Zephaniah // z.m

Twenty four

Zayn

When Wednesday rolled around, I was feeling relieved. My mum brought Zephaniah to school in the morning, meaning I could sleep in. I appreciated it a lot, as it was the only day I could actually sleep in and the only day off I had from work, along with Sunday.

I had chosen the Wednesday off on purpose, as Zephaniah had school only until twelve thirty, meaning I could spend the whole afternoon with him, after my mother had brought him home as well.

Sitting down on the couch, I tried to kill some time with my phone until Zephaniah would be home. My thoughts automatically led to yesterday evening, when I fell out on Hannah again.

I felt guilty, remembering the hurt look on her face, but I didn't really know how to fix it. It was something that came naturally, like I needed to protect and defend myself when things got too close to my personal life. I just never learned how to cope better with specific emotions.

Luckily for me, my mum arrived five minutes later, just in time before I would sunk to deep in my thoughts, with my son. The door swung open and the sound of my mother's voice filled my house.

"Hi, love!" She said happily, helping Zephaniah take off his jacket before moving on to his shoes.

"Helloo," I sang shortly, slowly stretching my body and walking over to the hallway, where Zephaniah was sitting on the stairs with his feet in the air.

Zephaniah smiled cheekily as my mother took off his shoes and I shook my head in response, "Zeph, oh, Zeph. You can do that yourself perfectly fine."

He blushed and wrapped his little arms around my waist, after he replaced his black slip on shoes. Apparently my mum had placed them on the wrong spot. "Hi, daddy."

"Hi, buddy." I kissed his forehead and took his animal themed backpack from his hand, walking over to the table and placing the bag on it. "How was school?" I asked as my mum and Zephaniah followed me inside.

Zephaniah remained silent and he stared down as he played with the hem of his shirt. My mum sighed softly and rubbed his back soothingly, "You can tell daddy, I'm sure he won't be mad, love."

I frowned and crouched down in front of Zephaniah when I noticed the tears pooling into his pretty and big green eyes. "What's wrong, Zeph?"

The tears started rolling out of his eyes and he covered his face with his little hands, whimpers leaving his mouth as he tried to contain his sobs. I frowned when I looked at my mother, and she gave me a sympathetic smile while shrugging.

"What happened, Zephy?" I asked, softly removing his hands he held against his now red and puffy eyes.

"H-had.. had test, d-daddy, read test, I-I.." He sobbed, softly humming along with them as he couldn't finish his sentence, "I-I had s-ssix words in one m-mminute,"

I wrapped my arm around his waist and softly rubbed his back as I looked up at him, still being crouched down in front of my son. "You had a reading test and you had six words in one minute?"

Zephaniah nodded and continued to cry in his little hands, his sobs becoming louder now he wasn't holding them back.

I knew he was talking about a test the kids had once a year where they had to read as many words as they could aloud in one minute, and my heart broke. I knew how much he struggled when it came to reading, even more when it was aloud, and probably even, even, more when it was under time pressure.