Always HIS

Chapter 1

[ Anna ]

One week later:

"It's been six and a half minutes since you're hiding behind that menu card. Why don't you put it down and tell me what's going on in that small head of yours?"

Puffing some air from my mouth, I peep out from behind the menu card and then keep it down, crossing my hands, retorting, "Why can't I be just thinking about what to order?"

"There's nothing more than eggs and bacon and salad on that menu. And you're vegetarian, not much to think," he reminded me bossily, mimicking my tone, "And especially not for six and a half– seven minutes now."

I flushed. He raised an eyebrow in return, a proud smile on his lips.

"I'll have a vegetable salad." I mumble.

"You're barely eating," he retaliated. "At this pace, you'll be as thin as a stick in a few days."

"It's nothing," I cover up, "Just my nerves. I don't think I was read to come out just yet."

"Come out just yet?" He squeezed his eyebrows. "Let me be the one to remind you, we're not out. We're literally in the café opposite your house that's empty all the time. And you'd locked yourself up in your room for six whole days now. You were only coming out in the middle of the night to refill your water bottles and take some snacks and then you were gone all day again. Your father was worried you're going to become a caveman."

I nodded. "I know, and I just needed some time to stay alone and binge watch some series and be able to pick myself up again. I get that my father was worried but was that seriously a good enough reason for you to fly from Brooklyn to Idaho only to see me?"

He opened his lips, but paused when a lady approached us for the order. "A vegetable salad and black coffee for the lady, and half friend eggs for me please," He said to her.

"I don't want black coffee," I correct, "It'll be tea please." The lady noted it down and then left.

"Black coffee will help calm your nerves," he said.

"I'm not very fond of coffee coffee," I mumbled, whining, "But like I was saying, you are working too. You didn't have to come all the way from Brooklyn to Sun Valley for me, Jay. A phone call would have sufficed."

"Don't flatter yourself," he rolls his eyes. "I didn't come here for you. I came for my grandparents."

"Who died twenty years ago?" I reminded him.

He chuckled. "I'm their only grandson... grandchild, actually. I needed to sign the will when I came of age and cause my mom doesn't prefer coming here often after her parents died, I had to. So don't flatter yourself, I'm here for my money."

"I'm sure your dead grandparents will be ecstatic hearing that." I shake my head dramatically.

"You don't get a say in that," he firmly says, "I'm mad at you."

"Why?" I knit my eyebrows.

"You, Anna Collins, left without a goodbye." He says.

I open my lips, but no words come out. 

He goes on, "After everything, I thought we were at least friends enough for me to deserve an actual bye then hearing from Lana how the previous day was your last day and you didn't tell anybody."

"No, you did." I murmur, "I'm sorry."

"Forgiven," he grins. "And, just for the record, I did try calling you first. It wasn't my fault that your phone had been switched off for days. It's kinda your fault to make me desperate enough to ask around and show up at your door today."

"Yeah... my phone," I sigh. "It got wet in the rains a few days ago and it hasn't switched on since then."

"Did you try soaking it in rice?" 

"Nope." I shake my head. I had been so preoccupied by that stupid news article I had read and barely been able to catch any sleep all of that night to even bother about my phone. 

"Uh?"

"I've given it for repair," I say. "It'll be back in a day or two."

"Do you feel better coming out?" He smirks a little, and then leans back on his chair, giving the lady some space to get our orders and place it on the table.

When she leaves, I pass him a half smile. "I would have preferred staying at home, didn't think I wanted to go out yet... but this isn't as bad."

"You're doing perfectly fine!" He said firmly, "Ans I told you I've chosen a rather isolated location. All you had to do was trust your best friend."

"You're not my best friend," I huffed.

"Is there anyone else you could turn up to in the whole of Idaho except your dad if you need anything?" He raised an eyebrow. I ignored him, not giving in just yet.

"Is there anyone else you even call a friend except me?" He teased again.

"Puh-lease," I rolled my eyes, "You make me sound like a loner. There's plenty. Like Nish and Sam." But then somewhere, a smile cracked on my face. I got what he really did- diverted my attention.

"There it is! That lovely smile," he said, and I smiled a little more.

"Come on, love. What would you have done without me?" He ridiculed.

Love.

I closed my eyes for just a moment and I couldn't ignore the hollow feeling in my chest, like something was empty inside me; which it was.

I tried ignoring it through the few days, I isolated myself and did everything I could do to divert my mind from one very particular person.

It had been seven days and I heard nothing from him.

It wasn't his fault, to be honest. My phone had been switched off and under repair and even if he did manage to call my Dad, I had self isolated myself since the moment I got back home and not spoken to my father until Jay showed up at the door and I came running out in shock when my Dad knocked and told me someone from my work was here.

Even if I hadn't accepted it to myself, truth was, a part of me shattered when I saw Jay outside. I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope it would be 'him' on my door step. I really wanted him to be the one outside. And so, seeing Jay destroyed the little hope in me I didn't even know I had.

"Had I not shown up and dragged you out, what were you planning to do?" He asked me, and I pick my head up.

"I don't know," I mumble, "I guess I was planning to hide myself in my room until the world forgets who I was."

"Does this 'world' include Zach Davis as well?" He asked.

There it was. The name I was dreading to take to myself. For a second, when I looked at Jay, I felt lost. This all felt like a very unreal and terrible dream. I shouldn't be here sulking in Sun Valley with Jay. I should be in Brooklyn with Zach making breakfast in his kitchen while playing old songs on which he'd keep asking me to dance to until our breakfast burns and we'd laugh about it while calling a parcel from Monet's. That's where I belonged.

"He hasn't come to office, you know..." he trailed.

I snap back into reality. "Yeah, that's because he's on tour."

"They called it off." He says.

"What?"

"You haven't seen the news, have you?" He asked, and then immediately rectified. "I mean I don't blame you for not watching the news. In fact, it's better you've stayed away from it altogether. But they called the tour off the very next day. The night he supposedly flew back to Brooklyn but he's not come to work or been spotted by the paparazzi after that... but in all the images that he has after the news broke out, Anna... he looks so lost."

"Jay," I take a deep breath, "Please don't."

"Let me," he cuts me off. "I didn't know there's anything between you and him. And for whatever it's worth, I don't believe what the news channel has to say about the two of you. Neither does any one else at work. In fact, you'd be surprised to know it was Jen who shut them all up the next day, and then, no one dared to talk about it again."

"Are you serious?" I asked him, my eyes glistening. I was very genuinely surprised that Jen stood up for me. 

"Yeah." He nods. "Look, I still don't know what it's between the two of you and quite honestly, it's none of my business. I just wanted you to know... if all the pictures that the media managed to click the other day are any proof, then he's not doing any better than you are."

"I appreciate it, Jay, I really do," I look at him with a lingering half smile, "But can we please not talk about Zach right now?"

"Of course," he pulls a smile on his lips. "Whatever you want."

"Thank you." Murmuring in a whisper, I look down again, concentrating on my salad bowl and tea but Jay's words keep ringing in my head like an echo lost in a maze.

It had been seven days. But oddly, it felt like three lifetimes.

He clears his throat, and I look up at him. "I know you literally just asked me to not talk about Zach, but I've to confess something."

I knit my eyebrows. 

He goes on. "I was waiting in your room right now while you could change inside, my... uh, I swear I wasn't prying. My eyes just fell upon something and at first I thought it was yours and then I realised it wasn't."

I further narrow my eyes. "I... I don't understand."

"I found this in your room, Anna." He says, putting his hand in his jacket and bring out a medium sized diary with a thick black leather cover. "And I don't know if you knew it was there, or what it was doing there. But I believe you should have a look."

With the same confused look on my face, I take the diary from his hand,  and flipping through the pages hastily,  I glanced at the words scribbled across the page in random, in a familiar writing which definitely did not belong to me until I read the words on the last page of it.

'To be young and in love in New York City,

To not know who I am but still know that I'm good long as you're here with me,

To be drunk and in love in New York City,

Midnight into morning coffee,

Burning through the hours talking,

Damn, 

I like me better when I'm with you

I knew from the first time, 

I'd stay for a long time 'cause

I like me better when...

I like me better when I'm with you...'

It wasn't the song lyrics that made my heart skin a beat, it was the adjacent left page, where there were just scribbles. Messy scribbles of only one name, over and over again to a point it was looking like gibberish but it wasn't so unclear to me because the name that was written was mine.

And the one who wrote my name was the same lesson who wrote these lyrics: Zach.

This was Zach's diary.

I didn't know what it was doing in my room. Maybe I packed it along with all other things in my room in haste or maybe Nish did it or maybe it ended up falling in the cardboard boxes I had taken to Zach's house and I didn't realise when I brought it along with me.

Either ways, this was his. 

My heart skipped a beat the moment the words registered in my head. This was the lyrics to one of his newer songs in the upcoming albums, and it looked like he'd written it for me.

My mouth suddenly felt dry and I felt like I was suffocating as everything that I had suppressed inside me came rushing back at once. I definitely lost appetite, feeling the need to puke. I gulped, as I kept staring at the oddly familiar writing for longer than I should, when there was nothing much to read.

It was an overwhelming feeling, the desire to be with him and the desire to run far, far away from him.

I tried focusing on the man opposite me, who was studying my every reaction, but all I could think about was the hollow feeling in my chest that returned and I could hear my heart pumping blood, and as if it was possible, whatever I felt, felt good and bad at the same time.

Three days don't seem like a long time, but for three days, I had been suppressing every thought in my head that came with the words 'Zach' and 'Brooklyn'. And now, it all just suddenly came back in a very overwhelming way, that oddly made me feel good and bad. I couldn't decide what I was feeling. It was just... I was just feeling too much of whatever I was feeling.

Like they say, pain demands to be felt, and pain makes you human.

And after more than a hundred and fifty hours of total numbness, it was as if I felt something. I couldn't even stop the emotions that hit me like a strong storm, but I somehow felt nice to feel something, anything... even if that were hurt and love and both at the same time.

I pulled myself out of my world, my eyes meeting Jay's, who I was sure was studying every expression of mine.

"It's not mine," I bluntly replied, shutting the dark black leather diary and clutching it tightly in my hand before stuffing it back in my bag. 

"Oh, I know that." He knowingly nods, "But who's is it?"

Zach's. 

"Someone's," I tried smiling but nothing more came out than a crooked half excuse of a smile.

"And is this someone a someone you love?" He raised an eyebrow.

My mouth felt dry. "Something like that." I shrugged, trying to dismiss the topic.

I managed to crack a small smile, pulling off a facade, but every now and then, my eyes kept reaching the black diary safely tucked in my bag.

Over the past week, I'd made up my mind on saying goodbye to my chapter of Brooklyn. It was all said and done. I was never going back with the ideas to work there or live there again, and there was no point holding onto loose strings.

Sam. Nish. Tara. Justin. Ruth. I was going them so much. I was going miss everyone so much, actually, even Jen and Jay and Lana.

But I could never accept that to myself, because if I do, then I'd once again be torn between holding on and letting go and I was tired of that war.

I didn't blame Zach. I couldn't. I had realised that all those stupid new articles cooked with demeaning lies are a part and parcel of being a celebrity. But I wasn't one, and that wasn't my fight. I was just a simple girl wanting to live a simple life and all I did wrong was to fall in love with a not so simple man who happens to be someone the entire world idolises. I knew what I was getting myself into, and I didn't get to react this way.

So here's the best thing I could do: let go. I can try burying the memories deep inside me and living ahead. Because that's how life works. It doesn't wait for your pain or to give you time. It moves ahead, and if you can't keep up, you get left behind.

It's not going to be easy, the path ahead. But it never is. If I really wanted to let go and move on, it would be the most difficult thing I have ever, ever done.

Mostly because it would break me to do so.

But you don't always get what you wish for, do you? We make wrong decisions and sometimes, we are forced to live with the choices we make. 

And you have to let your heart break.

"Hey?" I heard Jay snap me out of my reverie which caused me to flinch in surprise of being drawn out of my thoughts, the tea cup falling off the table by my shaking hand and shattering into a hundred pieces.

I panicked, still in surprise, a little taken aback and my quickest reflex was to reach for the pieces and assemble them together. 

I was just about to touch one of the broken glass pieces when I felt a strong hand grip mine mid way, and looked up to see Jay's shocked face. He tried looking into my eyes but I just couldn't. I suddenly felt lost, as if being pulled out from another world.

"Let it be," He said, his eyes managing to reach mine.

"It broke. I–" I shuttered. I understood his surprise. I was always the confident girl, I knew what I did. But this was actually what was behind my facade. A panicky girl who overthought too much.

"It's okay," he stopped me midway. "Sometimes, broken things have to be left broken. You just have to learn to accept that it is broken now and no matter what you do, you can't put it back together; and even if you do manage to do that, it'll never be the same. You just have to know that it isn't a bad thing. Being broken is not bad, not accepting it is."

Oh, the meaning. We were not talking about that beautiful tea cup that was broken into a hundred pieces by our feet anymore. To be honest, I didn't know what we were talking about even. Maybe my heart. Maybe my very broken relation with Zach.

But maybe I shouldn't fidget with either.

Because like my friend just said, sometimes, you have to let broken things be broken. 

*      * 

The thing about heartbreak, you see, is that it's not definitive.  There's not one type of heartbreak. In fact, nothing in this world- no words can actually define what heartbreak is or what exactly causes it, but I did manage to divide them into two for my convenience.

The first type of heartbreak is the most common one. It's experienced by someone when the people they love leave them. It could be someone you love romantically or someone you love platonically. They could just shift states or they could die and permanently erase themselves from your life. That's the first kind of heartbreak. And even as bad and heart wrenching it is, I believe the people who experience that heartbreak... they're the fortunate ones.

Then comes the second type of heartbreak. This one... it's a little unexplainable from the very cause, and it's very different from the first one. It is the kind of heartbreak caused when there's this constant hollow feeling in your chest at all times, and it makes you feel vulnerable and anxious, and you know why it's there and you know who or what it's caused by, but you can't put it into words what it's doing to you. It's like drowning in a deep ocean and letting water consume you part by part even when there are so many hands to hold and be saved by. It makes you incapable of saving yourself and the people around you can't see you drowning in the first place to be able to help you. This kind of heartbreak is a slow kill. It's caused when you helplessly look at someone you love fall out of love with you slowly and you can't do anything but let them slip. It's caused when no one intentionally breaks your heart and you still feel crushed by the weight of the world.

And the people who experience that heartbreak- the unexplained, invisible one that makes you feel drawn to a black hole, they're the unfortunate ones because every time they try pointing a finger to someone else, three fingers point right back at them, and so there's war raged by the heart and head until you succumb to the pain and let it consume you. Pretty similar to smoking, if you ask me. The damage happens slow, gradually, one cell at a time but by the time you realise it, it's too late. Everything feels withered.

At this moment, I felt like I was the second kind of heartbroken. I didn't know who broke my heart. I didn't even know if I was allowed to feel so broken or was I just overreacting. I was lost in a labyrinth of my own thoughts, and even though I had decided to let go of all my past chapters and look ahead, as I sat in the same swing I had broken down into tears in a week ago, I knew the right thing was to call Zach and tell him I had his diary with me. Those were full of his songs, lyrics- some very personal and some unreleased. 

If I hadn't known I had it and found it after perhaps a few years, I would have let it be. But now that I knew I had it, and if there was even a point one percent chance of the band panicking about the lyrics getting leaked before their album comes out, it was my responsibility to call them and let them know.

I would have called Tara, but with my phone on repair, I didn't have anyone's number. 

Except Zach's, which was stored in my fathers phone.

So sitting on the swing with my feet crossed and my heart beating rapidly that afternoon, with my father's phone in my hand and his diary in another, with shaking hands, I managed to press the call button.

Even with the phone pressed to my ears, I could feel my heart beat rising and dropping the longer he didn't pick up.

And just when I was about to cut the call, it got picked up.

"Hello?" It was him. Zach. After seven full days. His voice was heavy as was his breath and he just sounded... different. I was positive I hadn't forgotten the way he sounds in a mere hundred and seventy hours of not hearing him. He just sounded different... and in a way I couldn't point at.

I had been so busy in concentrating on my breath and playing and replaying the one word he had spoken that I almost forgot to reply. Maybe I just couldn't bring myself to, over the lump in my throat.

"Anna?" He says, ahead, his voice almost hopeful. "I know it's you..."

Shutting and then reopening my eyes, I take a deep breath. "Zach..." I gasp, but no reply came in return.

The call had been cut from the other end.

*    *    *

A/N: I'm under confident, and scared I bored the living hell out of you guys with this chapter. Despite writing this hours ago, I just couldn't bring myself to publish it for the same reason.

I'm sorry if you feel so. Please just hold on for a few chapters, this track isn't long. 

I've been rereading 'His' while editing it, and I plan upon bringing the sequel to how the early chapters of His felt. Uncomplicated and natural.

Just hold on if you can for a while.

I desperately wanted the first chapter of the sequel to be better written, and I'm so sorry if I disappointed.

Thank you.