ll fall asleep on the couch and she’ll paint his eyes blue and silver with eye shadow.
(“Blackmail material,” she’ll laugh as she shows him the pictures when he wakes up.)
She’ll always come up with some weird scheme for him to pierce his eyebrow or lip and no matter how many times he says no, she never stops trying.
(“You should dye your hair,” she tells him as she runs her hands through the floppy hair on his forehead.
“Hmmm,” he answers noncommittally.
“Yeah, just this part,” she says, taking one piece and holding it straight up.
He tries to see what she has a hold of, his eyes going crosseyed in the process.
“What color?”
She considers it for a moment. “Blond.”
He looks at her for a while. “Okay.”
He doesn’t even have a moment to reconsider before she’s off the bed and in the bathroom. “I think I have some peroxide left over!” she calls out and he groans, rolling over into his pillow. He can feel her color seeping into him.)
-
He starts covering himself in tattoos, dark lines stretching across his skin like maps of memories and feelings he doesn’t want to forget.
(“Why’d you fill in the red?” she asks one day as they’re eating dinner and his sleeve rolls up, revealing his ZAP! Tattoo
He glances down at it. “I dunno it was just…too bright, I guess.”
She frowns. “Well, I liked it.”
He takes a bite of pasta to his mouth. “Sorry.”
Her frown deepens and he’s suddenly struck with the urge to kiss it off her face. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I mean, if it makes you happy, that’s all that matters.”
He can’t remember the last time someone said those words to him. “You make me happy,” he says before he can stop himself.
There’s a brilliant moment, just for a second, where she smiles wide and bright but then it’s over and she’s sticking her tongue out at him.
“You’re just saying that because I made you pasta.”
When he goes to get his next tattoo, wings stretched across his chest, he makes sure to make the center bright and red)
-
She likes the way the black beads of his necklace feel when she rests her head on his chest, the way his three day old stubble leaves her thighs red and raw, the way he inevitably tracks dirt all over the white carpet.
(“Where did you even go where there was mud?!” she shrieks as she looks at the outline of muddy Doc Martens on the floor.
“I dunno,” he’ll mumble and she’ll just “hmph” as she goes to find the vacuum cleaner.
But then he’ll grab her arm and ask “Can you just…wait for a sec,” in a husky voice and she knows she won’t be able to clean for awhile.)
-
He likes the way he can easily pick her up and throw her over his shoulder to march her to the kitchen whenever she complains she’s hungry but is too lazy to get up from the couch, leaving red half-moons on his back from where her fingertips dug in out of protest. He likes the glint of silver in her nose and in her neck, how it catches in the sunlight and makes her even more mesmerizing than before. He likes the way every time he comes back from being away her hair is a different color, and when she asks him if he likes it and he tells her she looks beautiful no matter what, he can see the faint blush start to cover her cheeks
-
Sometimes he fucks up. Badly.
The way the distance stretches out between them becomes unbearable, the night sky covered with clouds. He grapples in the darkness and he grabs on to the first bright things he finds, but he quickly realizes the artificial light doesn’t compare to her natural glow.
-
She doesn’t speak to him for a few days. She can only hear apologies so many times before she just needs some time to herself.
It’s the longest they’ve gone without talking since they met and she’s not used to the silence from her phone instead of the constant buzz it emits. She thinks about mistakes and commitment and honesty.
She thinks about forgiveness, and how sometimes good people do bad things.
She thinks about how she’s never been one to not give something a (second) chance.
-
He takes her to Paris and kisses her under the Eiffel tower.
Maybe now she realizes the sea isn’t always calm, but she still knows that the waves will always be there to carry her home.
Maybe now he realizes that even when they’re out of view, the stars are always shining bright in the night sky, to guide him home.
Maybe now they both know that out on the horizon, where the sea touches the sky, that’s where they belong.
Afterwards they walk down the edge of the Seine, and she stops to take a picture of the river. She looks like she’s glowing, and he’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with the way the lights hit her.
“Perrie!” he calls out and she turns and smiles as she walks back towards him.
“Zayn,” she states simply and wraps her arms around his neck.
She kisses him and it tastes like the sea, like a constant that will never cease.
He kisses her and she tastes like starlight, like something burning bright for everyone to see.