Replaced

Ch.4 - beautiful

Zander was still struggling keeping his thoughts together. He has been since yesterday with Hailey. Every time he thought about it, guilt flooded his body and he would start to cry.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn't cried in front of Hailey in years.

He had always tried his best to hide his emotions (as terrible as he was at it), but sometimes he just couldn't stop tears from coming.

He took off his clothes, left only wearing boxers. He stared at his slim figure in the mirror for a couple of minutes before throwing on a variation of the same thing he wore everyday.

Zander was relatively confident, but wasn't too fond of his body.

Zander stared again at himself, this time his face. He frowned. He missed Luke.

Luke would take one look at Zander's figure and tell him how perfect and beautiful he was and that he was the most beautiful person Luke had ever seen. Zander knew he'd say something along the lines of 'Luke! Don't say that! That's embarrassing..' but he would've said it with a smile stretching from ear-to-ear.

Zander would very often doubt himself, but his piano was his safe space. He knew he was amazing at it. But now that that outlet was taken from him, he had no reason to be confident in himself.

Well, he may not have his piano or his Luke, but he had his cat.

"C'mere Calla" he whispered, holding his hand out. She walked over and calmly rubbed her head against his hand.

"Alex! Hailey's waiting for you!" His mom called up the stairs, startling him and his cat. She jumped off his desk and ran out of his room.

"Coming!" He said, quickly slipping on a pair of black high top converse.

He slowly walked down the stairs, jumping off the second last step.

"Bye mum" he said, hugging his mom with one arm.

"Goodbye bud" she replied.

Hailey threw the door open, Zander following after her.

He walked beside and slightly behind his sister, still avoiding any contact after what happened. They walked for a solid five minutes in silence, before Hailey finally broke it.

"She's coming in today." She said, looking at her brother with a slightly worried face. Almost like she felt bad. He felt bad for himself too.

"Alright." He replied, looking down at the ground.

She frowned. "I'm sorry."

Zander shrugged. "It's whatever. I'm only a little upset with you. It's my fault for forgetting the stupid fucking song. It's just.. after I screwed up Clair De La Lune, I lost all my confidence."

"Well, you're still the best piano player I know, and probably one of the best musicians. You're still great Zan. It's just your arm."

"Yeah. Whatever. I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow so I get to miss school. I really hope I don't need the surgery"

Hailey's eyes widened for a moment and she nodded. "Yeah, that would suck a lot. We can pray for the best."

"For sure." He said. The conversation ended, and that was the last they spoke until a few minutes later when Luke joined them.

"Hi!!" Luke beamed, waving at the pair of siblings. "How are y'all doing??"

"Fine." Zander replied, shrugging. Zander could tell Luke's mood worsened when he saw how upset Zander was. Maybe Luke would just be better off without a mood ruiner like Zander.