The Anatomy of a Broken Heart //Completed//

34. Santana

         

Zealand was a day sleeper. At night, he blasted his music and painted or worked on one of his thousands of different art projects, and usually went to bed at around three, only to wake up at seven and sleep between classes. I'd forgotten why I only stayed over on weekends.

The pillow wasn't enough to drown out the screeching of the electric guitar that blasted through his speakers and through the walls of the guest room. I didn't know how his parents didn't mind. Sure, they were major hippies, who gave Zealand almost complete autonomy over himself, but even flower children need their beauty sleep.

I checked my phone to see the time and rolled my eyes. It was only midnight. Three more hours of this. Instead of staying in bed, I ventured out into the hall and walked the five steps it took to get to Zealand's room and tried the door knob. It gave way and I pushed open the door to find him hunched over his sketchpad, sitting on his bed. He looked up at me and put down the pad, face down on top of his black pillow. Almost everything in his room was black. His bedsheets, his curtains, his carpet. I suspected he'd have painted the walls black if his parents hadn't been so colorful and insisted he have at least one thing that wasn't black. He insisted it allowed for creative stimulation. I just thought he was emo. But a happy emo. Usually. Tonight he looked a little upset and I was worried. He loved to talk, but the whole day he'd been uncharacteristically silent and withdrawn.

"Hey, sorry. I forgot you're not used to it," he apologized, nodding to the speakers on his desk. He crawled off his bed and turned the volume down, and I took that opportunity to sneak a peek at his sketchpad. It was a rough outline, but still beautiful. A girl stood atop a hill, the wind blowing through her hair, the saddest look on her face. She looked familiar, but I he didn't give me enough time to wonder at who it could be before snatching the drawing out of my hand with a roll of his big brown eyes.

"It isn't polite to snoop," he feigned offense, but I could see it did really bother him a little.

"Sorry," I smiled innocently and sat on the bed next to him. He slyly pushed the sketchpad under his pillow, where I could see the corner of what looked like a photograph poking out. Strange.

"It's a work in progress. I'm not very good at drawing anyway. I should just stick to photography."

"No! It's great."

"Anyway. What's up?" he asked.

"Oh, no. Nothing. Just couldn't sleep." I tucked my legs under me and grabbed a pillow, hugging it to my chest.

"Still worried about your dad?"

"My dad. Maria. Marlow." I sighed.

He nodded, understanding. "Do you want something to take the edge off?"

I thought about it for a minute. I did. But I couldn't. "No, thanks. I'm still a little freaked over what happened with Mar."

"Yeah, I've actually quit, myself. Just kinda wanna get rid of what I've got." He wasn't a huge partyer, so what he said wasn't surprising, but rather the tone in which he said it. Maybe what happened to Marlow had hit him just as hard. He and Marlow never really spoke to each other. I knew they had some classes together and sometimes shared notes, whenever either of them was teetering on the edge of failing, but other than schoolwork, they didn't have anything in common except for me. Sometimes, I suspected they didn't even like each other very much.

"Umm, have you spoken to her? Marlow, I mean." I asked him.

"No. You guys said she was better, so..." he shrugged. At the look on my face, he stopped. "What? Should I have?"

I laughed. "Hey, now. Be careful, Z. Your sensitivity is showing."

He threw the pencil in his hand at me playfully. "What happened was...stupid." Another shrug. "Whatever. She's fine now."

"I'll never understand why you guys don't like each other."

"Just like I'll never understand what's going on with you and Rosethorn," he countered.

"We're in love and we want to have each other's babies," I deadpanned.

"See. I'd believe it, except there's no way in hell he's your type. And I know for a fact he's not who you love." It was all seriousness now.

"If I told you the truth, you'd think I was crazy." I hugged the pillow tighter to me.

"That ship's kind of already sailed."

He looked at me with a small teasing smile and it was so honest and open. This weird secret I shared with Caleb didn't keep me up at night or make me feel guilty for not telling my closest friends, but the way they looked at me when Caleb was around did bother me. I felt like I needed to defend myself, so I told him. Not everything, though.

"We're not actually together."

"As in, you're not hooking up?" He arched an eyebrow.

"Right. We're just friends. Pretending." I bit my lip.

Zealand's eyes were steady on me, and I could see the revelation of my words process slowly until he finally said, "Pretending. To date?"

"Right."

"Why? That's weird."

"It's a long and stupid story. But just know, that I'm not really with him so you can stop looking at me the way you have been for the past few days." I pointed an accusing finger at his face, which he lightly swatted away.

"Okay," he promised. "Seriously, though. Why?"

"He needed a favor."

"And you so willingly obliged?"

"More or less. It won't go on very long and once he gets what he needs, it'll be as if it never happened."

Zealand's face was frozen in a combination of horror and disbelief and I would've laughed if I didn't feel the same way. Saying it out loud had only solidified in my mind the fact that this was probably the stupidest thing I'd ever done and for the stupidest reasons too.

"What are you getting out of this?"

Nothing, probably, I lamented internally. "Just helping out a friend."

"I didn't know he was your friend."

We stayed silent then, listening to the music playing through the speakers. We didn't speak about Caleb anymore and I let him work without being too nosy. I must have fallen asleep at some point because when I woke up, I was lying next to an unconscious Zealand. He held the sketchpad tight to his chest and as badly as I wanted to peek at it again, I didn't. Instead, I got up and turned off the lights, climbing back into his bed, too sleepy to walk all the way back into the guest room, and waited for his alarm to ring.

Not the chapter I was going to write, but the chapter we got haha I hope you enjoyed it!