For the second time that night, Zachariah woke me up. It hit me at once when I realized I was still hunched over in the passenger seat of his car.

A gentle breeze coasted through the open door Zachariah leaned against with one arm near the window and the other placed on my shoulder.

"I waited twenty minutes but I figured you'd like sleeping inside a little better."

A throbbing headache ravaged my brain into carnage. "We've been sitting out here for twenty minutes?"

It didn't surprise me to see that his car was the only one in the driveway since his roommates hardly ever came home this early.

"I didn't want to wake you." Zachariah regarded me with a shade of gray painted over his face, contending with the shadows cast from the night sky outside. "Come on, the others are out tonight."

I begrudgingly pulled myself up with his help and the two of us made our way over to his front door. Time moved slowly as I waited for him to unlock it, leaning against the frame and occasionally catching his wandering eye.

I'd been over countless times before like when we'd pick up take-out and play Mario Kart. There was something comforting about finding a home away from home. Something about the way people could invite me into their space and make it feel like it was mine.

I whisked through the house with ease, winding through each bend and curve until I found his bedroom and face-planted onto Zachariah's mattress. After a few quiet moments where the only noise passing between us was the sound of our breathing, the television lulled us with dull background noise. A veil fell over us like a warm blanket.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Zachariah asked. "We don't have to if you don't want to but..."

The details of what happened behind the doors of a home weren't always the easiest to divulge, even to friends like Emmie or Jem who were considered something that more closely resembled a family.

Even if I knew I was never at risk of harm, I also knew my father was a victim of his pain, therefore that felt like the same thing.

"I didn't realize it got that bad." His voice was softer this time, afraid if he spoke too loudly, he'd scare me off into the night.

I rolled over and let the spinning ceiling fan blades above dull my senses. That's all I wanted most nights—nothingness.

"He's drinking more," I explained. "It always happens this time of year 'cause this is when mom left but—"

I wasn't sure what to say. The troubles of a heart were rarely concise enough to formulate into words.

"—it's worse this time."

The weight of Zachariah's eyes was felt along every part of my exhausted body—most of all, my heart. The trouble with asking a friend about their heartaches was carrying the emotional burden along with them.

"It feels like this endless cycle of getting better and then getting worse and then getting better and I don't know what to do or say. How do you stop someone from doing something they don't want to stop themselves?" The words poured out of me like vomit. It wasn't the first time I'd shared those sentiments before, and it was, yet, another reminder of the very thing I was explaining. How life repeated itself in the most frustrating ways and I was left to pick up the pieces while being a pile of rubble myself.

"He says he's trying and I know he is but it isn't enough sometimes. He's so stubborn. He's so fucking stubborn and he thinks we'll be enough for him and we're not and I just—"

My breath caught in my throat and I closed my eyes. The sweltering heat flushed my cheeks until the entire room was engulfed in it.

Zachariah walked over and lowered himself beside me. Inches of space separated us and our eyes had yet to reconnect, but his comforting presence washed over me like a cool wave after a long drought.

"We don't control how long it takes to get over a broken heart," he said, reminiscent of something Emmie once said to me and a reminder of how similar they were. "But that doesn't mean you need to sacrifice your well-being to save someone else."

My eyes flickered open. "He doesn't do anything around m—"

"I know he doesn't. That doesn't mean being in that environment is healthy."

Zachariah wore every emotion bravely. No matter what he said, the truth was written all over those gentle features I'd come to know so well. When he cared, I knew it, and that was evident tonight.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," I whispered, watching as the breeze blew through the window and carried my words away. "I can't just leave Anthony by himself."

"Anthony is a big boy, he can take care of himself." He was firm with his words even if he was doing his best to keep me calm. "You can stay here for a while if you want."

Zachariah's roommates weren't the worst, but the idea of coming here to get away from people only to be confronted with roommates wasn't the most appealing.

Still, it was a thought.

When Zachariah recognized the hesitation, he continued, "Or go over to Emmie's. I'm sure even Cal wouldn't mind having you spend the night every once in a while. But don't think you have to stay in that house to prove your allegiance to your father. If it gets too much, leave. He'll come to understand, even if it isn't right away."

I rolled onto my side. My fingers reached out to grab a loose thread in the comforter, and my vision of him carefully observing me blurred away. Opening up made me vulnerable, but it was nice knowing somebody was there to listen.

"Do you remember when Lilo & Stitch first came out?" I asked. "I think I was eight. I remember waiting in line to buy the ticket with my dad and telling him how excited I was to see a little brown girl like me on the big screen."

Zachariah smiled. The kind of smile that crept up slowly and subtly. So soft I wondered if I was just imagining it. The kind of smile that made me glad I had a place to run to because sometimes running away from my problems felt like the only answer. Running away was sometimes the brave thing to do when we had no other way out.

"I couldn't stop talking about it for a whole week after I saw it. I even dragged my mom to 'Iolani Palace so I could see where Queen Lili'uokalani lived. I used to whisper to that dress of hers they have on display and thank her for everything." My head rotated back up to the ceiling and I imagined the roof disappearing and giving way to a night sky. "My mom used to sing that song to me a lot. For a while, I couldn't go to sleep without it."

"That's sweet," Zachariah murmured.

When I looked at him, I felt a weight in my heart and wondered if it was the same weight my father fell asleep with every night. "When she left, there wasn't any music anymore. Not until I started hearing my dad cry in the shower while he was singing that same song." My breaths fell in a gentle rhythm; the resignation of someone who'd spent too long wishing someone else too far gone would return.

There was a question somewhere in the small movement that followed, but when Zachariah's hand came to rest on top of mine, I did nothing to stop it.

"From you, true love shall never depart," I recited. "If that was true, why did she leave him? Or us?"

It was the question I asked for so many years. Though I'd convinced myself I'd moved on, every look at the man my father had become reminded me of the catalyst that sent him spiraling. I knew it wasn't all her fault. I'd heard the stories of when he was young and struggling to figure out why he acted the way he did. But all I knew now was what I saw, and part of me hated myself for the way I blamed anyone for these problems.

The hand resting over mine squeezed tight. "Sometimes we find closure not from getting an answer, but from accepting we never will."

"What if I turn out like him?" A frightening thought turned into an unsteady whisper for the first time.

"I'd never let that happen."

Zachariah forced me to look at him, as much as the beating heart dared to plunge out of my chest.

"Sometimes I want to run away. To Seattle or something. Maybe New York. Maybe farther."

His warm eyes met mine with unwavering certainty. "Maybe one day for the right reasons."