"What do you mean you don't like movie theater popcorn?" I gasped in disbelief.

Zachariah glanced down at me from the corner of his eye, mischief dancing along his lips. The line crept slowly forward and we followed it, the smell of butter growing stronger with each step.

We were both fresh off rough shifts at work, but I had no plans of maintaining any sort of attention once we were in our seats. I was a little more tired than I would like to be, and with just my luck, I'd fall asleep sometime in the middle of the movie, but Zachariah was used to that by now.

"It's so greasy," he replied. "Nobody needs that much butter on their popcorn."

"You're wrong but go off, I guess."

Work hadn't been the only stressor as of late. The home situation hadn't improved, and even though Emmie and Zach were coming up on their one-year anniversary, things hadn't improved much to the point where I could make sense of why they were still together. We had even invited her to the movies with us tonight but were kindly turned down. I tried not to take it personally, even though part of me couldn't help but feel that way at times. I hated feeling like I had to choose between them.

Sometimes when two people stayed in a relationship long enough but were no longer happy in it, the familiarity became the only thing that kept them together. A crutch that kept them from pursuing something on their own.

"Can we sit at the back?"

Zachariah stared down at me as we pulled away from the counter with our goodies in tow—a bottle of water for him, a large slushie for me, and a giant bag of popcorn to be shared between us. Or mostly me because, as he'd just enlightened me of, he did not like movie theater popcorn.

"You're gonna fall asleep on me, aren't you?"

"I would never."

"You fell asleep during the first movie we ever saw together. You've fallen asleep during at least eighty percent of them, actually."

He grabbed the box to pour out my portion of the popcorn.

"What did Anthony say?" he asked as we walked toward the auditorium.

I yawned. "Someone called out so he had to cover their shift. You're gonna have to drive me home."

We had ten minutes before the showing so we sat down on the glossy red bench outside. As soon as I sat down, I closed my eyes and felt another wave of exhaustion cascade over me.

"You need to just suck it up and take your car in to get fixed," he scolded, dropping bits of popcorn into his mouth.

"Yeah, but I won't have enough to find a place to move out. My car is ancient. It's going to be so expensive to fix." It was already out of the question that I'd be able to find anything affordable on my own, which meant I'd have to find a roommate. Emmie or Jem would be ideal but neither of them were options. I'd even asked Calum but that didn't pan out. Asking Zachariah was tempting but I wasn't sure how that would go over with Emmie and he already had roommates anyway.

"You're gonna have to figure it out eventually," he replied. "How do you think you're gonna get around once you move out?"

"That's too much adult thinking right now. I'll figure it out later."

He nudged me with his elbow. "If you need help—"

"No." I turned around, refusing to look at him. "You're not any less broke than I am."

"I am, actually," he rebutted. "Hence why I pick up the check when we go out to eat."

I sunk further into myself out of guilt. It was easier to pretend like he didn't spoil me the way he did when he wasn't admitting it out loud. "Remind me to never let you pay for me again."

"There's nothing wrong with letting your friends help you out."

I threw a piece of popcorn at him but he caught it before it hit his face. "I'm not taking advantage of my friends."

"You're not taking advantage of me if I'm the one offering."

"Tell that to your innocent bank account."

One of our phones rang. I came up empty but Zachariah scrunched his face before sliding it back into his pocket without sending a reply. I didn't need to be told twice that he wasn't happy with whoever it was, and there was only one person in his life that got under his skin like that.

"Is it her?" I asked.

Zachariah sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "I asked her to spend the night but she said she was busy. Didn't even say with what."

"So, the usual."

He tried his best to not bring her up when the two of us were together, but the timing of these occurrences didn't always work out in his favor. It wasn't the first time I was there when something like that happened, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Most of the time, I awkwardly stood waiting for him to either respond or ignore her.

"You can talk about it," I reassured him. "Keeping it bottled up doesn't help."

Zachariah refused. "Not right now. I'm not killing the mood."

"It's not always the worst. Sometimes it's better for the mood to turn to shit on an insignificant day than for everything to implode on a bigger one."

"I'm sure the one year will be so much fun," he mentioned sarcastically as he tossed another piece of popcorn up into the air. "She got mad that I said I couldn't spend the whole day with her, even though she bails on me half the time."

I pulled the bag of popcorn out of his hands and placed it between us. "To play devil's advocate here, what are you doing that you can't spend the whole day with her?"

"The band wants to rehearse before a show the following weekend and that's the closest day we can all meet up." Zachariah's head rolled until he looked at me with a sad smile. "Kat keeps asking me to let you two come see us play."

"You're changing the subject."

"I'm aware."

I rolled my eyes. "She keeps bugging me about it, too."

"You wanna come next week?" he asked.

"Your solution to Emmie being mad about you spending your first anniversary with your band is to invite your other friends to watch? No wonder your relationship is a headache."

"What?" He shrugged. "I'm not gonna beg her to do something she doesn't want to do and she doesn't want to do anything that day anymore so—"

"Nothing?" I sputtered. "Nothing at all?" After the argument about stepping too far over the line in regards to my opinion about their relationship, I stopped questioning things, so I hadn't heard about this from her. "You two exhaust me."

Zachariah laughed, "Must be fun being best friends with the two of us."

...

"I think you owe me ice cream," was the first thing Zachariah said when he woke me up as the credits were rolling

A few other groups had watched the same showing as us, but they were all gone by the time I was woken up. I rubbed my eyes and tried to reorient myself with my surroundings. The only person that currently tethered me to reality was Zachariah.

"I never said I wouldn't fall asleep."

He stared down at me, amused. "I believe your exact words were I would never and yet—"

I brushed him off while doing my best to dust off bits of popcorn that had gotten over me while I was asleep. "Semantics."

"Come on." He tugged on my arm and scooped up the popcorn bag.

The drive back home was shrouded in drowsiness, paired nicely with a healthy dose of starlight and salty air from the beach route Zachariah took. A quiet, dull whisper of our favorite Bad Suns song hummed in the background as we turned into the townhouse complex.

"I already texted Kat saying you two are gonna come over next week to watch us play," he murmured.

I cursed under my breath and narrowed my eyes at him. He hung back for me to walk up the stairs first, a hand placed gently on the curve of my back to guide me. "You're such a little shit."

"I promise if Emmie finds out she won't get that mad."

That wasn't the promising start to a plan destined to go well, but I was too exhausted to fight back right now. That conversation could wait for tomorrow morning and a cup of coffee.

Before I turned the key in the door, I pressed my forehead against it. If Zachariah was concerned, he didn't show it.

He leaned against the railing and waited.

I wasn't sure what kept me from going further, but once I heard the loud noise from inside, I knew something was wrong.

It was torturous to see someone I love experience a kind of pain that couldn't be explained. No matter how much I wished I could help, it was an impossible task. How did someone run across a battlefield for someone else without knowing where the landmines were? I could've run straight for it because arbitrary bravery was admirable, but I wasn't in a place where I could stitch myself back up if I had to lay myself down on the line for someone else. Not in the way he needed me.

Anthony never told me in detail about the episodes our dad had when the days turned bad. The only thing I'd ever been given access to was the aftermath, and even that frightened me.

As soon as I opened the door and heard a loud crash, I rushed inside to see broken glass all over the kitchen floor with my father kneeling above it and his back facing the front door.

My instinct told me to run to him, wrap him in my arms, and stop the cries from shaking his body, but before I stepped inside, Zachariah stopped me.

"Dad? What the hell happened?"

"Go downstairs," Zachariah commanded, but I barely listened, my focus solely on my dad.

His eyes were rimmed with red, his left hand cut with specks of blood, and the odor of booze wafted to where we stood.

"Dad?"

It was only a moment that Zachariah let me watch before he pulled me away much more forcefully to wait in the car. One thing was for sure—if this was a side effect of a broken heart, I wasn't sure I ever wanted to experience falling in love.