xyzosia-blog:
Civil Disobedience ;; K & Z
@kaylaxtedfort
About a week behind on sleep at this point with nothing but pure caffeine coursing through her veins, Zosia’s usual keen sense of self-awareness had been dialled down to a duller setting. In spite of convincing efforts to appear unfazed by recent events; to sit back and let the pieces fall where they may — behind the scenes she was not so carefree, and insidious cracks within her resolve were threatening to leak covert details into her daily life. It was subtle, but the shift shadowing her decisions made during last month’s two week absence were well underway. Thankfully, the majority of the mansion’s residents were not incredibly observant, nor did Zosia socialize enough to have deeply formed bonds with a count that exceeded the fingers of one hand. She had carefully crafted a shy existence wherein no one really noticed her unless she wanted them to, and she depended on that imperative boundary. It was safer that way; no one could think her habits were under metamorphosis when they’re original state hadn’t been publicly distinguished in the first place. To her knowledge, no one asides from herself had taken notice of the little traits she had begun adapting to, woven not by her own will. Of course, there were the slip ups of speech that she could only hope the cameras hadn’t caught but, with a reputation of having her head in the clouds much of the time, she figured anything potentially incriminating she was caught saying would mount to little consequence.
Putting recent events in consideration, she ought to have been happily floating on cloud 9. And yet, the emotion escaped her. ‘What will it take, to be enough?’ she couldn’t help but ask her own subconscious as she routinely gawked at the rigid nature of her dissatisfaction, ‘Living in a different universe?’ Now and then, always sporadic and unexpected, moments of genuine elation would surface, a spiteful reminder that she wasn’t yet entirely devoid of goodness. Though her happiness shared the frustrating intangible quality of water; slipping in and out of her grasp like the swell of an oceanic wave. Taunting her of what was possible before sinking back out to sea, leaving little behind but salt to encrust her wounds. The term ‘girlfriend’ was taking some time to adjust to. All of a sudden, in assigning a term to something already in existence, every single thing she’d felt secure about changed. Words had always been beloved to her in their enchanting and powerful ability to provide a foolproof outlet from reality. On the flip side, discovering how the simplest two-syllable ( g i r l f r i e n d ) label could forge moat of sterile distance around her overnight terrified her. The one she missed the most, forced to nobly camp out at the edges of her personal space, was the Welsh wordsmith with green eyes and a fancy for records and puns. Burdened with re-activated empathy, the cursed reward that came from maintaining regular attendance to therapy sessions, Zosia found her mind wracked with worry over the woman still in possession of a torch alight with her affections, caught from a different fire than the one her girlfriend’s company kindled. Angharad had recently taken precedence over the tiny brunette during the reader’s late night pondering, leading her to finally make the decision to break the uncomfortably respectful distance which had rifted between them. For, unlike Maya who had been trained to handle anything with the graceful flick of a violent hand, Zosia knew little of how Angharad’s coping mechanisms revealed themselves. The silence was eerie, permeated with guilt summoned by the unknown fate of her friend.
Unable to reach out to the curly haired connoisseur with as much ease as she used to, having distanced herself from realm of online communication much like the reader had, she felt she was left with one option; a confrontational reconciliation. And if that didn’t work, if she bottled up everything important as usual, she would come bearing gifts to ensure her visit provided at least something of value. Holding a flat, rectangular box in one hand containing something she hoped would earn a smile from the girl she currently sought the halls for, Zosia struggled to find the shared room she inhabited. She had only been to Angharad’s room once before, after a long and late night of aimless wandering together. At the time she had been a new arrival, still without a roommate. As Zosia’s footsteps halted outside of the room she believed to be correct, she figured the other bed had likely been filled by now but wasn’t sure who had taken the position. Nonetheless, raising a hand to strike her knuckles against the door, she half-heartedly hoped her efforts would be met with silence.
It had only been a few days Kayla had been staying in Angharad’s flat; a short but needed reprise from the renovations happening in her own apartment a floor above. It had just been a happy coincidence that her old friend also lived in this building, though perhaps this building was not so much of a coincidence as it was a cosmic collision of every person that meant anything to Kayla. There was Frankie, who lived on the bottom floor, though had now made her home in Kayla’s heart. Girlfriends. The term felt odd in Kayla’s mouth. The last relationship she had had ended in tears, slamming door, and a deployment she never really came back from. If she was truly honest with herself, she still felt terrified. That was perhaps why she’d opted to stay with Angharad rather than move in with Frankie just a couple of weeks into their relationship. Angharad, who she’d known years ago, perhaps the truest and simplest of friends, and only reconnected when she moved into this building.Then there was Maya, Frankie’s best friend from the third floor. It wasn’t so much that Kayla cared about her on her own, moreso that she felt she had to care about her because... well because Frankie cared about Maya. Surely it was customary to care about the people your girlfriend cared about. Even if said person brought along with her someone that Kayla felt she shouldn’t care about.
Zosia. Maya’s girlfriend, or so she had been updated as much by Frankie, Zosia. Her very name made Kayla’s heart stutter in her chest. Since that night she’d met her on the rooftop, there had been an unspeakable connection tethering them to each other that Kayla couldn’t ignore (though she did her very best to try). After all, she had moved here to be better. Better to herself, and kinder to those around her. To be in a space and not take it up with big feelings and uncontrollable emotions. And what was Zosia to Kayla if not uncontrolled feelings, like a train chugging along a train track unable to stop before it derails. It was the what if that was perhaps the thing Kayla revisited when she couldn’t sleep. As in, what if Zosia felt just as inexplicably tethered to her too?
But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them. The simplicity in which these words had stayed with Kayla, even months after they had been uttered. It had driven Kayla to near madness. A madness cured only by reading the rest of the book the words had been uttered from, though she had quickly put said book deep in her nightstand the moment she felt herself reflected in it. Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them. So too had she buried the thoughts of Zosia away, locked up with all the other things that were painful to think about for too long.
Well, sometimes the universe brings to you what it shouldn’t. That must be why, Kayla argued, Zosia now stood outside Angharad’s apartment, knocking. Angharad had mentioned she knew people in this building, but of all the units she never expected Zosia’s to be one. She debated not opening the door, in fact since Angharad wasn’t home she could just pretend no one was home. Zosia wouldn’t have seen her look through the peephole and there was no way Zosia was looking for her, right? It was the doubt, and the fact that the door to thinking about Zosia had been thrown wide open anyway that drove her actions. Her hand moved without thinking and pulled the door open without thinking about what she was going to say.
“Zosia... uh... hey,” she said, sounding slightly out of breath for absolutely no other reason other than the panic setting in her chest.












