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“And she is so. Freaking. Exhausting!” Zoé rants, holding her head in her hands so that she doesn’t fall into the impulse to bang it against her knees in outrage. “Oh, Zoé, it’s just so utterly horrible here in this city with Mom– bitch!? I dealt with that shit for years, it’s barely been three months! I thought her paying attention to you was what you wanted! And, anyways, winding up out of Paris was nobody’s fault but your own!”
It’s about this point into Zoé’s rant that she finally looks up, and realises with a jolt that she has an audience.
Dammit. Usually, crying under the school stairs is a safe bet, since the activities on different floors were so different.
Sabrina smiles down at her, though her expression is notably pinched, and she’s got a death-grip on the side of the stairs.
Zoé abruptly pushes herself to her feet, shoving her phone into her pocket. “Haha– hi…”
She had… not been prepared for anyone to hear her like that.
Like, she gets it, everyone’s allowed to feel human emotions, and anger is one of those for sure. But she’s worked hard to not act in her mother’s image, dammit, and she’s not going to let her sister, of all things, ruin that for her.
And anyways, feeding all of her emotions into anger couldn’t have ever been healthy. Bowling it up until she can take them out as Vesperia doesn’t really work much better, but there’s no therapist around to be judging her on that, is there?
“Sorry,” she says awkwardly, starting to rub at her eyes in case any tears had managed to escape. Luckily, nothing aside from her eye-lids feel wet. “I, uh…”
“She called you,” Sabrina guesses, sounding nervous. She moves her hand away from the stairs, instead fidgeting with the hem of her shorts.
Zoé hesitates a moment, and then nods. “Just a few minutes ago, yeah.”
“Just block her,” Sabrina says, though her voice cracks, loudly. “It… it sucks in the moment, because… y’know. But it’s not healthy to listen to her.”
“She needs someone to rant to,” Zoé argues, or rather justifies. “I don’t know what anyone thought mandatory therapy would do for her, but I’m pretty sure all she’s done around the gal so far is brag.”
Sabrina shrugs, still fidgeting. “It’s not our problem, though, is it? Her decisions shouldn’t impact us.”
Sounds like Chloé’s not the only one with a therapist in that relationship. Good to know.
Still, Zoé finds herself on the defensive on her older sister’s behalf. “We’re related. It’s going to impact me whether I like it or not.”
“Would you rather have not known her at all?”
Zoé starts to shake her head, even though something in the back of her brain insists that she’s lying.
She’s not lying.
It’s just…
Finding out about her. That’s what had made her go back to her old ways, right? Queen Bee had been a good superhero for a minute there, and everyone knew it. It’s Zoé’s fault that she’s like this, now, and Zoé deserves to face punishment for it.
“It’s hard to move on,” Sabrina says knowingly. “And to be honest, I don’t think I’ve been very good at it so far. But life goes on, right? And we have to believe that someday, she’ll find the good in her again.”
Zoé takes in a shuddering breath, and tries to make herself listen to the words.
She… doesn’t feel like she does, to be honest.
“Your therapist has been working you good, haven’t they?” She asks, delicately dancing away from the topic.
Sabrina giggles softly. “Uh– yeah. I guess she has been. And I think… I think I’m learning.”
Zoé smiles. “That makes one of us.”