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rainbowfic2016-08-27 05:33 pm
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2016-08-27 05:33 pm
David Bowie 8, Olympic Gold 11, Azul 16: Courage
Author: Kat
Title: Courage
Story: In the Heart
Colors: David Bowie 8 (Sometimes I fear that the whole world is queer Sometimes but always in vain → Buddha of Suburbia (Buddha of Suburbia)), Olympic gold 11 (village), azul 16 (Courage) with shipwrecklight's paint-by-numbers (Maya makes a new friend after she moves out of Joy's house.)
Supplies and Materials: Seed beads (Maya and Zoe), chalk (like flirt ghost), glitter (O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!/O, drooping souls, whose destinies/Are fraught with fear and pain,/Ye shall be loved again!), novelty beads (“It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” ― Marlene Dietrich)
Word Count: 4000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zoe makes a friend.
Warnings: Internalized ableism, mentions of self-harm and suicide, skipdepicition of a schizophrenic episode
Notes: I did a lot of research on Zoe's illness. If I fucked it up, please tell me right away. I will correct myself and apologize profusely.
Zoe couldn't help but watch the girl.
She was really pretty, for one. Not that Zoe was into girls-- well, she didn't think, but she was only fifteen and she had other shit to worry about than sexuality-- but she could tell when another girl was good-looking, and this one was. She had light brown skin close to the color of Zoe's own, and big brown eyes that were exactly the color of Zoe's own, and shiny, silky brown hair that Zoe envied with a passion. Her own hair was nice, like a firework explosion of curls, but it was dense as hell and she thought the other girl's hair must be much easier to brush. And maybe it didn't frizz up every five seconds.
Mom would say that Zoe's hair was perfect just like she was, but Zoe wasn't perfect at all, which just went to show. Of course, Mom also said Zoe was always looking on the other side of the fence and thinking it was better, but she sort of thought being anyone but herself would be better. Anyone at all, even her little sister who didn't remember Daddy. Zoe didn't think she would give up those memories, but... well. Maybe she would. To be okay.
Whatever. Didn't matter.
Anyway, the girl.
She was really pretty, and thin like Zoe used to be, and she was also really private, which Zoe could sympathize with. It wasn't that she didn't love her family. She did, very much, Mom and her brother and her baby sister, but they were kind of crowded in and sometimes the noise in her head plus the noise outside of it was too much and she had to go find a tree to climb, put her headphones on and rest her head against the bark and pretend like nothing was happening. The girl was kind of the same way, ducking the overly friendly neighbors and disappearing into her apartment really soon after Zoe saw her, every time.
She wore the prettiest clothes, too, in bright jewel tones with cool patterns and thick bands of embroidery. Some of them, Zoe thought, were saris-- she'd read a book about India once and they looked kind of the same-- and some of them were just normal New York clothes but they were all bright and gorgeous, and lots of them were green, green was a good color, and she envied them, too. Not that she could ever wear them, but she liked them on other people.
So... well, of course she followed the girl. Or maybe woman. It was sort of hard to tell. Zoe was bad at judging ages but she looked young, anyway, maybe not too much older than Zoe's fifteen. But she was probably a lot more grown-up because she had her own apartment and no parents in sight. Whatever age she was, she was interesting, and not in a mean way, either. Zoe wanted to know more about her.
One day when the younger kids got too much for her and her head started to hurt, she left and sneaked onto the girl's fire escape. It was nice out there; a small jungle of potted plants and some long, colorful scarves drying in the wind. Zoe didn't quite dare touch anything, but she could squeeze herself in between a couple of plants and feel... and feel safe, and quiet for once. She put her headphones on, leaned back against the sun-warmed metal and closed her eyes.
The shriek of the window opening jolted her out of a quiet reveire, and she sat upright, and found herself looking straight at the girl.
"Hi," the girl said, and propped her arms on the windowsill, casually.
Zoe stared back, briefly paralyzed, then pulled her headphones down around her neck. "Hi," she said, unable to think of any other response.
The girl looked at her for a moment, then said, "So, what's with this?" She waved up and down the fire escape, as if that was supposed to mean something to Zoe.
Zoe looked down, picked at her nails, and shrugged one shoulder. "Dunno."
"You spying on me?"
It sounded like a joke but Zoe went stiff anyway. Her brothers used to yell at her for creeping around, and she'd used to think... "No," she said, maybe a little loudly. "It got... noisy at home."
The girl didn't even blink at her volume. "Okay," she said. "Please don't knock the plants over."
"I won't," Zoe said, and the girl retreated into her apartment, but left the window open.
And that was how she met Maya Thakarta.
Zoe kept coming back to the fire escape after that. It was comfortable and quiet, and she liked to do her homework up there, or just sit and watch the city passing below her, comfortably remote. Maya-- she'd introduced herself after the third time Zoe popped up on her fire escape-- Maya didn't bother her, except that she'd open the window to take down her scarves or pass Zoe a watering can to give the plants some water, and Zoe didn't mind doing that. It was like rent, sort of, earning her place. Plus it was nice. Maya would leave the window afterwards and work on the couch near the window, reading big textbooks or writing stuff on a computer, and sometimes she'd come over and hand Zoe a cup of tea or a plate of these crunchy orange things that were amazingly delicious. She liked it.
And then one Saturday morning it was pouring out, just bucketing down rain, and Zoe could not take one more second inside the apartment, with her siblings running around and her mom watching her out of the corner of her eye and everything getting so loud. She grabbed her backpack and was out the door before her mom could stop her, dashing over to the next building and jogging up the inside stairs.
It was different inside the building than out, and it took her a minute, counting doors up and down the corridor, to be sure which apartment belonged to Maya. She didn't want to wake up some loud white dude or anything, though it was almost noon and they should probably be up anyway. Zoe herself had been up since five-thirty, edgy in a way she couldn't quite place.
So Maya would probably be awake, anyway. That was the important bit. Zoe hesitated, then knocked on the door anyway.
It took a few minutes, but Maya opened the door in a bathrobe, her hair tousled and her eyes sleepy. "Zoe?" she said, after a surprised pause. "What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" Zoe asked, and took Maya's step backwards for permission. Maya's apartment was really nice for a studio, all plants and lights and colors. The bed was little but comfortable-looking, shoved up against the window, and there was the couch against the near wall, a tiny desk wrangled into a corner between bookshelves, a big fish tank and a little crowded kitchen set into the wall. "Nice place."
"Thanks," Maya said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Zoe turned around, suddenly afraid, but no, Maya was just looking at her like she'd done something really funny. "You live around here, I take it."
Oh, right, they'd never actually talked beyond that first conversation and the later introductions. "Next building over. With my mom and sibs. And my stepdad sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
Zoe shrugged one shoulder. "He's... he and mom aren't married, but they've been together for years." Since just after her father died, actually, and Zoe would have wondered about that if she hadn't had way bigger things going on at the time. "So, you know, stepdad. Anyway, he travels a lot for work so sometimes we don't see him much."
"Right," Maya said. "What brings you over here?"
"Sibs," Zoe said, and shrugged again. She couldn't explain-- she'd have to, sooner or later, but she liked what she'd seen of Maya and she really wanted it to be later. "They're loud. Did I wake you up? You always sleep really late."
"I work the night shift," Maya said, and went to sit on her bed. "I don't get home until six AM."
"Oh." Embarrassed, Zoe turned away and went to investigate the fish tank in greater detail. "That sucks. I'm sorry."
Maya didn't sound offended or anything, though. "Pays the bills, and it's only until I'm out of college."
What? Zoe swung around to face her, her sweater flopping down over her knuckles as she did. "You're still in college? I thought... you look older."
For some reason that made the older girl smile. "Senior year. Thanks. I'm only twenty-two, though."
"I'm fifteen," Zoe said, ruefully. "It's a long way from fifteen to twenty-two."
"I guess it is." Maya stared at the wall for a moment, her eyes far away, then shook herself and went on. "It went by pretty fast, though."
The cuffs of Zoe's sweater were unraveling. She picked at a thread, avoiding Maya's eyes. "I wish it would go faster," she said. "At least to eighteen."
"Sure. It'll be nice to be an adult."
"Yeah." She went back to the fish tank put a finger almost up to the glass, tracing a guppy's path as it swam. It looked really happy. "Maybe Mom'll actually let me do stuff, then."
"High school?" Maya asked. She sounded sympathetic.
"Sorta," Zoe said, and didn't elaborate. But Maya didn't ask her to, which just made Zoe like her more.
"Cup of tea?" Maya asked instead. "It's about time I should be getting up anyway. I've got homework."
"Oh!" Zoe said. "Me too. Can I go get it? We could do it together maybe?"
Maya smiled at her, a lovely smile on her lovely face. "Of course. Impromptu study group?"
"Yes," Zoe said, and beamed back at her. "I'll be right back."
And so on, and so forth.
Of course Maya was doing things way more advanced than Zoe was, and she actually liked English. Zoe didn't-- she could never make the words line up right, and she could never figure out the interpretations her teachers wanted-- but Maya helped her out with that, and Zoe helped her out with math. She loved math. It was so simple. Everything made sense, and it had one right answer, and when you'd figured out the way to get the answer it worked the same way every time.
They talked about things besides homework, of course. Family-- Zoe's brother and sister, Maya's two brothers and three sisters and her foster parents and foster sister. Growing up-- Zoe wanted to be a mathematician, and teach at a college somewhere, while Maya was majoring in business administration and already had a management job lined up after she graduated at the hotel where she worked. Maya liked to read, and Zoe preferred to listen to music. They both liked the fish that flitted around Maya's big aquarium. Once they even pushed the furniture against the wall and Maya taught her bhangra dance.
It was nice. Maya was her friend. Zoe used to have friends, before her father died and everything happened, and she'd liked it then, but then after everything happened she was too scared to get close to anybody again, in case it started happening again and everyone got scared of her again. So she hadn't even tried, at school. Better to be the probably weird loner than the psycho creeper.
But Maya wasn't at school. Maya only saw her when they both agreed on it, so Zoe could be sure she was in total control when they met up. It was safe. Maya was safe. She could enjoy it.
Until the day she couldn't.
Zoe couldn't take it.
She'd been doing so well. The medication had been working. She hadn't had an episode in months and everything was quiet and she'd dared to hope-- and then she woke up this morning and the voices were back, nasty loud voices calling her fat and ugly and worthless, a burden on her family and her poor, hardworking mom, telling her how no one would miss her or be sad if she was gone, how they'd all be better off...
Voices, always voices. Even loud music didn't make them go away.
She didn't tell her mom. She wanted to, but... but Mom would make her go back to the hospital, and Zoe didn't want to go back to the hospital if she didn't have to. Sure, her scars were itching and she wanted so badly to pick up a blade again, but if she went back to the hospital then everyone would know here too, more people than knew already, and she couldn't take that. But she couldn't take school either, so she got dressed and rushed out the door and went and hid on Maya's fire escape.
She was going crazy for good this time. She was losing her mind for good. The meds weren't working anymore, the voices were back, and soon it would be the touches again, all over her body, people looking at her and she could feel it, everybody judging her, hating her. She dug a hand into her hair and pulled, hard. She'd start talking like an idiot, making no sense, running on and begging for help that no one could give, and Mom would put her back in the hospital and Rosie and Dylan would look at her like she was terrifying again and Daddy was dead, he was dead and he wasn't ever ever coming back and it was all her fault...
Zoe let out a sob of pure fear and huddled against Maya's window.
She didn't know how much later it was when Maya threw open the window and she jumped back, making a little animal noise of pure terror.
"Jesus," Maya said, which was hilarious in a sick way because Zoe knew Maya was Hindu, but that didn't really matter now, did it? "Zoe, are you okay?" Then she rolled her eyes. "Sorry, stupid question, of course you're not okay. Do you want to come in?"
"The TV was talking to me," Zoe said. She hadn't meant to just blurt it out like that, but there it was. "Mom was watching the news except they were talking to me."
"What were they saying?" Maya asked, softly.
"It's my fault Daddy died," Zoe said, and sobbed again. "I tried to bring him back but nobody would let me and then everyone was scared."
"That's awful," Maya said. "I can't believe they said to you. Do you want to come inside, Zoe? You can sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea. There's no TV in here, so it can't say such mean things to you. Does that sound nice?"
Zoe rubbed her hands across her face. "Y-yes. But they're in my head, too."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Maya actually looked sorry, too. She didn't look like she wanted to throw Zoe in the hospital or push her off the fire escape or anything. She might want that, but she didn't look like it, and anyway she was Zoe's friend.
Zoe crept into the apartment and huddled on the couch, hands over her ears.
Maya didn't touch her, or do anything to her, like she was afraid Maya would. Instead she made tea in the kitchen, humming tunelessly as she did. Maya always made green tea. Zoe would've thought chai, but Maya said she didn't like chai; it was all she'd grown up with and she was sick of it. Zoe was sick of this. Sick of everything. She wished they'd just let her bring Daddy back.
"Hey," Maya said quietly. Zoe looked up, and she handed over a cup of tea. "There. Now, do you want to talk about it, or would you rather just sit quietly? I'm okay with either."
"I don't want to talk about it," Zoe said, fast as she could. "I don't, I don't, I don't."
"Okay," Maya said, just like Zoe hadn't said anything strange. "Do you want to sit quietly then?"
Zoe nodded, not trusting her voice, and stared down at the teacup Maya had handed her. It was so delicate, painted with little yellow flowers, and she wanted to throw it across the room, hear it shatter against the wall, then shatter the aquarium and the computer and her fists and just break things until everything was broken and then maybe everything would just shut up...
"That's cinquefoil," Maya said, and Zoe started, tea slopping out of the cup onto her saucer. "The flower on the teacup, I mean. My foster father bought it for me before I moved back home. Cinquefoil means beloved daughter in flower language, he said, and he said he wanted me to always remember that it was safe for me there, that I could always come back."
Zoe focused on the flowers. They were really little, tiny yellow stars. She liked stars. And they were surrounded by green, green leaves and stems. She liked green too. Green was a good color. It meant go, it meant safe. She was safe. Green was okay.
"Did you?" she asked. "Go back?'
"Not yet," Maya said. "I've been doing okay. My parents treated me well after I went back. And now I've got my own space and I'm managing. I still call them sometimes when I'm feeling bad, though. Do you have someone you call when you're feeling bad?"
Oh. Oh, of course. Zoe felt awful. "Yeah," she said. "My therapist. I'm sorry. I forgot."
"That's okay!" Zoe glanced up, and saw Maya smiling at her. "You're feeling pretty bad, aren't you? I'm glad you remembered it now, that's all. Do you want to call them now? Your therapist?"
"Yes please," Zoe said, and read off the numbers while Maya dialed.
Doctor Pasa answered right away, and was so nice and soothing that Zoe nearly cried. She asked first if Zoe had been taking her medications, which she had, then she said it was normal, that sometimes medications just stopped working for a day or so, but that she'd be back to okay tomorrow, and if she wasn't to come in right away. Zoe agreed, and hung up, and because Doctor Pasa said she was going to call Zoe's mother right away, she let Maya walk her home.
Zoe did feel better the next day, better enough to feel completely ashamed of herself.
Mom told her it wasn't her fault. Mom said she was good and brave to go to somebody she trusted, and that she'd done right by calling the doctor, and that Maya would understand, but Zoe didn't believe her. None of her friends in Maryland had understood. No one except Mom had visited her in the hospital, and not one of them had called when she got out. Even Rosie and Dylan had avoided her for a few weeks.
Anyway, why should Maya want to see her again? Zoe was dangerous. She hurt herself when she was sick. She might hurt other people. That was what it meant. If she was a good friend, she'd leave Maya alone and never make any friends again.
At least Mom let her call in sick to school.
Zoe was huddled under her blankets, wondering if she should try to do the homework she'd missed or just go back to sleep, when Mom knocked on her door. "Zoe?"
"Yeah?"
"You have a visitor, honey."
Zoe popped her head out from under the covers, and froze, shocked. Mom was holding her door open, and Maya was standing there.
"Hi," Maya said, and smiled at her, a little tentatively. "Is this a bad time?"
"Uh, no," Zoe said, and scrambled upright, shoving her covers back. She was glad she'd gotten dressed. "No, I'm okay. Thanks, Mom."
"I'll leave you two alone to visit," Mom said, and closed the door.
Which left Zoe and Maya staring at each other, Zoe sitting in bed with her hair a tangled mess and Maya standing awkwardly at the door.
"Can I sit?" Maya asked, after a few seconds.
"Oh, yeah, of course." Zoe waved at her desk chair and hugged her knees to her chest. "I'm glad you came." Maya deserved an apology, at least.
"Oh?" Maya asked. She pulled the desk chair out and sat down.
"I, um." Zoe tugged at her hair and stared at her feet. She couldn't look Maya in the face, not for this, but she had to explain, didn't she? She owed Maya that much. "I can't. I mean. Yesterday."
"You weren't doing too well," Maya said, carefully. Zoe could hear the care in her voice and it hurt in an obscure way. "I wanted to ask, but I thought it was a bad time."
"They were loud," Zoe said, and realized that didn't explain anything at all. "I... it was a bad time. I'm schizophrenic."
There. She'd said it. She'd had to sneak up on it but she'd said it. Now Maya could get scared or mad or weirded out, whatever she was going to do, and she could leave, and Zoe could hide in bed for a while with her big thick headphones on and her blanket over her head.
"Yeah?"
Zoe blinked, and sneaked a look at Maya. She looked... well, she didn't look unfazed, exactly, but she also didn't look mad or scared or anything. Maybe a little surprised.
"Yeah," Zoe said, cautiously. "Um. Childhood-onset paranoid schizophrenia, if you want the whole name. I hear things." And believed things, and did things, but she wasn't going to dump all of that on Maya at once.
"Well, that does explain a few things," Maya said. "I take it you had a bad day yesterday."
"Yeah," Zoe said, again. "Sometimes the medications don't work all the way. That's what Doctor Pasa said when I called."
"That sucks," Maya said, and she sounded like... she sounded like she understood. "Are you okay now?"
She nodded, then caught herself. "Yeah."
Maya nodded back, then said, "I came because I thought you might be feeling bad, and I wanted to tell you that you don't have to. You know?"
Zoe shook her head. She didn't know. People just... well. She was supposed to be better. That was what the medication was for. She was supposed to be better and she wasn't, so... shouldn't she feel bad?
"I figured you were some kind of mentally ill," Maya told her. "And, you know, that's just sick. That just means your brain is sick instead of your body. It's not your fault. You didn't ask for it. And I'm glad I could help."
"You did," Zoe said, and tugged at her hair again. "I'm supposed to call my therapist right away if stuff like that happens, but I couldn't remember how."
"Well, I'm glad I helped." Maya hesitated, long enough for Zoe to look up. "You never asked why I have parents and foster parents."
Zoe shrugged. "I dunno, I know people like that. A girl back in Baltimore was living with foster parents while her mom was in jail."
"My parents aren't in jail," Maya said. "I got pregnant when I was fifteen and they kicked me out."
Zoe felt her mouth drop open. Really? People still did that? Well, she knew people still did that. It happened to another girl at her school. But... really? "Really?"
Maya smiled, a little. "Yeah, really. My foster sister found me and took me in, then she brought me down to her parents. They saved my life, you know? Anyway, the point of all this is I wanted to say that shitty things happen, and they're not your fault, and sometimes you have to lean on other people to get through. I'm honored you thought you could lean on me. And you can. So there's that."
"Oh," Zoe said, and smiled, tentatively.
Maya smiled back.
Title: Courage
Story: In the Heart
Colors: David Bowie 8 (Sometimes I fear that the whole world is queer Sometimes but always in vain → Buddha of Suburbia (Buddha of Suburbia)), Olympic gold 11 (village), azul 16 (Courage) with shipwrecklight's paint-by-numbers (Maya makes a new friend after she moves out of Joy's house.)
Supplies and Materials: Seed beads (Maya and Zoe), chalk (like flirt ghost), glitter (O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!/O, drooping souls, whose destinies/Are fraught with fear and pain,/Ye shall be loved again!), novelty beads (“It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” ― Marlene Dietrich)
Word Count: 4000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zoe makes a friend.
Warnings: Internalized ableism, mentions of self-harm and suicide, skipdepicition of a schizophrenic episode
Notes: I did a lot of research on Zoe's illness. If I fucked it up, please tell me right away. I will correct myself and apologize profusely.
Zoe couldn't help but watch the girl.
She was really pretty, for one. Not that Zoe was into girls-- well, she didn't think, but she was only fifteen and she had other shit to worry about than sexuality-- but she could tell when another girl was good-looking, and this one was. She had light brown skin close to the color of Zoe's own, and big brown eyes that were exactly the color of Zoe's own, and shiny, silky brown hair that Zoe envied with a passion. Her own hair was nice, like a firework explosion of curls, but it was dense as hell and she thought the other girl's hair must be much easier to brush. And maybe it didn't frizz up every five seconds.
Mom would say that Zoe's hair was perfect just like she was, but Zoe wasn't perfect at all, which just went to show. Of course, Mom also said Zoe was always looking on the other side of the fence and thinking it was better, but she sort of thought being anyone but herself would be better. Anyone at all, even her little sister who didn't remember Daddy. Zoe didn't think she would give up those memories, but... well. Maybe she would. To be okay.
Whatever. Didn't matter.
Anyway, the girl.
She was really pretty, and thin like Zoe used to be, and she was also really private, which Zoe could sympathize with. It wasn't that she didn't love her family. She did, very much, Mom and her brother and her baby sister, but they were kind of crowded in and sometimes the noise in her head plus the noise outside of it was too much and she had to go find a tree to climb, put her headphones on and rest her head against the bark and pretend like nothing was happening. The girl was kind of the same way, ducking the overly friendly neighbors and disappearing into her apartment really soon after Zoe saw her, every time.
She wore the prettiest clothes, too, in bright jewel tones with cool patterns and thick bands of embroidery. Some of them, Zoe thought, were saris-- she'd read a book about India once and they looked kind of the same-- and some of them were just normal New York clothes but they were all bright and gorgeous, and lots of them were green, green was a good color, and she envied them, too. Not that she could ever wear them, but she liked them on other people.
So... well, of course she followed the girl. Or maybe woman. It was sort of hard to tell. Zoe was bad at judging ages but she looked young, anyway, maybe not too much older than Zoe's fifteen. But she was probably a lot more grown-up because she had her own apartment and no parents in sight. Whatever age she was, she was interesting, and not in a mean way, either. Zoe wanted to know more about her.
One day when the younger kids got too much for her and her head started to hurt, she left and sneaked onto the girl's fire escape. It was nice out there; a small jungle of potted plants and some long, colorful scarves drying in the wind. Zoe didn't quite dare touch anything, but she could squeeze herself in between a couple of plants and feel... and feel safe, and quiet for once. She put her headphones on, leaned back against the sun-warmed metal and closed her eyes.
The shriek of the window opening jolted her out of a quiet reveire, and she sat upright, and found herself looking straight at the girl.
"Hi," the girl said, and propped her arms on the windowsill, casually.
Zoe stared back, briefly paralyzed, then pulled her headphones down around her neck. "Hi," she said, unable to think of any other response.
The girl looked at her for a moment, then said, "So, what's with this?" She waved up and down the fire escape, as if that was supposed to mean something to Zoe.
Zoe looked down, picked at her nails, and shrugged one shoulder. "Dunno."
"You spying on me?"
It sounded like a joke but Zoe went stiff anyway. Her brothers used to yell at her for creeping around, and she'd used to think... "No," she said, maybe a little loudly. "It got... noisy at home."
The girl didn't even blink at her volume. "Okay," she said. "Please don't knock the plants over."
"I won't," Zoe said, and the girl retreated into her apartment, but left the window open.
And that was how she met Maya Thakarta.
Zoe kept coming back to the fire escape after that. It was comfortable and quiet, and she liked to do her homework up there, or just sit and watch the city passing below her, comfortably remote. Maya-- she'd introduced herself after the third time Zoe popped up on her fire escape-- Maya didn't bother her, except that she'd open the window to take down her scarves or pass Zoe a watering can to give the plants some water, and Zoe didn't mind doing that. It was like rent, sort of, earning her place. Plus it was nice. Maya would leave the window afterwards and work on the couch near the window, reading big textbooks or writing stuff on a computer, and sometimes she'd come over and hand Zoe a cup of tea or a plate of these crunchy orange things that were amazingly delicious. She liked it.
And then one Saturday morning it was pouring out, just bucketing down rain, and Zoe could not take one more second inside the apartment, with her siblings running around and her mom watching her out of the corner of her eye and everything getting so loud. She grabbed her backpack and was out the door before her mom could stop her, dashing over to the next building and jogging up the inside stairs.
It was different inside the building than out, and it took her a minute, counting doors up and down the corridor, to be sure which apartment belonged to Maya. She didn't want to wake up some loud white dude or anything, though it was almost noon and they should probably be up anyway. Zoe herself had been up since five-thirty, edgy in a way she couldn't quite place.
So Maya would probably be awake, anyway. That was the important bit. Zoe hesitated, then knocked on the door anyway.
It took a few minutes, but Maya opened the door in a bathrobe, her hair tousled and her eyes sleepy. "Zoe?" she said, after a surprised pause. "What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" Zoe asked, and took Maya's step backwards for permission. Maya's apartment was really nice for a studio, all plants and lights and colors. The bed was little but comfortable-looking, shoved up against the window, and there was the couch against the near wall, a tiny desk wrangled into a corner between bookshelves, a big fish tank and a little crowded kitchen set into the wall. "Nice place."
"Thanks," Maya said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Zoe turned around, suddenly afraid, but no, Maya was just looking at her like she'd done something really funny. "You live around here, I take it."
Oh, right, they'd never actually talked beyond that first conversation and the later introductions. "Next building over. With my mom and sibs. And my stepdad sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
Zoe shrugged one shoulder. "He's... he and mom aren't married, but they've been together for years." Since just after her father died, actually, and Zoe would have wondered about that if she hadn't had way bigger things going on at the time. "So, you know, stepdad. Anyway, he travels a lot for work so sometimes we don't see him much."
"Right," Maya said. "What brings you over here?"
"Sibs," Zoe said, and shrugged again. She couldn't explain-- she'd have to, sooner or later, but she liked what she'd seen of Maya and she really wanted it to be later. "They're loud. Did I wake you up? You always sleep really late."
"I work the night shift," Maya said, and went to sit on her bed. "I don't get home until six AM."
"Oh." Embarrassed, Zoe turned away and went to investigate the fish tank in greater detail. "That sucks. I'm sorry."
Maya didn't sound offended or anything, though. "Pays the bills, and it's only until I'm out of college."
What? Zoe swung around to face her, her sweater flopping down over her knuckles as she did. "You're still in college? I thought... you look older."
For some reason that made the older girl smile. "Senior year. Thanks. I'm only twenty-two, though."
"I'm fifteen," Zoe said, ruefully. "It's a long way from fifteen to twenty-two."
"I guess it is." Maya stared at the wall for a moment, her eyes far away, then shook herself and went on. "It went by pretty fast, though."
The cuffs of Zoe's sweater were unraveling. She picked at a thread, avoiding Maya's eyes. "I wish it would go faster," she said. "At least to eighteen."
"Sure. It'll be nice to be an adult."
"Yeah." She went back to the fish tank put a finger almost up to the glass, tracing a guppy's path as it swam. It looked really happy. "Maybe Mom'll actually let me do stuff, then."
"High school?" Maya asked. She sounded sympathetic.
"Sorta," Zoe said, and didn't elaborate. But Maya didn't ask her to, which just made Zoe like her more.
"Cup of tea?" Maya asked instead. "It's about time I should be getting up anyway. I've got homework."
"Oh!" Zoe said. "Me too. Can I go get it? We could do it together maybe?"
Maya smiled at her, a lovely smile on her lovely face. "Of course. Impromptu study group?"
"Yes," Zoe said, and beamed back at her. "I'll be right back."
And so on, and so forth.
Of course Maya was doing things way more advanced than Zoe was, and she actually liked English. Zoe didn't-- she could never make the words line up right, and she could never figure out the interpretations her teachers wanted-- but Maya helped her out with that, and Zoe helped her out with math. She loved math. It was so simple. Everything made sense, and it had one right answer, and when you'd figured out the way to get the answer it worked the same way every time.
They talked about things besides homework, of course. Family-- Zoe's brother and sister, Maya's two brothers and three sisters and her foster parents and foster sister. Growing up-- Zoe wanted to be a mathematician, and teach at a college somewhere, while Maya was majoring in business administration and already had a management job lined up after she graduated at the hotel where she worked. Maya liked to read, and Zoe preferred to listen to music. They both liked the fish that flitted around Maya's big aquarium. Once they even pushed the furniture against the wall and Maya taught her bhangra dance.
It was nice. Maya was her friend. Zoe used to have friends, before her father died and everything happened, and she'd liked it then, but then after everything happened she was too scared to get close to anybody again, in case it started happening again and everyone got scared of her again. So she hadn't even tried, at school. Better to be the probably weird loner than the psycho creeper.
But Maya wasn't at school. Maya only saw her when they both agreed on it, so Zoe could be sure she was in total control when they met up. It was safe. Maya was safe. She could enjoy it.
Until the day she couldn't.
Zoe couldn't take it.
She'd been doing so well. The medication had been working. She hadn't had an episode in months and everything was quiet and she'd dared to hope-- and then she woke up this morning and the voices were back, nasty loud voices calling her fat and ugly and worthless, a burden on her family and her poor, hardworking mom, telling her how no one would miss her or be sad if she was gone, how they'd all be better off...
Voices, always voices. Even loud music didn't make them go away.
She didn't tell her mom. She wanted to, but... but Mom would make her go back to the hospital, and Zoe didn't want to go back to the hospital if she didn't have to. Sure, her scars were itching and she wanted so badly to pick up a blade again, but if she went back to the hospital then everyone would know here too, more people than knew already, and she couldn't take that. But she couldn't take school either, so she got dressed and rushed out the door and went and hid on Maya's fire escape.
She was going crazy for good this time. She was losing her mind for good. The meds weren't working anymore, the voices were back, and soon it would be the touches again, all over her body, people looking at her and she could feel it, everybody judging her, hating her. She dug a hand into her hair and pulled, hard. She'd start talking like an idiot, making no sense, running on and begging for help that no one could give, and Mom would put her back in the hospital and Rosie and Dylan would look at her like she was terrifying again and Daddy was dead, he was dead and he wasn't ever ever coming back and it was all her fault...
Zoe let out a sob of pure fear and huddled against Maya's window.
She didn't know how much later it was when Maya threw open the window and she jumped back, making a little animal noise of pure terror.
"Jesus," Maya said, which was hilarious in a sick way because Zoe knew Maya was Hindu, but that didn't really matter now, did it? "Zoe, are you okay?" Then she rolled her eyes. "Sorry, stupid question, of course you're not okay. Do you want to come in?"
"The TV was talking to me," Zoe said. She hadn't meant to just blurt it out like that, but there it was. "Mom was watching the news except they were talking to me."
"What were they saying?" Maya asked, softly.
"It's my fault Daddy died," Zoe said, and sobbed again. "I tried to bring him back but nobody would let me and then everyone was scared."
"That's awful," Maya said. "I can't believe they said to you. Do you want to come inside, Zoe? You can sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea. There's no TV in here, so it can't say such mean things to you. Does that sound nice?"
Zoe rubbed her hands across her face. "Y-yes. But they're in my head, too."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Maya actually looked sorry, too. She didn't look like she wanted to throw Zoe in the hospital or push her off the fire escape or anything. She might want that, but she didn't look like it, and anyway she was Zoe's friend.
Zoe crept into the apartment and huddled on the couch, hands over her ears.
Maya didn't touch her, or do anything to her, like she was afraid Maya would. Instead she made tea in the kitchen, humming tunelessly as she did. Maya always made green tea. Zoe would've thought chai, but Maya said she didn't like chai; it was all she'd grown up with and she was sick of it. Zoe was sick of this. Sick of everything. She wished they'd just let her bring Daddy back.
"Hey," Maya said quietly. Zoe looked up, and she handed over a cup of tea. "There. Now, do you want to talk about it, or would you rather just sit quietly? I'm okay with either."
"I don't want to talk about it," Zoe said, fast as she could. "I don't, I don't, I don't."
"Okay," Maya said, just like Zoe hadn't said anything strange. "Do you want to sit quietly then?"
Zoe nodded, not trusting her voice, and stared down at the teacup Maya had handed her. It was so delicate, painted with little yellow flowers, and she wanted to throw it across the room, hear it shatter against the wall, then shatter the aquarium and the computer and her fists and just break things until everything was broken and then maybe everything would just shut up...
"That's cinquefoil," Maya said, and Zoe started, tea slopping out of the cup onto her saucer. "The flower on the teacup, I mean. My foster father bought it for me before I moved back home. Cinquefoil means beloved daughter in flower language, he said, and he said he wanted me to always remember that it was safe for me there, that I could always come back."
Zoe focused on the flowers. They were really little, tiny yellow stars. She liked stars. And they were surrounded by green, green leaves and stems. She liked green too. Green was a good color. It meant go, it meant safe. She was safe. Green was okay.
"Did you?" she asked. "Go back?'
"Not yet," Maya said. "I've been doing okay. My parents treated me well after I went back. And now I've got my own space and I'm managing. I still call them sometimes when I'm feeling bad, though. Do you have someone you call when you're feeling bad?"
Oh. Oh, of course. Zoe felt awful. "Yeah," she said. "My therapist. I'm sorry. I forgot."
"That's okay!" Zoe glanced up, and saw Maya smiling at her. "You're feeling pretty bad, aren't you? I'm glad you remembered it now, that's all. Do you want to call them now? Your therapist?"
"Yes please," Zoe said, and read off the numbers while Maya dialed.
Doctor Pasa answered right away, and was so nice and soothing that Zoe nearly cried. She asked first if Zoe had been taking her medications, which she had, then she said it was normal, that sometimes medications just stopped working for a day or so, but that she'd be back to okay tomorrow, and if she wasn't to come in right away. Zoe agreed, and hung up, and because Doctor Pasa said she was going to call Zoe's mother right away, she let Maya walk her home.
Zoe did feel better the next day, better enough to feel completely ashamed of herself.
Mom told her it wasn't her fault. Mom said she was good and brave to go to somebody she trusted, and that she'd done right by calling the doctor, and that Maya would understand, but Zoe didn't believe her. None of her friends in Maryland had understood. No one except Mom had visited her in the hospital, and not one of them had called when she got out. Even Rosie and Dylan had avoided her for a few weeks.
Anyway, why should Maya want to see her again? Zoe was dangerous. She hurt herself when she was sick. She might hurt other people. That was what it meant. If she was a good friend, she'd leave Maya alone and never make any friends again.
At least Mom let her call in sick to school.
Zoe was huddled under her blankets, wondering if she should try to do the homework she'd missed or just go back to sleep, when Mom knocked on her door. "Zoe?"
"Yeah?"
"You have a visitor, honey."
Zoe popped her head out from under the covers, and froze, shocked. Mom was holding her door open, and Maya was standing there.
"Hi," Maya said, and smiled at her, a little tentatively. "Is this a bad time?"
"Uh, no," Zoe said, and scrambled upright, shoving her covers back. She was glad she'd gotten dressed. "No, I'm okay. Thanks, Mom."
"I'll leave you two alone to visit," Mom said, and closed the door.
Which left Zoe and Maya staring at each other, Zoe sitting in bed with her hair a tangled mess and Maya standing awkwardly at the door.
"Can I sit?" Maya asked, after a few seconds.
"Oh, yeah, of course." Zoe waved at her desk chair and hugged her knees to her chest. "I'm glad you came." Maya deserved an apology, at least.
"Oh?" Maya asked. She pulled the desk chair out and sat down.
"I, um." Zoe tugged at her hair and stared at her feet. She couldn't look Maya in the face, not for this, but she had to explain, didn't she? She owed Maya that much. "I can't. I mean. Yesterday."
"You weren't doing too well," Maya said, carefully. Zoe could hear the care in her voice and it hurt in an obscure way. "I wanted to ask, but I thought it was a bad time."
"They were loud," Zoe said, and realized that didn't explain anything at all. "I... it was a bad time. I'm schizophrenic."
There. She'd said it. She'd had to sneak up on it but she'd said it. Now Maya could get scared or mad or weirded out, whatever she was going to do, and she could leave, and Zoe could hide in bed for a while with her big thick headphones on and her blanket over her head.
"Yeah?"
Zoe blinked, and sneaked a look at Maya. She looked... well, she didn't look unfazed, exactly, but she also didn't look mad or scared or anything. Maybe a little surprised.
"Yeah," Zoe said, cautiously. "Um. Childhood-onset paranoid schizophrenia, if you want the whole name. I hear things." And believed things, and did things, but she wasn't going to dump all of that on Maya at once.
"Well, that does explain a few things," Maya said. "I take it you had a bad day yesterday."
"Yeah," Zoe said, again. "Sometimes the medications don't work all the way. That's what Doctor Pasa said when I called."
"That sucks," Maya said, and she sounded like... she sounded like she understood. "Are you okay now?"
She nodded, then caught herself. "Yeah."
Maya nodded back, then said, "I came because I thought you might be feeling bad, and I wanted to tell you that you don't have to. You know?"
Zoe shook her head. She didn't know. People just... well. She was supposed to be better. That was what the medication was for. She was supposed to be better and she wasn't, so... shouldn't she feel bad?
"I figured you were some kind of mentally ill," Maya told her. "And, you know, that's just sick. That just means your brain is sick instead of your body. It's not your fault. You didn't ask for it. And I'm glad I could help."
"You did," Zoe said, and tugged at her hair again. "I'm supposed to call my therapist right away if stuff like that happens, but I couldn't remember how."
"Well, I'm glad I helped." Maya hesitated, long enough for Zoe to look up. "You never asked why I have parents and foster parents."
Zoe shrugged. "I dunno, I know people like that. A girl back in Baltimore was living with foster parents while her mom was in jail."
"My parents aren't in jail," Maya said. "I got pregnant when I was fifteen and they kicked me out."
Zoe felt her mouth drop open. Really? People still did that? Well, she knew people still did that. It happened to another girl at her school. But... really? "Really?"
Maya smiled, a little. "Yeah, really. My foster sister found me and took me in, then she brought me down to her parents. They saved my life, you know? Anyway, the point of all this is I wanted to say that shitty things happen, and they're not your fault, and sometimes you have to lean on other people to get through. I'm honored you thought you could lean on me. And you can. So there's that."
"Oh," Zoe said, and smiled, tentatively.
Maya smiled back.
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Thank you so much for reading! I was quite nervous about this one and I'm so glad you liked it.