Viscount In The Rose
Chapter 1 - Hey You -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymgYEQgSqLI
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According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, the word 'love' has roughly nine different definitions. From religion to even just a physical attraction it seems to really cover all the bases that one could ever associate with the word, but really with nine options to choose from, what is the real, genuine, definition of love?
Well, I suppose there really isn't one.
If you really think about it, there are about 7.2 billion people on this planet, which translates to, there are really about 7.2 billion different definitions for the word.
It's a hard number to comprehend, for me at least.
That means that every person that passes you on the sidewalk or that sits beside you on the subway has a different way to describe what love is to them if it's anything to them at all.
So, how do we know when what we feel is really real? We obviously cannot base it on a silly little definition, right?
Is it the way we say it?
I vaguely remember an ex-boyfriend of mine that I had in high school tell me that love has the most truest meaning when expressed through the Hebrew language, I'm not actually sure how much truth there is to that story, but I'm sure what language you say it in doesn't at all effect its meaning.
So, is it the way we feel?
Maybe how we look at the other person?
No, I suppose it is not any of these things, nor was it ever.
Like every other young girl around the innocent age of five, I would always catch myself dreaming about the charming prince with the beautiful castle and white maned horse drawn carriage, that would cherish me as long as he lived, and promise to never break my heart. I wish I would've known then that here in the real world, it actually really isn't that easy to find the one or just a decent choice in general. Okay,maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit with that last part, but most of those things, I really did think of at one time or another. I mean we all have, haven't we?
Moving on to more important details that we actually have time for, this story is not a Cinderella story, for if I was ever going to compare myself to a Disney princess the least of my choices would be Cinderella. But as I continue, my story is not a crisp, clean, cut straight to the point love story.
No. I am way too complicated to ever receive the sticker marked, easy.
I would love to tell you that with a wave of a wand and a dash of pixie dust or whatever the hell they used to call it, that my prince charming found me by slipping a glass shoe on my perfectly sized foot, but here in reality, I found my prince in the most apostate of ways.
There is no hope for amnesty, at least not in the near future, maybe not in the distant future either.
With that being said, let's finally get to the interesting things, shall we?
______________________________
At almost 22 years old, or really rather three months shy of turning twenty-two, I'd like to think that I've seen the more educated side to love and all it's glories, but considering that I've just begun my twenties and we humans are especially naive to love, it's no secret that I really have not.
After all we let the feeling of love consume us and take over our very beings.
I'd also like to infer to you that I was different, but as I lay in my bed beside a sleeping man and another man drifting into my mind sporadically as I'm telling you this story, I'm sure you can figure out that I am just as, if not more, naive and hopeless as everyone else. My story is just a bit more complicated.
As a child and when I was listening, my mother used to always tell me "Sometimes the storm that you've tried so hard to avoid, sucks you in and destroys you anyways." It's hard to believe that when you're six and have nothing to worry about other than what kind of ravioli you want for lunch, but now as an adult, those words have almost become like a doctrine.
They never really were a disaster like the quote entails, no not even close, they were so much more than that.
They were, for a lack of a more powerful word, a blessing, in it's most pure of meanings.
Unlike myself, who can only be properly identified as the disaster from all of my mother's stories.
_____________________________________
He was sleeping with his head nuzzled against my chest and his arms wrapped ever so tightly around my torso. A position that not only restricted my movement, but rendered me defenseless against his sleeping form. I knew subconsciously that he hadn't meant to fall asleep in such a vulnerable position, but I was almost overjoyed by the fact that he had because he often preferred to sleep opposite me rather than letting me hold him as he was at the moment.
He was the kind of man that masculinity had to kneel in front of and offer kisses to upon his feet.
At least that was how it was when he was awake.
I was hoping silently that, if by some miracle he had fallen asleep like he was on purpose, that this would become a regular habit.
If so, I wouldn't complain.
I had never questioned my feelings for him once in the half year we had spent together, but my love for him was growing with every moment he continued to lay in my arms so peacefully and admirably. I hadn't bothered to wake him up or stir him in any way from his slumber, due to it being so hard to see him lately, I wanted nothing more than to just keep him to myself for a little while longer...as selfish as that may have sounded. In my head, the things I say always sound better than what they really do out loud, it's a trait I so unfortunately inherited from my mother and one I resent everyday of my life.
Zayn Malik, may be the man that I got to come home to almost every evening, but he was also an international music icon and that meant that even though I got to be so lucky of captivating his love, I still had to share his physical self with the millions of dedicated fans he possessed. It was hard on him too with my contribution to also being in the public eye with a debut album lining up shelves and Mind of Mine coming out a only a few months earlier, but it was harder for us now then it ever had been and the time we spent together was limited and scarce.
Soon, after the thin curtains began to let the light through, he began to stir in my arms and I silently prayed that he would just allow me to hold onto him like this a little while longer before he had to get up and more than likely leave me for the day. He was a very busy and meticulous man these days. I glanced at the clock sitting on the end table that was messily pushed up against the right side of the bed, his doing, of course, it's red LED lit numbers flashed 9:30 and I mentally sighed to myself wishing that it was earlier than it really was. He more often than not left at around 10:30, when he did leave that is, which was usually after a long make-out session, something more taboo, or an innocent game of Uno. What can I say, I'm still essentially ten years old, but I'm honestly not the least bit ashamed about it.
As I was soon beginning to believe that my prayers had been answered, his eyes began to flicker open and slowly made their way up to catch a glance at me, almost as if he was doing so in secret. I laughed quietly to myself, my chest vibrating a little, not disturbing him even in the slightest and to my surprise, he didn't leave from the position he was in, but rather snuggled his head back into the middle of my breasts further than what they already were and looked up at me once more before talking in a very sleepy, scratchy, and not to mention sexy morning voice.
It was hard to believe that just a little over a year ago, I was still with Louis and fighting hard to combat with my feelings for Zayn. It was still a relief now to wake up every morning next to the boy I knew deep inside that I was meant to be with, well, besides the sometimes here and there fight with my conscience over my love for Louis that seemed to be still lingering about. Now that's something I was ashamed about.
"Good morning." He yawned, his duvet covered body stretching quite a ways to plant a small kiss on one of my cheeks before he nuzzled his nose into the space between my neck and shoulder. Which was now free of my long hair because he had so carefully brushed it behind one of my ears. It had fallen from it's bun sometime throughout the night, either that or the elastic band that was holding it up, snapped. That actually happened quite often, my hair just detested being pulled back, but after fighting and fighting with it for years, I just gave up. It stays down a good 98.9% of the time, if not, the house trashcans would be full of broken elastics.
"Good morning to you too, darling." I said, reciprocating the small kiss except I couldn't reach his cheek from this position, so I had to settle for his forehead instead, he didn't complain, of course. "A kiss, is a kiss." He'd say.
"How long have you been awake?" He questioned, his eyes closed again and he managed to tighten his grip around me even more so than it had already been almost cutting off my air supply, but I didn't protest. He could hold me as tight as he desired.
"For a while, I suppose."
"I'm sorry for falling asleep on you, love." He was mumbling now, obviously tired, his words running together almost incoherently, but luckily I knew his thick British accent like the back of my own hand and could decipher his words. He often talked while he was half-asleep, although it was adorable, it took me quite a while to be able to sort through his salad of words as fast as I could now.
"No need to apologize, I'm grateful to have you fall asleep on me any day, but unfortunately you do have to leave soon, Mo grá." I said, using the Gaelic phrase for 'my love' to which I gained a small smile from his handsome, yet still tired, face.
My father was a fluent speaker of Gaelic Irish because he had grown up in Ireland all of his life, I learned from him when I was young so I could speak it pretty fluently now myself, quite thankfully actually. I was grateful to know such a beautiful language and in our spare time, I had taught Zayn the phrases I often used to express my love to him with. He was a Urdu speaker himself, he also being from a family with deep rooted heritage. I had the pleasure of meeting his family in early November of last year, contrary to what I had been afraid of, they were very welcoming and accepting of me. Thankfully, but from a young age I had often worried about things that I really didn't need to and over the years I guess the trait just kind of stuck, unfortunately. Zayn could seriously go to the supermarket for milk and I'd worry to death every second until he got home, but maybe that is just because I have anxiety.
"Actually, not today janam." He muttered, using the Urdu term for 'darling', his voice barely audible this time.
"Are you sure?" I was quite taken aback by his statement, it wasn't like him to willingly want to skip out going to the studio, well unless he was sick.
"I told Peter yesterday that I was taking days to myself these next few weeks, I've probably only seen you a total of twelve hours these past three weeks, it isn't fair to you or to me. I don't have a set schedule anymore." His words a bit incoherent once more, but he continued to speak anyways. I know he was probably hoping I wouldn't, but I instantly caught on to his time in One Direction jab.
"Plus, I promised my mum that you and I would visit this weekend, I haven't seen her in what feels like ages and she and the girls say they miss you." He always did care so much about his family and that was one of my favorite things about him, how grounded he was. It made me smile that they had missed me, I honestly had missed them a lot as well, his family was one of the sweetest groups of people I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I was thankful that I was considered a part of it, very thankful.
Instead of replying verbally, I nodded at him, knowing he wouldn't necessarily be able to see it because his eyes were still closed tightly, but I knew due to our proximity that he would be able to feel me do so and would understand.
"I love you." He breathed after a few minutes of silence, his exhaustion put aside for a just a few moments for him to reach up and kiss me softly, his forehead now pressed against my own sweetly and intimately.
"I love you too Zayn." I whispered as his lips hoovered over mine once more, talking in between the intimate spaces and I smiled at the fact that I would have to be a fool not to love this man the way that I did. He was, in every sense of the word, perfect.
It's was quite contradictory how I was just going on about how could we know if love was real earlier, but here I was telling you how inexplicably in love with Zayn Malik I was. It was true though. I loved him and I was even more in love with him than I could ever begin to explain.
After all, he was my sun, my moon and all of my stars.
------------------
According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, the word 'love' has roughly nine different definitions. From religion to even just a physical attraction it seems to really cover all the bases that one could ever associate with the word, but really with nine options to choose from, what is the real, genuine, definition of love?
Well, I suppose there really isn't one.
If you really think about it, there are about 7.2 billion people on this planet, which translates to, there are really about 7.2 billion different definitions for the word.
It's a hard number to comprehend, for me at least.
That means that every person that passes you on the sidewalk or that sits beside you on the subway has a different way to describe what love is to them if it's anything to them at all.
So, how do we know when what we feel is really real? We obviously cannot base it on a silly little definition, right?
Is it the way we say it?
I vaguely remember an ex-boyfriend of mine that I had in high school tell me that love has the most truest meaning when expressed through the Hebrew language, I'm not actually sure how much truth there is to that story, but I'm sure what language you say it in doesn't at all effect its meaning.
So, is it the way we feel?
Maybe how we look at the other person?
No, I suppose it is not any of these things, nor was it ever.
Like every other young girl around the innocent age of five, I would always catch myself dreaming about the charming prince with the beautiful castle and white maned horse drawn carriage, that would cherish me as long as he lived, and promise to never break my heart. I wish I would've known then that here in the real world, it actually really isn't that easy to find the one or just a decent choice in general. Okay,maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit with that last part, but most of those things, I really did think of at one time or another. I mean we all have, haven't we?
Moving on to more important details that we actually have time for, this story is not a Cinderella story, for if I was ever going to compare myself to a Disney princess the least of my choices would be Cinderella. But as I continue, my story is not a crisp, clean, cut straight to the point love story.
No. I am way too complicated to ever receive the sticker marked, easy.
I would love to tell you that with a wave of a wand and a dash of pixie dust or whatever the hell they used to call it, that my prince charming found me by slipping a glass shoe on my perfectly sized foot, but here in reality, I found my prince in the most apostate of ways.
There is no hope for amnesty, at least not in the near future, maybe not in the distant future either.
With that being said, let's finally get to the interesting things, shall we?
______________________________
At almost 22 years old, or really rather three months shy of turning twenty-two, I'd like to think that I've seen the more educated side to love and all it's glories, but considering that I've just begun my twenties and we humans are especially naive to love, it's no secret that I really have not.
After all we let the feeling of love consume us and take over our very beings.
I'd also like to infer to you that I was different, but as I lay in my bed beside a sleeping man and another man drifting into my mind sporadically as I'm telling you this story, I'm sure you can figure out that I am just as, if not more, naive and hopeless as everyone else. My story is just a bit more complicated.
As a child and when I was listening, my mother used to always tell me "Sometimes the storm that you've tried so hard to avoid, sucks you in and destroys you anyways." It's hard to believe that when you're six and have nothing to worry about other than what kind of ravioli you want for lunch, but now as an adult, those words have almost become like a doctrine.
They never really were a disaster like the quote entails, no not even close, they were so much more than that.
They were, for a lack of a more powerful word, a blessing, in it's most pure of meanings.
Unlike myself, who can only be properly identified as the disaster from all of my mother's stories.
_____________________________________
He was sleeping with his head nuzzled against my chest and his arms wrapped ever so tightly around my torso. A position that not only restricted my movement, but rendered me defenseless against his sleeping form. I knew subconsciously that he hadn't meant to fall asleep in such a vulnerable position, but I was almost overjoyed by the fact that he had because he often preferred to sleep opposite me rather than letting me hold him as he was at the moment.
He was the kind of man that masculinity had to kneel in front of and offer kisses to upon his feet.
At least that was how it was when he was awake.
I was hoping silently that, if by some miracle he had fallen asleep like he was on purpose, that this would become a regular habit.
If so, I wouldn't complain.
I had never questioned my feelings for him once in the half year we had spent together, but my love for him was growing with every moment he continued to lay in my arms so peacefully and admirably. I hadn't bothered to wake him up or stir him in any way from his slumber, due to it being so hard to see him lately, I wanted nothing more than to just keep him to myself for a little while longer...as selfish as that may have sounded. In my head, the things I say always sound better than what they really do out loud, it's a trait I so unfortunately inherited from my mother and one I resent everyday of my life.
Zayn Malik, may be the man that I got to come home to almost every evening, but he was also an international music icon and that meant that even though I got to be so lucky of captivating his love, I still had to share his physical self with the millions of dedicated fans he possessed. It was hard on him too with my contribution to also being in the public eye with a debut album lining up shelves and Mind of Mine coming out a only a few months earlier, but it was harder for us now then it ever had been and the time we spent together was limited and scarce.
Soon, after the thin curtains began to let the light through, he began to stir in my arms and I silently prayed that he would just allow me to hold onto him like this a little while longer before he had to get up and more than likely leave me for the day. He was a very busy and meticulous man these days. I glanced at the clock sitting on the end table that was messily pushed up against the right side of the bed, his doing, of course, it's red LED lit numbers flashed 9:30 and I mentally sighed to myself wishing that it was earlier than it really was. He more often than not left at around 10:30, when he did leave that is, which was usually after a long make-out session, something more taboo, or an innocent game of Uno. What can I say, I'm still essentially ten years old, but I'm honestly not the least bit ashamed about it.
As I was soon beginning to believe that my prayers had been answered, his eyes began to flicker open and slowly made their way up to catch a glance at me, almost as if he was doing so in secret. I laughed quietly to myself, my chest vibrating a little, not disturbing him even in the slightest and to my surprise, he didn't leave from the position he was in, but rather snuggled his head back into the middle of my breasts further than what they already were and looked up at me once more before talking in a very sleepy, scratchy, and not to mention sexy morning voice.
It was hard to believe that just a little over a year ago, I was still with Louis and fighting hard to combat with my feelings for Zayn. It was still a relief now to wake up every morning next to the boy I knew deep inside that I was meant to be with, well, besides the sometimes here and there fight with my conscience over my love for Louis that seemed to be still lingering about. Now that's something I was ashamed about.
"Good morning." He yawned, his duvet covered body stretching quite a ways to plant a small kiss on one of my cheeks before he nuzzled his nose into the space between my neck and shoulder. Which was now free of my long hair because he had so carefully brushed it behind one of my ears. It had fallen from it's bun sometime throughout the night, either that or the elastic band that was holding it up, snapped. That actually happened quite often, my hair just detested being pulled back, but after fighting and fighting with it for years, I just gave up. It stays down a good 98.9% of the time, if not, the house trashcans would be full of broken elastics.
"Good morning to you too, darling." I said, reciprocating the small kiss except I couldn't reach his cheek from this position, so I had to settle for his forehead instead, he didn't complain, of course. "A kiss, is a kiss." He'd say.
"How long have you been awake?" He questioned, his eyes closed again and he managed to tighten his grip around me even more so than it had already been almost cutting off my air supply, but I didn't protest. He could hold me as tight as he desired.
"For a while, I suppose."
"I'm sorry for falling asleep on you, love." He was mumbling now, obviously tired, his words running together almost incoherently, but luckily I knew his thick British accent like the back of my own hand and could decipher his words. He often talked while he was half-asleep, although it was adorable, it took me quite a while to be able to sort through his salad of words as fast as I could now.
"No need to apologize, I'm grateful to have you fall asleep on me any day, but unfortunately you do have to leave soon, Mo grá." I said, using the Gaelic phrase for 'my love' to which I gained a small smile from his handsome, yet still tired, face.
My father was a fluent speaker of Gaelic Irish because he had grown up in Ireland all of his life, I learned from him when I was young so I could speak it pretty fluently now myself, quite thankfully actually. I was grateful to know such a beautiful language and in our spare time, I had taught Zayn the phrases I often used to express my love to him with. He was a Urdu speaker himself, he also being from a family with deep rooted heritage. I had the pleasure of meeting his family in early November of last year, contrary to what I had been afraid of, they were very welcoming and accepting of me. Thankfully, but from a young age I had often worried about things that I really didn't need to and over the years I guess the trait just kind of stuck, unfortunately. Zayn could seriously go to the supermarket for milk and I'd worry to death every second until he got home, but maybe that is just because I have anxiety.
"Actually, not today janam." He muttered, using the Urdu term for 'darling', his voice barely audible this time.
"Are you sure?" I was quite taken aback by his statement, it wasn't like him to willingly want to skip out going to the studio, well unless he was sick.
"I told Peter yesterday that I was taking days to myself these next few weeks, I've probably only seen you a total of twelve hours these past three weeks, it isn't fair to you or to me. I don't have a set schedule anymore." His words a bit incoherent once more, but he continued to speak anyways. I know he was probably hoping I wouldn't, but I instantly caught on to his time in One Direction jab.
"Plus, I promised my mum that you and I would visit this weekend, I haven't seen her in what feels like ages and she and the girls say they miss you." He always did care so much about his family and that was one of my favorite things about him, how grounded he was. It made me smile that they had missed me, I honestly had missed them a lot as well, his family was one of the sweetest groups of people I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I was thankful that I was considered a part of it, very thankful.
Instead of replying verbally, I nodded at him, knowing he wouldn't necessarily be able to see it because his eyes were still closed tightly, but I knew due to our proximity that he would be able to feel me do so and would understand.
"I love you." He breathed after a few minutes of silence, his exhaustion put aside for a just a few moments for him to reach up and kiss me softly, his forehead now pressed against my own sweetly and intimately.
"I love you too Zayn." I whispered as his lips hoovered over mine once more, talking in between the intimate spaces and I smiled at the fact that I would have to be a fool not to love this man the way that I did. He was, in every sense of the word, perfect.
It's was quite contradictory how I was just going on about how could we know if love was real earlier, but here I was telling you how inexplicably in love with Zayn Malik I was. It was true though. I loved him and I was even more in love with him than I could ever begin to explain.
After all, he was my sun, my moon and all of my stars.
Notes
“I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.”― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
@LivinLikeLarry
Thank you so much :)
7/22/16