Eternal Longing ✓

49. Heartbreak On A Monday Night

JAYA

I didn't tell Mav about the other worry plaguing me-namely, my upcoming meeting with my biological father-but he must have deduced that there was more because, throughout our dinner, he made it a point to make me laugh.

Maybe I'm basic, but his retellings of the crazy frat parties he's been to and the shenanigans that he's been a part of in the last month had me dying laughing so much that I couldn't even catch my breath at a point.

We stayed at the dining hall long enough for him to force me to eat the broccoli I never got to eat that first day we met and for my friends to FaceTime and meet him, laughing and making fun of him like long-lost siblings until Sera's line mysteriously cut when Mav jokingly made a pass at her.

Emphasis on mysteriously because while she claims that she has no idea what happened, we all heard Aristide's irritated voice before the line went out, confirming our suspicions that her man was the reason for her abrupt departure.

Now, as I shut the door behind me and try not to think too deeply about the fact that the text I sent Fin hours ago asking when he'd be heading back home went unanswered, viewed, and unanswered, I almost don't notice Hannah laying on my bed until I'm standing in the middle of the room.

"Hannah?" I step closer to her when I notice her shoulders are shaking. She's turned the opposite way, so I can't see her face, but given how she's huddled under my covers, I can imagine the look on her face. "Hans? Are you okay, sis?"

I turn to look at her side of the room, my eyes latching onto the stacks of papers on her bed. I glance at her shaking form on my bed once more before stepping toward her bed and picking up one of the many papers.

Upon closer inspection, I notice that the papers are not just regular paper, they are Strathmore's 400 Series Drawing Paper, arguably the best drawing papers for graphite pencils.

A face, smiling and sweet as ever gazes back at me, the lines of the drawing expert and smooth, drawn not only by a seasoned artist but also an artist whose care is infused in every single detail.

I pick up another sketch, this one also depicting my roommate with her hair in a messy updo and her face serious and hard, as if she's annoyed with the person that is so dedicatedly drawing her.

There are at least twenty more drawings scattered around her bed, all of them excellent, and all of them of her.

Apart from the subject of the drawings, they also all share a blackened corner as if someone began burning every one of them but quickly backtracked when the paper started to catch fire.

"That tweed-jacket-wearing-ass professor," I curse out, turning to look at my poor roommate who couldn't even wallow in her own bed due to those drawings.

"I-I love him, Jaya," she croaks out from underneath my blanket. "I let myself fall for him. And now . . . I-I'm broken. He broke me."

I drop the drawing back on her bed and go toward her. "Hannah, no. No, no, no. You're not broken. A man cannot break you. A person cannot break you."

Since she doesn't want to turn around and look at me, I pull up the blankets and get in behind her, rearranging myself until I'm engulfing her in my arms. As more tears shake through her body, I simply hold her, wishing so hard that I could hold her tight enough to make her feel whole again.

Because she might not be truly broken, but it doesn't mean that the heartbreak doesn't feel as real and physical as a wound. A deep and painful wound. I've never experienced the pain of heartbreak, but I've seen firsthand the unabashed scars that it leaves.