soft heart, dirty hands.

Cam couldn’t help but laugh at the words from Zahra. She clearly liked to exaggerate at the moment. “Nah, I wouldn’t die yet. Work might be tough, but you can’t leave Cosmo and Wanda behind without their mum. Besides that… There’s so much left you still need to do. Kiss a few cute boys - or girls. Go on terrible dates. So like I said; no dying yet.” Luckily for her, the other woman did agree on getting some coffee so that was already a good step to make. “With some coffee in your system, I’m sure you’ll be able to get through the day with the annoying people. Let’s get some coffee.” Cam said, moving in the direction of the coffee shop she had mentioned before.

With a slightly dramatic gasp, Zahra was soon giving Cam a few nods, “Of course I can’t! Nobody is going to love my babies more than I love my babies so I just gotta push through. --You also just made me realize that I haven’t been on a date in like... forever which is depressing as fuck yet explains a lot.” It wasn’t like Zahra wasn’t actively avoiding going on dates but sometimes they just got boring really quickly and she felt like she was pulling teeth. So, why bother? Choosing to follow alongside the other woman, Zahra nodded, “If all else fails, I can quit my job and go back to being a mechanic-on-demand.” She was mainly joking but it was partially true as well. “My crap aside; you seem pretty chipper. How’s your life goin’?”

Alex had needed a break from work so she’d switched Cam shifts and took Zahra up on meeting at Happy Scoops. “A Randwhat?” Alex asked as she stood in line next to Zahra, she tried to see what she was doing. “Umm no I’ve never noticed that, but I mean I guess when you think about it we just go to work, then go home, or hang out with friends, and repeat.” She told her with a shrug, she’d never really thought it about it that in depth. “I mean if you want to try it I don’t mind taking an adventure with you as long as I’m back before my shift starts.” She told her with a smile. “I don’t know about that, but I think we get very set in patterns and habits and sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing them, then ten years have passed and you wake up hating your life and realizing you never did anything you wanted to.”  

"Randonauting! It’s this new thing that’s basically takin’ over tiktok and youtube which is both creepy and interesting wrapped into one package. I feel... very old to even admit I use tiktok but sometimes a bitch can’t avoid the trends,” she expressed with a slight shrug of the shoulder, “Or the voice of an annoying step brother.” Zahra listened to Alex closely, nodding along and humming a soft ‘mhm’ considering she completely agreed. Adulthood was really just a solid pattern of events which often times felt meaningless. Letting out a gasp, Zahra clasped her hands together, “Yes, bitch! From what I’ve seen, it tends to take you places that are fairly close by - at most like a fifteen minute drive - so I think you should be good with time.” Moving up slightly as the line in front of them sluggishly went forward, she continued, “That’s both very accurate but also... hella sad, Alex. I mean, I’m pretty happy with my life in theory ‘cause preferably I’d prefer to own my own business but aside from that? It’s kinda how I saw it. But I definitely know people who have those thoughts to which I say; yikes. Hopefully you’re not talking about yourself?”

When: A few days after the Pride Parade Where: Downtown, Maywood Open to: everyone @maywoodstarters​

Unfortunately for Natalia, she had been in the hospital for a shift during the entire day of the pride parade. She always enjoyed watching those, but there had been no opportunity for her to get out of the shift. So she had been searching for someone who could at least tell her how everything had been. It didn’t take long before she recognized someone on the street and she quickly moved over. “Hey, I’m sorry to disturb you but do you perhaps have a moment?”

She’d stopped by a hardware store to pick up a few materials she needed to fix something in her garage but Zahra had spent well over an hour in the establishment because she couldn’t decide on the kind of screws she needed. In the end, she bought four different kinds since nagging the attendant for so long had left her feeling guilty. Leaving with the bag, she’d really only walked so far until she heard someone behind, wheeling around on her heels as she tied off her hair into a long braid that now hung against her shoulder, “Hi! You’re not disturbin’ me at all considering I’m not in any kind of rush to get anywhere. What’cha need, girl?”

DOWNTOWN MAYWOOD — POST-PRIDE — A CROWDED BAR

Despite the celebration that had gone on, Henry doesn’t particularly feel in the mood to celebrate. It feels strange, sitting here in the aftermath, like he’s somehow out of place in a way that he hadn’t been before. He knows that it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, and with the kick-back from his insomnia lately, that’s to be expected.

Tired, Hyuntae decides to spend his free time this evening sitting in a bar close to where he lives. There’s a cocktail in his hand, and he leans heavy against the bar itself as he sits, glancing towards the person next to him with almost an expectant look about him. It’s not intentional — more like he’s building himself up before he gets the nerve to speak.

“Did you enjoy the party?” Or the parties. From what he’d heard there was a whole bunch of them, but the few that he got invited to were at times he really couldn’t make it. “I mean… Jesus, that sounds stupid. Did you enjoy Pride?” Small talk isn’t exactly his strong suit, but he gives himself time to work himself up to more.

To this day, Zahra could remember her first ever Pride back when she was only 17 and had chosen to come out to her parents as bisexual. Naturally, Jahaal and Guadalupe had been a bit shocked considering that hadn’t been expecting it but they accepted it just as quickly as it had come and done their best to embrace their daughters preferences. Ever since, she’d been attending Pride and it was something that genuinely brought joy to her life even if she mainly kept to herself or dressed up her dogs so they could have fun around people - smaller crowds anyways for Cosmo’s sake. But as she sat drinking a sangria, she heard a voice which made her look up, smiling as she saw that it was Henry. “It may sound stupid but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong considerin’ it is a party in some way. A party with lots of smaller parties for more specific things so no stupidity here. --I personally liked them ones I went to! There was this thing at the park where I got to dress up my dogs so obviously I put one in a lil’ rainbow tutu and she was thriving.” 

When one of her fellow mechanics had returned to him to inform him that Zahra was busy, and didn’t want to visit with anyone at the moment; Lincoln was hardly surprised. In fact, it was as he had expected. As he was told to come back later, he simply pressed his lips into a tight formed smile and nodded. Only, he had no real intention of leaving. Instead, he decided he’d simply wait. She was going to have to come out sooner or later. When she finally had, he mimicked the same tight form smile, as he took a small step towards her, a simple shrug of his shoulders following. “What can I say? I’m a bold individual.” He stated, the fact should have been rather obvious at this point. “And mark up this disgustingly pretty face? Sounds like a crime against humanity right there, Zahra.” He joked, as he took another step, followed by one more. “I don’t actually expect it to that easy, because I know that I’ve sucked this last week.” Understatement. They both knew that. More so when he was trying to show her that he wasn’t like the rest, and then processed to be like the rest. “Its been a bad week, and I know I should’ve given you more then a half assed text, but –” But what? Truth was, he truly didn’t wanna talk about it, there was apart of him that was usually not up for discussion. Nor did he ever go out of his way to make it so. 

Another step, closing the distance between them, and quiet possibly opening the line for the slap she had mentioned. “I don’t expect you to forgive me right now, or to even really care to listen. If I were you, I probably wouldn’t either.” He said, as he now stood mere inches from her. Brown hues staring down at her, the realization of just how much he had actually missed having her around the last week consumed him. He liked Zahra, there had been something about her that had stuck with him, and he couldn’t seem to shake that. Nor did he care to. “I would like to remind you that I don’t always suck. And despite what I’ve shown this last week, I don’t wanna shell out a bunch of excuses. Personally, I don’t ever see the point in that.” This he truly did believe. In fact, he believed in taking ownership of his actions, no matter how good, or bad, the reason was. “If you don’t wanna talk to me right now, that’s fine. I’m sure you’re exhausted, and would like to go home. But I can’t promise I won’t be out here everyday until you agree to speak to me.” He stated, “Perks of being the boss of that little office job. I can make my own schedule when I feel necessary.” With much thought, or truly any regard to his own safety it’d seem, he’d proceed to tug a strand of lose hair that strayed out behind her ear. “But – if you feel the need to slap and yell, I’ve got some time for that as well.”

His joke was met with nothing but silence from the woman as she remained there with a straight face despite the need to shake her head which was resisted. Her main focus was staring at her boots as muttered, “The fact that I’m even letting you talk to me is a crime against humanity.” She didn’t mean it. Not one bit. She was simply upset and so came the blunt comments she tried to avoid. The woman had been so focused on looking elsewhere that when she looked towards Lincoln again, he was stood significantly closer to her which made her jump slightly as her eyes traveled up towards the tall mans face. "Well this is just fucking unfair. You’re like seven feet tall and I’m a midget,” she mumbled to herself even if it was loud enough to be heard by him as well. Zahra had half a mind to go searching for a step stool so they could be equal but remained stood there, hands slipping into the back pockets of her jeans. The fact that he was retaining her attention, however, said quite a lot about the level of interest she actually had in the man.

“S’nice to know you’re not delirious,” she commented dryly, body slowly rocking from one side to the next as she just looked up at him with her jaw slightly clenched. Eye contact was a daunting thing in these situations but they do say eyes are the window to the soul and hers screamed disappointment. Listening quietly, the woman found her eyes breaking contact the more he spoke and travelling away from the man in general towards a random light post. “With the amount of times you’ve said you suck, I think it’s---” she cut herself off, eyes narrowing slightly at the mention of him coming back until she’d listen which made her gaze turn back to him, “--You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! You... you can’t do that! You can’t just expect something simply ‘cause you stand outside where I work, that’s not fair!” Zahra let out a noise of pure frustration as she felt her face turn to one of anger once again. Upon feeling the tug of hair, Zahra didn’t even hear him as her arm reacted and swung as her hand made contact with his cheek with a loud clap. A bit harder than she’d wanted to considering her hand was now stinging from impact as she brought it to her chest. 

There was nothing better for Sutton than a trip to the ice cream shop. Everything from childhood memories to just amazing cold treats was all wrapped into one place. Sutton grinned as she picked out her flavor and waited in like for them to get to her order. As turned as she heard the women next to her to line speak. “No” she asked. While Sutton considered herself tech savy, she wasn’t very familiar with anything outside the basics and fashion related apps. “Although I must admit it does sound kind of interesting. I’m not really sure how I would feel if that was in fact true. But then clearly the joke would be on all of us if that were the case” 

"I highly rec watchin’ some stuff ‘bout it on youtube ‘cause it can get really crazy really quickly. I’d suggest tiktok for the actual sources but tiktok is literally a wormhole that once you go down... you ain’t coming back up.” Speaking very much from experience. She didn’t even want to delete tiktok or she’d suddenly be out of some loop. “S’okay considering I don’t really know where I stand on the whole thing either. Like... sometimes it kinda makes sense but then I read how someone thinks that the reason we can’t look behind ourselves is because it disappears like in a video game and we have to physically turn around for it to be there and I’m like ‘... wait a fucking second’. But is it really on us ‘cause it leads to if we’re even real ourselves.”

“I’m going to be honest,” Oliver began. “I have no clue what you just said.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the curls. It was a habit he’d had since childhood, something he did when he was nervous or confused, which he definitely was right now. “Pretend I’m a child and explain it to me in smaller words.”

Laughing softly, Zahra only shook her head, “Wasn’t really expectin’ you to know - which isn’t meant offensively! Just ‘cause it’s a fairly new thing goin’ around.” Tilting her head, the woman hummed softly as she thought of a simpler way to explain the activity and mobile app. “Basically, it’s this app that gives you two sets of numbers that lead you to somewhere in your area which is meant to make you see something... not of this world? People say it has to do with people thinking that the world around us isn’t real. Like it’s some randomly generated thing like in video games. Making sense so far?”

Head rolled back as fingers swooped over his head and yanked off the crown, letting it rest on the bar counter. After being scolded to wear it numerous times, Ford had eventually given up fighting against the organizers. At some point, he’d forgotten he’d been wearing it at all. “Not that bad?” He reiterated, his head tilting to the side slightly to look at Zahra. “Please enlighten me, what’s fun?” Sipping his liquor, he swallowed the alcohol that felt like syrup. “Thanks,” he said, nose scrunching. For what? For being voted in and doing absolutely nothing to deserve it? “I just wanna know what’s the point…I’ve been here my entire life and I still don’t understand the benefits—as far as I understand it, it’s one week of royalty bullshit, then it all goes back to normal.”

“Alright, this is gonna sound like a stretch ‘cause I’m just tryin’ to make this less of a hassle for you then it has to be but it could be fun if you used this as a chance to maybe get somethin’ for yourself. Like more clients for the surf shop, more followers on your socials, etc. That,” she motioned towards the crown, “may not be fun but what you can do with it? Oof. Kinda like makin’ it your bitch.” Shrugging her shoulders, Zahra really couldn’t come up with an answer because she herself didn’t see the point. Girls had fawned over this dumb thing and she’d always been indifferent. “Oh, the benefit of it definitely isn’t gonna be seen by you or me ‘cause it’s about money in my opinion. D’you know how much people invest in this shit? Embarrassingly high amounts of coin, dude. But if you’re into it, you get those super fancy bragging rights.”

“I would as well. I swear for his day as Mayor he’s going to decree that its casual or swimsuit day. Have the entire town in shorts. I doubt that many people would mind.” She chuckles and shrugs softly. “I should probably hang out for a bit, once I go home I’ve got some work to do, I’m working extra hours here and there for anything I miss for these events. I’m sure I will get there at some point. How about we go and find Wanda a treat though, I think we all deserve one” 

"If he doesn’t actually go out and do that, I’m personally going to be very upset and consider his whole thing wasted. ‘Sides, who doesn’t love walking around in a swim suit? Some are kinda cute,” she mused, thinking about the town simply spending the day in swim suits, a chuckle leaving her in the process. “You make a valid point and I kinda feel like I have to apologize even thought it wasn’t any of my doin’. But if it makes you feel any better, I would have totally thrown a temper tantrum by now and punched someone so you’re killin’ it.” Looking down at her dog, the black shiba only lifted her head when she heard her name and treat in one sentence, tail wagging and hitting Zahra’s leg. “I think she would hate me if we didn’t,” she said as she began taking a few steps, “if you drink coffee we can get you some while we’re at it.”

“A shitty morning and no coffee?” Cam repeated and then motioned over to the coffee shop a few doors down the road where she was walking. “No dying on my watch, but I can tell you that we are going to get some coffee first before you have to go to work, alright? You sometimes just need a breather. But you always need to have some coffee before your day start.” At least she did and if she didn’t… She was terrible then. She had Alex multiple times tell her that she needed to get some coffee because she was in a mood. Cam motioned once more to the coffee shop with her hand. “You in for some coffee? I can’t give you a place to hide from work tho.”

"Death just seems so appealin’ right about now,” she whined for a moment very well knowing that she was being a tad dramatic before taking in a breath only to nod shortly after, “But I can’t really bring myself to say no to you since you’re spilling nothing but straight facts. I don’t know what it is about today but I just... completely forgot it even existed. Like one of those youd lose your head if it wasn’t attached type of moments. I really should be ashamed of myself.” If she didn’t have at least three cups of coffee a day, Zahra would get very fussy and snarky making her the worst conversationalist. Which you couldn’t be when working on cars could already get testy. “I’m totally down. I don’t mind goin’ to work ‘cause I love my job, it’s the people that are annoyin’.”

DATE: june 24th, 2020; 4:15PM

LOCATION: happy scoops ice cream

@maywoodstarters​

While Zahra wasn’t the kind of woman that would willingly make tiktoks, she’d been sucked into getting the app when her step-brother had nagged her into it. How a twenty two year old could be so convincing was beyond her. But surely enough, she’d fallen down the spiral where she’d spend her time scrolling for hours on end when she wasn’t at work watching whatever she came across. Mainly, it was dogs. Until she stumbled across something called Randonautica and she’d spiraled even further down a rabbit hole. A creepy one at that. She had even gone as far as downloading the app to her phone but she hadn’t done a single thing with it except continue watching tiktoks on it. Which was doing as she waited in line to buy ice cream on the hot day. 

“Have you ever heard of Randonautica?” She asked the person that was beside her, eyes lifting from her phone as she looked over for a more direct conversation, “That app that uses a quantum number generator to give you a set of cords that’ll take you somewhere random? It’s supposed to basically show you how we’re stuck in some simulation and bend reality in a way that you would never notice otherwise or some kind of shit like that. I kinda wanna try it and see if it leads me anywhere but... I’m not doing that shit alone. ---D’you think that’s like... a thing? That we’re really just living in a simulation?”

𝓗𝓔𝓐𝓓𝓒𝓐𝓝𝓞𝓝 ft. tattoos & locations;

A: done shortly after her mother passed away in honor of her mom & her love of butterflies. located on her left arm & the butterfly is colored to match that of the purple emperor. ( done at age 24 )

B: the first tattoo she ever got done and obviously it had to be the fear shift of a manually driven car in honor of her first car ever - which was manual transmission. it’s located on the wrist of her left arm. ( done at age 17 )

C: the most recent tattoo that she had done simply because she was bored one day and felt like she needed to add something more to herself. it’s located on her right arm and the flowers were done in red ink instead of having them colored in. ( done at age 27, three months ago )

D: located on her left ankle, the flowers wrap around her ankle and are visible from all angles if she’s wearing a dress/has her jeans cuffed in a certain way. this was yet another tattoo she got for no reason in particular out of boredom. ( done at age 21 )

E: located between her cleavage, this tattoo was done shortly after she broke up with a guy that basically told her that they thought women looked better without excessive amounts of tattoos. and she felt the need to get one directly where most men with that mind set would tend to focus their attention. it’s lowkey nerdy since there’s a small triangle that references harry potter & her interest in it. ( done at age 23 )

Date: June 18th, 2020

Location: Mr. Fix-It-All Auto Shop

For: @zahraammun​

For him, the last week had been one of hell. While everyone else seemed to be out enjoying the founder’s week, he was dealing with his own personal crap. None of it had really been cleared up, but he was finally able to unwind from it, and therefore, he found his first person on his apology tour to be Zahra. He had planned to meet up with her outside the gala, he had told her that he would, and then he never showed. Nor really given her any word since. It had almost been as though he had fallen off the face of the earth. Finding her was easy, he knew where she worked, and her hours, therefore, he found himself outside the garage waiting on her to exit. He had glanced down at his phone, a glimpse of a figure from the corner of his eyes caused him to look up; just in time to see her to emerging from the building. Pushing off his car, he took a few steps forward and turned his body so that he was facing her. “Hey–” He greeted, “I’m sorry for never showing the other night. Some stuff came up, and – let me make it up to you.” 

You could say that her already negative view on the entirety of Founders Week had been made substantially worse the moment she’d been left waiting for nothing the very first day at the stupid ball. Zahra vividly remembered nothing but anger as she’d chosen to head home that night, shoes in hand with nothing but a need to sleep and not bother with anything else having to do with it. Which she had done to a certain extent since she’d stayed home with her dogs working on her bike. Maybe she’d been expecting too much, maybe she’d been a little too eager in thinking that not everyone was the same, maybe she’d chosen to like him a bit more than she’d thought. The sad part was that she’d been at least expecting a simple explanation the day after. An explanation that never came which only angered her further. 

Now it was almost a whole week later and Zahra’s mind was still swimming with those thoughts as she sat stood under a car waiting for oil to leak out of it in order to change it. Her co-workers minded their business and didn’t ask her anything but that didn’t mean they didn’t notice the way she rolled her eyes when they told her she had a visitor. ‘Tell him to go fuck himself’ she’d mumbled but was met with looks, ‘then he can wait this time.’

With her work done and her shift over, Zahra only tied the oversized flannel she was wearing around her waist as she fixed her tank top now that her hands were clean. Grabbing her things, the woman had been expecting that he would have been gone but as she walked out with her car keys in hand, she let out a sigh as she just saw Lincoln stood there waiting like some idiot. Her hands soon fell to her hips as she looked down at the pair of black timbs on her feet in an attempt to stop herself from being more snarky then necessary. “Hi.” Her tone was blunt as she stopped a good distance away from him. “Bold of you to just fucking show up here with your disgustingly pretty face and dumb ass apology expecting me to just let you make it up to me when I am this close to slapping you. You don’t just... fucking ghost me then act like it never fucking happened. Besides, I’m tired. Not everyone gets to sit in an office every day.” 

Why was she asking so many questions? Why did she care? Just go home, Zahra, just go home. Yet, she remained stood right there despite repeating those words over and over.

At Siren’s Song

She’d lost the crown, Mayor for a Day, then the Dance A Thon all in won week. Usually she could handle losing one of them, but to lose all three had been a major blow to her ego. Especially after she’d worked so hard to plan it for the town. All she had to show for it now was some pictures to put in her resume and a blank spot in her her closet where the tiara was support to go.  “After this past week I need a six month vacation to anywhere tropical.” Elena commented aimlessly and she ran a hand through her dark hair as she stood in line at the coffee shop. Shifting her weight from one heel to another as she leaned back against the wall and turned her attention to the person behind her. “Did you at least have fun during Founder’s Week?” She asked, she hoped that at least someone had a better time than she did.

"I feel like that just ‘bout every week but I can second it now more than ever,” she told Elena as she looked down at the iced caramel macchiatto she had in her hands. Normally, Founders Week was Zahra’s least favorite town event considering it was just lasted too long as after day two she just lost enthusiasm. Not that she ever had it to begin with but she tried which counted for something. To someone. Somewhere. But that had been killed very quickly the first day this year considering she’d been left waiting for someone during the first day of events without even being offered some explanation. Typically, she didn’t care. Guys were idiots and she was used to it. But she’d been expecting more from Lincoln. “Nah, girl, I had an extra shitty time at it this year than I do most years. I didn’t even have motivation to make fun of the dance-a-thon like I normally do but... life goes on. Better things will roll up and bring excitement. Maybe. Hopefully.”

Location: Downtown, Maywood When: Late morning Who: Available for everyone (preferable 4 max. otherwise I’m gonna go insane for now.) @maywoodstarters​

Cam had visited the paper earlier that day with the photos that she had made from the event. She had scanned through many photos and picked out the best of them. She pulled her bag on her shoulder a bit better before crossing the street. As she had crossed the street, she saw something falling on the floor. She quickened her pace so she could pick it up and handed it over to the owner. “I’m sorry to bother you, but you dropped something. Here you go!”

She wasn’t necessarily running late considering she had told her boss that she was going to get to the garage later than usual but Zahra had this weird habit where she needed to get to places disgustingly early regardless of giving a set time she’d be there. It was annoying to say the least since it left her in a mess. So much of a mess that she didn’t even notice how her house keys had slipped out of her back pocket and had landed on the street. All because she was busy making a mental list of how she’d finish the jobs she had left. Snapping back into reality as someone spoke to her, she blinked as she looked down at her keys, “Oh my god, thank you so much! I’ve honestly been having such a shitty morning and I haven’t even had coffee yet so losin’ these would’a been icing on the cake. And an incentive to just crawl somewhere and die so I don’t have to go to work.”