Heart To Heal

X.

Chapter Ten.

After getting dropped off at home, Zealand sat down with Harmony for about an hour to help her with her homework, before getting her ready for bed. His usual nightly tasks included instructing Harmony on how to bathe herself since he couldn't do it for her, making sure she brushed her teeth and washed her face, picking out her pajamas, tucking her in, and sitting on the edge of her bed until she fell asleep.

Harmony wouldn't go to sleep unless Zee sat on the edge of her bed and made sure she was "protected from monsters" as she put it.

On a regular night, those tasks were fairly easy and Harmony would be knocked out by 9:00, but tonight was different. For whatever reason, she seemed to have a lot of energy and didn't want to get in the bed. Zealand had to practically beg her to lay down. When that didn't work, he threatened to tell Eddie about how stubborn his sister was being.

Harmony literally flew to her bed after hearing that. She didn't want any issues with the top dog of the house. It was already established that her bedtime was at 9:00, no later. Thankfully, she was able to fall asleep around 9:30, which wasn't too bad.

Once Zee left out of her room, he made his way to the living room. Taking a seat on the couch, he pulled out his phone and typed in his password.

Out of boredom, he decided to scroll through his camera roll. There was nothing interesting in there since Zealand barely took pictures. He didn't like looking at himself. He knew he wasn't ugly, his confidence just wasn't the greatest.

It was mostly thousands of selfies that Harmony had taken of herself, screenshots of quotes from Twitter, and homework answers.

As he scrolled, Zealand came across a picture that he forgot he even had. It was a picture of him, Eddie, and his mother at the beach on Labor Day. Zealand was only six at the time, so Harmony wasn't born yet.

In the picture, Eddie had Zee on his back, while his mother, India, was posing with her hand on her hip as she stood beside them.

Zealand stared at the phone screen, eyes mainly on India. He missed his mother dearly. He missed her smile, her laugh, her long, wavy hair that he would always twirl between his fingers when he would lay on her shoulder. He even missed when she would slather his face with Vaseline in the mornings before school, even though he would be walking around looking greasy. There wasn't a day that went by where he didn't think about her. It was so unfortunate that she wasn't on earth anymore. Her life had got taken away from her too soon.

"Ma, I'm struggling without you." Zealand whispered, fighting away the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes.

As he heard the jingling of keys and the front door unlocking, Zee quickly got himself together and slid his phone back into his pocket. He acted as if he was watching whatever was on tv when his father entered the house.

Eddie took his hard hat off, tucking it under his left arm and ruffling his short curls as he shut the front door behind him with his right arm. He tossed his keys on the coffee table, looking at Zealand as he walked past him.

"Wassup my boy." He said, heading towards the kitchen.

"Wassup." Zealand simply said, looking down at the carpet.

Eddie entered the kitchen, turning on the light. He placed his hat on the kitchen table, then went over to the fridge. He began pulling out all of the ingredients to make himself a triple decker ham and cheese sandwich. As tired as he was, Eddie didn't feel like making anything fancy or time consuming. He just wanted to eat, shower, and go to sleep.

While he began preparing his sandwich, Zealand walked into the kitchen quietly. He wiped his slightly sweaty palms on his pants. His nerves were bad due to the fact that he was about to ask his father a question that he already knew the answer to, but he wanted to give it a final try. Actually, he wasn't even going to ask. Zealand was just about to tell his father what he wanted, straight up.

"Pops.." he called out.

"What?" Eddie said, continuing to do what he was doing, not even turning around to acknowledge Zee.

"I wanna start working."

Eddie stopped in his tracks, placing the bottle of mustard that he was holding down on the counter.

"Zealand, we already discussed this. I'm not going there with you tonight." He warned in a gruff voice.

"Pops, come on. I'm seventeen, I should be allowed to get a job. Plus, I can help out with bills and stuff. We need the extra money." Zealand explained.

Eddie shook his head, "Zee, you need to be worried about them damn books. Matter fact, when y'all first report cards come out? I better see straight A's." He pointed a finger at his son.

Zealand sighed, "How come you never fucking listen to me bruh?" He snapped, not even realizing the words had slipped out of his mouth.

His father turned around quickly, storming towards Zealand and yanking him up by his shirt. "Who the fuck you think you jumping fly with? I ain't one of your lil' homeboys, I'll slap the shit out of you!" Eddie yelled in his face.

"A-alright pops, my bad! I didn't mean-"

"Listen to me and listen to me real good nigga, you ain't getting a job and that's final! I don't give a fuck if you seventeen or not. If I said you can't work, then you can't work. I'm the-"

"What's going on?" A tiny voice questioned.

They both turned to see Harmony standing in the entry way of the kitchen, holding a stuffed bunny in her hand as she rubbed the sleep out of her eye.

Eddie let go of Zealand, clearing his throat as he looked at his daughter. "Nothing Harmony. Go back to sleep, okay? Me and your brother were just having a talk."

She stood there for a second, looking up at Zealand for approval. He nodded at her, giving her a small smile as reassurance. Harmony cut her eyes at her father, before slowly making her way out of the kitchen. The girl might've been young, but she wasn't dumb. Harmony always knew what was happening.

"I'm done talking about this. Get out my face." Eddie spat at his son, making Zealand's nostrils flare.

Instead of putting up a useless fight, he left the kitchen and headed to his room. When Zee pushed open his bedroom door, he saw Harmony sitting on his bed.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Can me and Mr.Hoppy sleep in here?" She asked, referring to her bunny.

Zealand sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Fine." He said, causing Harmony to instantly kick her slippers off and get under the covers.

Zealand took his shirt off, leaving him in his white wife beater and loose fitting pajama pants. After cutting off his light, he got in bed as well.

"Scoot over, lil mama." He told Harmony. She scooted over a little, giving him more room on his side.

"What were you and dad fighting about?" She questioned.

Zealand shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Get some rest." He simply said, placing a kiss on her forehead.

Harmony left it alone, snuggling her bunny closer to her chest as she closed her eyes.

Shortly after that, Zealand closed his eyes as well.

Within ten minutes, the two siblings were sound asleep.

TBC...
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Thoughts?

Excuse any mistakes.