Zephaniah

My feet wiggled slowly, rubbing them together as the back of my foot slowly moved on top of the other one. It meant that I was comfortable, it meant that I was feeling okay, that I was enjoying something. My eyes were trained onto Haven's hand, who was highlighting important notes.

I glanced at her, she seemed to be very concentrated. Her light eyes were focused on her notes, her upper lip between her teeth in concentration. I stared at the tiny freckle on her right cheekbone, wondering why I found it so interesting. How did freckles appear, anyway? Why did everyone have them?

"Zephaniah?" Haven carefully tapped on my shoulder, making my body jump slightly, because, sudden touches. "I asked if you think this is structured enough for you to read?"

Swallowing, I moved my attention over to her notebook, recalling her words and scanning over the neatly written sentences, the most important ones highlighted with a bright, yellow colour. Yellow was probably my favourite colour, but not the bright one, I didn't quite like it. The neon colour was as if it hurt my eyes to look at.

I'd always preferred the green or blue one, it wasn't as bright, though, I'd still rather to just draw a neat line underneath the sentences with a ruler and pen, black, preferably.

Eventually, after staring at her words for a while, my eyes fell onto my water bottle, reminding me of my thirst. Grabbing it, I uncapped it and drank until it was empty and wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my sweater.

I craved for more, but I couldn't fill it again. Licking my lips, I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. It reminded me of the times when I was little and couldn't sleep. Mum and dad always made place for me in the middle of them, switched on their flashlights and made dogs out of their hands, the shadow displaying a thousand made up stories by them.

They'd dry my tears, kiss my cheeks and make me laugh until I fell back asleep in exhaustion. The memory made me nostalgic, melancholic, perhaps. Because every time I'd get these memories, I longed to be little, because even if my life hadn't been carefree because of my struggles back then- it was always more carefree than it was right now.

Dad, I broke our promise from my eighth birthday. If only I could stay little forever, I would've done it.

"Zephaniah?" Haven's voice brought me back to reality, my cheeks warming up to the point where I could just feel I was as red as a tomato. "Are my notes fine to read for you?" She repeated. I wondered how many minutes I had zoned out now.

Rolling back onto my stomach, my eyes scanned the sentences again and I nodded, sitting up as I gulped. "I'm sorry, I didn't- I wasn't trying to-"

"I know," She answered, giving me another soft smile. "It's totally okay. You don't mind that I'm calling your name until you look at me, do you?"

Glancing at her, I shook my head, knowing people had to do that in order to gain my attention. "Good, uhm, notes." I said quietly, not wanting to think about one of my struggles.

"Yeah? That's perfect! Do you have a printer here? Maybe I can copy them for you so you can maybe glue them to your notebook. So you don't have to write the things you don't have in your notebook, know what I mean?" She smiled cheerfully, but rambled, making my mind race to try and process everything she had just said.

Reaching for my water bottle, I uncapped it but realised there was no water left, making me fiddle with my fingers instead. "Uhm, what?" I whispered, glancing at her again.

Haven sat up, her hair falling into her face. She blew a few strands away, making me smile shyly as she caught me looking at her. Quickly looking away, my ears were focused on her words, her calm voice was soothing.

"Sorry, Zephaniah. I meant to say, do you maybe have a printer so I can scan the paper for you?" She said more slowly, giving me time to process her given words. "That way, you don't have to write my notes down into your own notebook."

I frowned, my hands finding its way to Cooper's ears. "Uhm, but it- it is yours. I cannot just copy it,"

"Why not?" She wondered, patting Cooper's head as he moved his attention curiously towards her.

"Because it's yours, that is not fair." I mumbled, staring at her hands as her fingers went through Cooper's hairs, exposing her nude paint colour on her nails. Mum taught me, I thought a nude colour meant that they weren't painted at all, because, that'd be nude, right? Bare, without anything on them.

"I'm offering you, though. That means you can accept it if you want, or not if you don't want it." Haven said calmly, her blue eyes focused on her own hand as well, Cooper's eyes squinting as he loved the feeling.

Right, baba had always told me that, and I knew it- but it was still hard to do so. Because what if she was just testing to see how I would react? What if she somehow wanted to expose me for needing so much help? Just like Tara did at times when I was sixteen, making me confess things in trust- then laughing about it with her friends. How could I possibly accept and put myself into that all over again?

"If I didn't want you to have my notes, I wouldn't have asked, Zephaniah." She gave me a smile, laying her notebook onto my lap.

Blinking my eyes a little faster, I somehow felt uncomfortable suddenly, maybe insecure. "Really? I mean, you will not- not get mad?"

Haven's expression turned into, what I thought was, slight confusion, "No, Zephaniah. I won't get mad. Where's your printer?" She stood up from the bed, looking around my parents' room.

"Uhm," standing up as well, I observed her from underneath the fringe that almost fell over my eyes. She was different, I could tell from everything. The way she acted at University to the way she was so calm in our house, on my parents' bed. "Down, baba's work.. room."

Haven turned around, suddenly looking at me. "What does baba mean? I mean, I can tell it is something like father or dad, but, what language is it?"

"Baba.. dad, father." I blushed, fiddling with my fingers as I realised I always called him that, even when people didn't always understand. "Dad is half Pakistani, got it from him. Urdu." I said quietly, walking over to the door.

Haven smiled, looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite understand, but she seemed happy. "I like that, you know? That you call him both. I love different languages. Do you know more words?" She questioned as she followed me downstairs, my hand clutching onto the railing as dad had recently added strange feeling mats onto the stairs to make it less slippery- though I had tripped over it right after they were placed.

Slowly shaking my head, I blushed as I thought about Jaan, thinking it probably sounded weird if I explained it to her. What would she think?

"I know a few Dutch words. Because of my Amsterdam obsession, do you want to hear?" Haven spoke excitedly, my eyes blinking a little faster because of it.

"Okay," I answered quietly, waiting for her as she stepped down the stairs, I had already reached the floor.

"Hallo, ik ben Haven." Haven chuckled, shaking her head. "They'll probably laugh at me. It means, 'hello, I am Haven'." She smiled by herself, I wondered where she'd gotten the knowledge from. "Did you know my name means port in Dutch? As in the place where the boats are and all. Kind of awesome."

I felt my lips curl up at that, even if her chattiness made me feel tired, as in that my mind had to process way too much.

Haven probably noticed, because her once very bright and twinkling eyes with a wide smile, turned to a soft one instead, her upper lip touching her bottom one. She rolled her tongue over them, nibbling on her bottom lip after that. "So, the printer?"

I simply walked over to dad's small office, knocking onto the door. "Dad?" I said quietly, not wanting to interrupt him too much, in case he was busy.

"Yeah?" He turned around in a swift motion, kicking the door open with his foot as he was seated on his desk chair. His eyes stood questionable as he eyed me and Haven for a short moment.

"Uhm, can we- can we use the printer." I mumbled, staring at my bare feet, my toes slightly curling and digging into the carpet mum had placed in here not too long ago. It was soft, very soft, and warm.

Baba nodded, shoving his chair away to make place for us. "Yeah, totally, Zeph. What'd you need it for?"

I fiddled with my fingers, glancing at Haven. How could I tell dad I was going to copy her notes? I wasn't sure if he'd be okay with it, as he had always stimulated to do things myself as much as I could.

"Oh, we're copying this paper! We wrote down the most important notes from last lecture and we highlighted them. So we can both learn from it. Hope that's okay!" Haven spoke, her fingers slowly playing with the paper she held behind her back.

Dad gave us a smile, nodding his head. "Of course. I'm happy you guys can help each other in that way. Do you know how it works? Do I need to help?"

"We can figure it out." I said quietly, glancing at him as I walked over to the printer.

"Okay," Dad held up his hands, slightly raising his eyebrows.

Haven simply chuckled, opening the upper part of the printer and placing the page of her notebook onto the- what looked like glass- plate and closed it again, pressing on a few buttons on the printer, then it started to work.

It had went too fast for me to realise how she did it, I guess I still had to ask dad next time, much to my disappointment. Not much later, the paper came out and as I took it from the printer, I laid the paper down onto both of my hands, feeling the warmth radiating off slowly.

Neatly folding the paper, I stuffed it into the back pocket of my trousers and looked up at my father, who frowned as I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands.

"How's your headache, Zeph?" He questioned again, a slight look of concern visible in his hazel eyes.

"Fine, little bit," I shrugged, wanting to leave the small room to go back studying, though, my dad had other plans.

"You can take a paracetamol, you know? Or why don't you take a small break?" He suggested, his eyes going from me to Haven, then back to me.

"Okay," I answered, sighing softly when he dismissed us from the small room. Glancing up at Haven, I knew I had to speak up for once, not wanting her to think I was boring in any way, or something. "Uhm, you want something to drink?"

"Oh, sure! Strawberry lemonade is fine." Haven shrugged, leaning against the kitchen counter. I wondered how she could be so comfortable and casual in houses and families she barely knew. It made me long to be like her. Oh, how things would be so much easier.

Taking two glasses out of its cabinet, I poured some lemonade into the both of them, filling them up with water after that. I handed her the glass, my cheeks reddening slightly as her fingers brushed against mine.

Sipping slowly, my eyes widened when dad suddenly entered the room. Trying to gulp down everything as fast as I could, I ended up almost choking, my eyes watering and my face heating up at the sudden action and the loud and rough coughs. Cooper barked, his paws up in the air as he scratched my stomach in order to calm me down.

"Be careful, Zeph." Dad frowned, removing the fringe from my forehead while Haven looked at me in concern. "What'd you do?"

"Sorry, sorry I didn't mean to drink more, I wasn't- I didn't-"

Dad's frown left his face, a soft expression appearing instead. "Zeph, just not your whole water bottle, yeah? Of course you can still drink something. It's not like you aren't allowed to drink for the rest of the day," he chuckled, ruffling my hair.

"Oh," I blushed deeply, biting my bottom lip as I felt extremely ashamed for some reasons. Wiping my eyes and mouth, I placed the glass of lemonade down on the counter and decided to stop drinking.

Dad smiled, then left to go to the toilet, perhaps.

Staring down at the floor in shame, I couldn't help but sigh, reaching for the gum ball machine. "Uhm, do you- do you want one?" I said, trying to change the subject.

"Oh, yeah! Sure!" Haven smiled, seeming to have forgotten about the previous incident.

Turning the small handle, I couldn't help but frown when it seemed to be stuck. Pulling harder at it, it seemed to move slightly, but the one last tug was fatal, causing the handle to get off completely, all the chewing balls rolling onto the kitchen counter, scattering all over the floor.

Tears pricked behind my eyes and I swallowed, trying to calm myself down before I'd totally lose it. The frustration bubbled up, the shame and sadness following soon after. I was tired of myself, I was exhausted, done. Why, why me. Why now, when Haven is here.

Why couldn't I be just Zephaniah?

~~~

More Zaven.. do you like them? They're the complete opposite.

Haven handling things?

Poor Zeph..