I Knew You'd Be Here (Zach)

[Jade Parrish]

Jade pushed open the door of the Velvet Tone Coffee House, hearing the bell. She knew Zach was here. And it wasn't even that they planned to meet or that she'd asked him here or told him she was coming. He was just here a lot and chances are that he would be here doing some writing or brooding or whatever it was that he did.

And he was. She saw his black hair through the window. She'd been off lately and she knew that. She also knew that Zach had noticed even if they hadn't talked about it, but whatever. She'd had a talk with Kristina about things and maybe now everything didn't feel like such a mess. "What you got for me, Bishop?" she asked, having slammed her palms down on his table, black finger nail-polish was scratching off her fingernails and she really hadn't felt like redoing it. She was talking about what he'd come up with so far for the next issue of the newspaper. It was time she check in with everybody. Besides, she'd been rather absent with Zach lately, she'd felt like. She hadn't even been in the newspaper office as often as she usually was, which was everyday with a cup of coffee.

Instead, she'd been showing up at the mall to apologize to Kai, getting her car fixed by an interesting blonde who may or may not think she was a stripper and had slept with a douche in a leather jacket. It was safe to say she'd taken a break from her duties and her passions. She was trying to get back to them, because they fueled her. And thinking about her past and her non-dating policy being a sham was draining her.

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Blank page syndrome.

That’s what writers called it. You had an idea of what you wanted to write, you knew where you wanted to go, you could feel the words coming out in sequence in your head as easily as if they were being jotted down on paper.

Except that they never got that far.

The sheer white of the page that still had nothing on it, not a single blemish of text, was….Zach couldn’t even describe the effect it had. Somewhere between intimidating and inspiring hopelessness, at seeing all that white and knowing that you had to fill it up. That it would take time to fill it up. That it took work. That the words you wanted to put onto it had to be done one single word at a time. Whatever it was, it was enough to stave him off from even starting this article he was supposed to be writing for the newspaper. He’d done most of the work, it was just his own statement that needed to be completed.

And he was just….

Zach jumped from the frozen, zoned out position he’d been sitting in when Jade slammed her hand on the table. He looked confused for a moment, as if he’d completely forgotten where he was. As if he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about. Hell, for a moment, Zach might even say that he didn’t even know Jade, he was so absent.

He licked his lips. “Uh…Jade! Hiii…” he breathed out slowly. “Um…what do I…?” Zach looked back to the computer, then quickly back to his boss. “Oh, right! The, uh…thing. Um…sorry, I don’t….” He looked at the computer again. Then back to her. “I’m working on it right now.” Obviously. How long had he been sitting there, doing nothing? he wondered.

[Jade Parrish]

"Sorry...but not really," Jade said once she'd realized she'd startled him. Yet, he still didn't speak for a long moment and she removed one hand from where she leaned on the table and waved it in front of his face. "You alright, Bishop? What's up?" she asked him just beore he'd started to talk, greeting her with a hello and then realizing what she'd met. "Writer's block? That's a bitch for sure," she noted. She was slightly upset he didn't have much of anything yet, but crunch time was approaching.

"I've been kind of AWOL lately and Kristina made me realize that. So I'm checking in. She has some sweet, creepy Halloween-esque shots, so if you wanna write something hella creepy to match, be my guest, if that helps your muse at all. Now, I'm gonna get a coffee and then we're gonna chat, alright?" She'd said as she turned towards the counter to order a latte.

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Of course she wasn’t sorry. Zach would honestly be surprised if she was. He might even say so if his brain was a little more present at the moment, but as it was, he was busy trying to pull himself back into reality, blinking and creasing the space between his eyebrows as she waved her hand in front of him like he was some blind person. “Y-yeah….nothing, uhm…yeah, just…” he stumbled out awkwardly, still unable to form perfectly coherent sentences. “Writer’s block. Sorry. I’ll definitely have it ready for you before…” Hopefully, but at this rate, whatever he turned into her was going to be hella crappy. He hadn’t been doing well on his regular writing either. It was like, all of his muse to write had completely left him as of late….

“Oh, I….sure, I’ll take a look at her stuff and see if that…stimulates…something….” Zach had no idea how suggestive that sounded just now…though he rarely ever did. He nodded as she took off to get her coffee and Zach turned back to his computer screen.

Still blank.

He put his fingers on the keyboard and typed out “T-h-e”. What came next…he couldn’t decided…and he stayed like that until Jade’s return.

[Jade Parrish]

Zach seemed completely out of it in general and she couldn't help but wonder if it was more than his usual level of being on a different planet. "Well, I can always give you a kick in the ass to get you going," she said, although it was mostly a joke. She knew creativity couldn't be forced. He kept trailing off, as if he was lost even in the real world, not just in his head.

"Yeah, seems like you could use a little stimulation," Jade told him with a smirk, patting him on the shoulder before she'd sauntered away and ordered her latte from the barista, before placing a dollar in the tip jar. She'd returned a minute or two later, latte in hand and slid into the chair across from him. He was just sitting there, hands hovering over the keyboard.

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“Uhh….that…might help, actually.” He needed a little bit of a threat of…something…to get him moving. Maybe if his life depended on it, he’d try harder.

“Mm,” he hummed as barely a response as she left. Zach zoned out again, half trying to figure out what he was going to put that was more than just “the” on the page, and half just getting lost in his own thoughts that drifted from one “what if” to another. He knew he hadn’t been doing well lately and that was part of his problem. He was disappointed in himself and thinking over how he could have better handled certain things. Other things. Post embarrassment over things that already happened, especially with Kai recently. Zach really was out of his head.

He blinked as Jade suddenly appeared in the seat in front of him. And he realized that once again, he’d been absent, just sitting there doing nothing and making no progress. “….sorry,” he said for the 3rd time since Jade got there. Barely even 5 minutes.

[Jade Parrish]

"So what you're saying is that you want me to threaten you?" Jade asked. That she could do. Very well actually. She'd be a good drill sargaent.

When she sat down in front of him once more she examined him closely, eyes narrowing at the dark haired guy across from her. "Okay, this is more than writer's block," she declared after a long moment passed since he'd made his third apology. "You are extremely off. And before I threaten you to write this column, I'd like to know why." Was it Kai? It'd been so long since she'd seen Zach one on one and she hadn't realized he'd been so much like a zombie, so lethargic.

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“Uh….” Zach replied, neither a confirmation nor a refusal. He didn’t know what he wanted, except that he knew he needed to get this done and that there was a strong possibility that he wasn’t going to get it done without some outside influence. Even if that “influence” was in the form of “threatening”.

Zach rolled his tongue over his teeth, as if to clean out the molars of remnant foodstuff that were trapped back there, as his lips protruded. There was nothing there to clean, though. He sighed again. “I don’t know…wish I could tell you,” he said apathetically. Though that was half a lie. He had an idea of what his problem was. He just couldn’t believe himself, that it was a problem. And so, Zach’s answer to everyone as of late was that “he was fine”, especially over that. Everyone except Kai.

But Jade? Zach opened his mouth in preparation to speak…then closed it right up again. “It’s nothing,” he said finally.

[Jade Parrish]

He didn't agree or disagree, and so Jade just furthered her questioning. "What kind of a threat would you like? One a scale of one to ten? How severe?" Jade grinned at him. She was joking of course, but Zach didn't really appear to be in the mood for that, and Jade was just working on getting herself out of her funk and so it didn't help to see someone else in one.

"You don't know what's wrong with you and you wish you knew, or you do know what's wrong with you, but you can't manage to tell me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. He was definitely off. "Writer's block happens. Even to you. I get that. But you seem incredibly apathetic. Like you're just floating through life waiting for something to fall on you and crush you and that's not the way to do things."

He'd opened his mouth to say something and then shut it and she sighed. "Would a trip to Texas help you out?"

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What kind of threat? What kind—? “I don’t….maybe you should just….” Stand behind him, looking over his shoulder, occasionally prodding him with the butt-end of a whip? No…while that would probably work, that was crazy and something that only happened in fiction. Didn’t it? “….maybe I should let you decide that…?” As always, passing the buck so he didn’t have to make a decision himself. He must’ve been doing bad if he couldn’t even make a simple decision like that, despite it being a joke.

Zach signed and looked away, a mild irritation on his face. She’d hit the nail on the head, so to speak. “Yeah…” he said, though he didn’t clarify after another moment’s thought. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Because it was stupid and she was no doubt going to laugh at him for it and Zach didn’t need that…

No…Jade wasn’t that insensitive….it was Zach who thought it was ridiculous. Zach managed a small smile at her “offer”. “Well…considering I’m not getting any work done anyway, might not be a bad idea…” he mumbled with slight amusement. Zach looked up at her with a sad smile. “Sorry….some things happened, and I’m trying to work through it, but…It’s just taking a lot longer than I thought.” And was a lot harder. “I’ll be okay,” he insisted.

[Jade Parrish]

"If you don't specify, you're most likely going to get a ten, you know," Jade warned him, a smile playing about her lips. "And I'm good at making threats. Especially considering my power. And the fact that people underestimate my threats because I'm small." She hadn't paralyzed many people in her life and only one of them she'd paralyzed on purpose and she was still trying to make up for that. Although something told Jade that she'd never be able to paralyze Zach. He just wasn't a bad person. He was in a bad place.

"If you tell me what's eating at you, I'll tell you all of my juicy issues." It was mostly a joke. She didn't like to talk about her issues any more than Zach did, at least not the really personal ones. She was actually fairly open, sometimes too open. You knew it was serious if she kept it to herself.

"Things happen," Jade agreed with a shrug. "I mean, lots of things have happened with me too, which is why I'm going to Texas." She didn't know if he remembered she was from there, or if she'd even told him.

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A ten? Zach probably shouldn’t have liked the sound of that, but he just wasn’t in the mindset to make this a wise decision. Or make it a decision at all…which may have been the same thing, he wasn’t sure. Zach sighed. “It’s fine…I’m sure I’ve been through worse.” As much as Jade talked, he didn’t think she actually threaten his life. After going through something like that…well, Zach had worries worse than what Jade could probably dish out. Maybe…

“Mmm…no offense, but…I don’t know if I…can….” As in, he didn’t know how to talk about it. Because every way he looked at it, it seemed silly. And that’s what he kept telling himself in order to get by. Yet, it still was keeping him down like this. “But uh…if you wanna talk…I’m listening.” Or at least trying. Zach smiled something empty.

Zach composed a curious look in his eyes. “Texas?” He didn’t remember if she’d said she was from there or not. “You’re leaving?” He wasn’t expecting that of all things.