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It made Nana happy to see him tearing down his walls, little by little.
The first time she noticed anything different about him, she had been busy making drinks for a movie night she, Katelyn, and Aphmau were hosting. Nana wasn’t surprised when Zane walked into the kitchen to set down a plate of cookies on the counter - she had grown kind of used to his constant presence in their house. After all, him and Aphmau had been hanging out for months. This wasn’t to say she particularly liked him - she found it hard to believe that his once practically unbearable personality had so suddenly shifted - but his friendship made Aphmau happy, and that was (mostly) enough for her.
He looked nervous, crossing his arms tightly to his chest after he had set down the platter. Nana knew that Zane hated most sorts of social situations, but still something was off about him. Something was different about the way he was carrying himself, maybe?
“Punch?” she offered to him, mostly just to be polite, break the ice.
He shook his head. “I don’t drink.”
Nana had figured at least someone wouldn’t want to drink that night, or would at least be the designated driver, so she had picked up a fews packs of soda at the grocery store earlier. “Hey, that’s okay! There’s Pepsi and seltzers in the fridge!”
He murmured a thank you as he walked behind her to retrieve one, and that’s when she noticed. His outfit. An unassuming, plain grey short-sleeve button down, worn open over a black t-shirt.
She had never seen him in anything but skinny jeans and long sleeve shirts, hoodies, and sweaters, but she thought to herself surprisingly that he looked good in it. She found herself looking at the little patterns of freckles and moles on his arms, dark against the pale white of his skin. A partially finished patchwork of small mismatched black and white tattoos - an outstretched palm with an eye; three lit candles of varying sizes, each dripping wax; many more that she couldn’t identify without making it obvious she was staring. She wondered if they had any meaning.
“Your shirt is nice!” she had said to him, mostly without thinking. She immediately hoped that pointing it out wasn’t a bad idea. Zane wasn’t exactly known for reacting well to what she often thought were minute comments.
“Oh.” His brow creased for a moment. “Uh, thanks. Um, Garroth, he, he suggested it.”
Nana hadn’t thought the two eldest Ro’Maeve brothers were particularly close, but she supposed the sentiment was nice regardless.
They weren’t close then; not by any sense of the word. But they were both friends with Aphmau, and Nana had to admit that she was glad to see him start to come out of his carefully crafted shell and ease up around his newfound friends.
It had been at her suggestion, not Garroth’s, that he tried going a day with no mask to hide behind.
“I like seeing your stupid face! And if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, the only people you really see have seen you without it plenty of times.” She raised her eyebrows at him. The idea started out selfishly - she loved seeing his every expression; his emotions were always written so plainly on his face. She liked seeing his little black snakebite piercings that she hadn’t even known he had until their first kiss, his cheeks and nose covered in spatters of the brown freckles she thought looked like little constellations. Only later had she considered maybe it would be a good exercise for him as well.
She was more gentle now with him, running her fingers through his soft black hair and playing with the little hoops in his ear as they lay sprawled out on her bed together. “No one is going to judge you, I promise,” Nana said reassuringly. “You’re your own harshest critic.”
“While I know you’re probably right,” - he let out a little sigh - “I don’t, uh, quite know if I’m ready for that yet.” He followed his sentence with nervous laughter.
A month later, her suggestion to her boyfriend had faded further into to the back of her mind. She accepted that maybe he wasn’t comfortable shedding what probably felt like a safety net to him, and that was okay.
But while Nana had mostly stopped thinking about it, Zane continued to. Maybe she was right - he was entering a new phase of his life, and he was still clinging to a relic of the past. He’d been wearing the thing since the start of high school, and he even would have to admit to himself that his self esteem was miles better now than it ever had been. He had genuine friends now, people who he cared about and cared about him back - no one was going to judge him for something as inconsequential as the way he looked.
The group of friends had noticed themselves seeing each other less since their return from Starlight. With all of their busy work schedules and the matter of living apart, it was strange to not see each other almost every day. Aph had suggested that they try to get together, and so they all made plans to get dinner one night.
Nana was going to drive over with her boyfriend, but he had called her earlier to tell her he was going to be late from work and would meet her there. Zane was a bit disheveled when he finally arrived - he had clearly rushed in, but he had put some thought into his appearance for once. A sharp-looking grey cardigan sweater, white turtleneck, black chinos, and oxfords. Nana always did think he cleaned up nicely, but perhaps she was a bit biased.
“Sorry I’m late - my meeting ran a little longer than expected and…” he trailed off, but none of them were listening to the words coming out of his mouth. He pulled out the seat Nana had saved for him.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispered as he hung his coat on the back of his chair, smiling at him.
And she got to see him gently smile back.
It made Zane happy to see her tearing down her walls, little by little.
The two of them sat on the loveseat in her and Katelyn’s living room, and he could feel her hand shaking nervously in his. This was a big moment for Nana, and while he had expected her to be nervous, he was never really good with calming others down. They had bonded over their shared deep insecurities, but while his mostly laid in his physical appearance, hers regarded her personality, and sometimes he struggled to find ways to comfort her when she was deep in the trenches of her own self doubt.
He hated to see her feeling like this.
He had suggested to her that maybe it was time to tell her closest friend the truth, expecting a hard and fast no from Nana, but to his surprise, she had agreed with him, albeit a little bit hesitantly.
He had shown up at Katelyn’s doorstep the next day.
“Can I come in? KC has something she wants to talk to you about.”
“Uh, sure, I guess?” Katelyn questioned, but opened the door for Zane to walk in anyway. He stood awkwardly on the mat inside, shuffled awkwardly for what felt like an eternity.
Katelyn raised her eyebrows at him. “You don’t have to stand there all weird. You can sit down, you know that?” She gestured towards the loveseat, then turned to call up the stairway. “KC, Zane is here. He wants to talk to you about something? Or to me about something with you? I have no idea what he’s on about, actually. I wasn’t really listening.”
He heard the soft creak of her bedroom door opening. “Oh, uh, be right down!” she said. She sounded nervous. He figured she would, but he still worried he was dragging her into something that she wasn’t quite ready to do.
She came down the stairs, sat next to him on the loveseat, leaned her head on his shoulder. “ I missed you,” she whispered into his ear.
“You slept over last night.”
She giggled.
Katelyn groaned and rolled her eyes. “I hate that I’ve gotten used to this.”
After a few moments of awkward silence, Zane cleared his throat. “I, uh, think that KC would like to talk to you about something that’s important to her.” With that, Katelyn was all ears. A more serious expression spread across her face. For all of Zane’s issues with Katelyn, he had to admit that he admires how much she cared about Nana. And though she wouldn’t ever tell him, Katelyn liked to see how happy Zane made her best friend. That was one thing the two could agree on.
Nana took a deep breath, and told Katelyn everything she’d been holding back for the last decade. She admitted to her oldest friend that she had been lying to her; that she was so deeply insecure about everything about herself, that she was always afraid she was broken beyond repair, but that she thought she owed Katelyn of all people the truth.
And when she finished pouring her heart out, bracing for her reaction, Katelyn embraced her.
Zane and Nana were closer than they had ever been; in every sense of the word - he didn’t understand how he had ever gotten by without her, and he was glad to see her start to slowly drop the façade she had so painstakingly maintained.