Lucky Bombs

[past]

"And I don't know how to fix it."

[past]

cut to some days later, zoey forgets to mute her phone and she receives some notifications, with one of the many samples rumi recorded, as a ringtone

mira: is that... rumi's voice?

zoey: *knowing damn well rumi hated that session so much* ...no?

rumi: zoeeeey... *gasps* wait! is that why you made me record it so many times?! for a ringtone?

zoey: ...no?

mira: *calling zoey's phone and a version of how it's done plays with rumi's million 'yuh' samples*

zoey: ...two ringtones? also mira, you fucking traitor

rumi: you better start running

mira: wait, before you kill her. zoey can u send me the file?

[past]

"I didn't get them."

The statement hit Rumi like a freight train, despite being spoken softly. Some small, desperate part of her almost hoped she hadn't heard Zoey right, humming a soft, "Hm?" As if that would change what she just heard.

And yet, Zoey pressed, not speaking any louder, but her voice was firmer, more present in the earth shattering silence they had been sitting in before. "Your calls. I-I didn't get them. Rich, um. He had my phone all morning." The words settled in Rumi's chest hard and heavy, her heart aching somewhere beneath the weight of them.

What more could she say that she hadn't already said? When she poured out her heart, when she finally spoke the words she had wanted to say for so long not out of levity, but out of a sheer need for Zoey to understand.

"...Okay," was all she could utter, all that she could manage to whisper.

She could feel Zoey's eyes turn to her, feel the plea that was coming long before it formed between them. "You believe me, don't you?" Zoey asked her, and Rumi was helpless but to turn and look at her girlfriend.

"...Always."

Because she did. She did believe her. And wasn't that so much worse?

Because she still knew Zoey. She still knew that despite her words, despite her plea, despite her confession... Rumi hadn't heard the last of the man who made her lover smell like smoke.

And yet. Any yet. She stayed. Because what else could Rumi do with her heart but leave it in Zoey's hands anyways?

[past]

[past]

[past]

[past]