After a year and a half of trying to move on from the what-ifs, the tides have pulled Alexandra Rivera and Zachariah Kim back together again.
*****
In the h...
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For the second time that night, Zachariah woke me up. It hit me at once when I realized I was still hunched over in the passenger seat of his car.
A gentle breeze coasted through the open door Zachariah leaned against with one arm near the window and the other placed on my shoulder.
"I waited twenty minutes but I figured you'd like sleeping inside a little better."
A throbbing headache ravaged my brain into carnage. "We've been sitting out here for twenty minutes?"
It didn't surprise me to see that his car was the only one in the driveway since his roommates hardly ever came home this early.
"I didn't want to wake you." Zachariah regarded me with a shade of gray painted over his face, contending with the shadows cast from the night sky outside. "Come on, the others are out tonight."
I begrudgingly pulled myself up with his help and the two of us made our way over to his front door. Time moved slowly as I waited for him to unlock it, leaning against the frame and occasionally catching his wandering eye.
I'd been over countless times before like when we'd pick up take-out and play Mario Kart. There was something comforting about finding a home away from home. Something about the way people could invite me into their space and make it feel like it was mine.
I whisked through the house with ease, winding through each bend and curve until I found his bedroom and face-planted onto Zachariah's mattress. After a few quiet moments where the only noise passing between us was the sound of our breathing, the television lulled us with dull background noise. A veil fell over us like a warm blanket.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Zachariah asked. "We don't have to if you don't want to but..."
The details of what happened behind the doors of a home weren't always the easiest to divulge, even to friends like Emmie or Jem who were considered something that more closely resembled a family.
Even if I knew I was never at risk of harm, I also knew my father was a victim of his pain, therefore that felt like the same thing.
"I didn't realize it got that bad." His voice was softer this time, afraid if he spoke too loudly, he'd scare me off into the night.
I rolled over and let the spinning ceiling fan blades above dull my senses. That's all I wanted most nights—nothingness.
"He's drinking more," I explained. "It always happens this time of year 'cause this is when mom left but—"
I wasn't sure what to say. The troubles of a heart were rarely concise enough to formulate into words.
"—it's worse this time."
The weight of Zachariah's eyes was felt along every part of my exhausted body—most of all, my heart. The trouble with asking a friend about their heartaches was carrying the emotional burden along with them.
