do i look like mother teresa?

FULL NAME: Zahra Lee Jackson.

NICKNAMES: Z, Zahr, That Bitch.

GENDER: cis woman.

DATE OF BIRTH: August 5th.

AGE: nineteen.

SEXUALITY: i’ve never made a straight character in my life. bi bi bi.

JOB: college student / intern at H.A.H / sales associate @ United Colors of Beneton.

MAJOR: law.

❤️‍🔥

Elaine could never decide if having her friends around at things like this was better or worse than not having them around. On one hand, there were more people she actually enjoyed conversation with, enough to keep herself looking busy enough that H.A.H’s business associates left her alone. But having people who knew her, really knew her in close proximity to her parents had always put her just a little on edge. How many slip ups would it take to raise the Archer’s suspicions? For them to look a little deeper into their only daughter’s recreational activities. 

And still, Zahra’s arm through hers relaxes her the tiniest amount. Or at least, it does until the comment about hitting on her. On a normal day, she’d indulge, but with her parents so close by? She was paranoid enough as it was. “Yeah- thanks,” she says as she unhooks herself from Zahra, “But I don’t think my boyfriend would be too happy about it.” 

There’s the briefest moment of feeling lost when Elaine removes her arm. If Zahra were feeling a little more self-reflective, she might wonder if she’d have had that same feeling before everything with Lux, before Alice started drifting out of her reach... before Elaine went from being one of her best friends to her best friend. She’s not in a mood for reflection, though. Not at a Holly holiday party, of all places.

So, a petty and frustrated part of her wants to throw Elaine to the wolves - there’s plenty of people she could tap on the shoulder and point in the direction of one of H.A.H’s junior board members, after all. But... more than that, she wants to grab Elaine and drag her away from all this. Take her somewhere she’ll be an actual person again. What happens is neither. Instead, she lets out a scoff at the mention of Elaine’s boyfriend, crossing her arms. “Yeah, I’m sure Zev’ll really take me to task for it,” she shoots back. She doesn’t say ‘you can do better’, but she doesn’t hide the annoyance in her voice either. Not like it’ll be anything new. The tension holds for a moment before she rolls her eyes and throws out a dismissive, “whatever.” 

what: complaining. a Classic(tm)

where: the Teen Zone (aka where the parents aren’t)

Zahra had done her due diligence - she’d spent time circling the room amongst H.A.H colleagues (if they counted as such when you were only an intern), endured small talk and photos of people’s ugly babies and Elaine being that special kind of Elaine she got at events like this, and avoided her dad spotting her at the bar. With any luck, the important people would remember her as a smart, confident young woman with a bright future and the unimportant people would be too intimidated to approach her again. But right now, she needed a break from all that in the living room.

“The only thing saving this hot chocolate is the Amaretto I stole -  like, I swear they made this shit with water and powder which is fucking embarrassing, honestly,” Zahra says as she kicks a chair out to sit down, one drink set down on the table for the other person and the other held in her hand. “Holly’s’ve gotta step their game up if they're gonna host this kinda thing in their damn mansion.”

🌱

It was an empty comfort, knowing that Zahra didn’t need her there. Because Zahra doesn’t really need anyone, at least, not the way Rory does. And maybe that was the difference that so often sent them careening towards an argument like this one. She didn’t mean to flinch, but she did, because any sentence with Zahra and sacrifice was bound to get that kind of reaction, even one delivered without the scathing tone Zahra wore like a favorite jacket that matched every outfit she owned. 

It still grated at her, knowing that anyone could have offered her cousin up. Maybe in that moment, she would’ve turned heel and left. To hell with all of them. But she’s the first in line to admit how much a year can change things. She’d barely known Noah a year ago, not really, and now? He’d climbed his way up her priority list and made a place for himself right up with Zev and Zahra. So she couldn’t say yes (even though she would do absolutely questionable things to get a photo of Zahra and Uncle Rocky posing next to the world’s largest disco ball). But she squeezed her pinky a little tighter anyways. 

It’s easy to raise an eyebrow at Zahra’s stalling, but Rory found herself wholly unprepared when she actually got into it. Because of course it starts with the friendship of Zahra’s Rory could never really understand. Trying to compare Zahra&Elaine to Rory&Zev gave her a headache when she was younger, because how the hell could you do things like that to someone you cared about? And if the blame for their back and forth fell unevenly on Elaine, well, Rory’s inner compass always pointed towards Zahra first, and North second. It should be no surprise her moral compass matched. It all started to unfold. First in play by play and then in half sentences, each one catching on the heels of the one before it. Zahra wasn’t exactly painting her a picture, but Rory could piece it together. And then it circles back to her heavy ‘Elaine…’  

Dead to her as Lux? Rory winced again, that same gut reaction, but then bristled immediately. Elaine might be one of the chinks in Zahra’s armor but lately she was flint to Rory’s steel, never failing to spark annoyance. It was hard to push down when she was watching the continued effect Elaine’s words had, no doubt precisely the one she’d intended. All in all? It sounded a little like prom night, but with less actual blood spilled, despite more aiming for the jugular. 

“You and Elaine have been pretty harsh before,” she mused. “You always ended up together again.” But even as she said it, there was something that she could read in the tense line of her cousin’s shoulders- something about the finality of comparing Zahra to a dead girl. This time was different. So she tried again. “I mean, I never thought I’d see Harvey, Casey, and her in the same room again after everything, but it was going okay for a while there. Sometimes the heat of the moment…” 

She exhaled harshly through her nose. Everything she said was coming out like some inadequate platitude. She couldn’t fix it. But they rarely actually held the key to solving each other’s problems- that wasn’t the point. She scooted closer so she could weave her arm through Zahra’s, lean forward and rest her chin on her shoulder. “Badly might’ve been an understatement, huh?” 

No one ever really seemed to get Zahra and Elaine like Zahra and Elaine. Zahra knows Rory doesn’t. It’s just. The first time she’d seen Elaine happy enough to shine through that perfect princess mask, she’d been delighted. And the first time she’d seen Elaine angry enough to crack that same mask, she’d been captivated. There’s an Elaine that lives in tired smiles during sleepovers and screaming matches in locker rooms that is Zahra’s best friend. Or. Was her best friend. So much of their relationship was digging claws into each other, daring the other to pull away with bared-teeth smiles. It was looking at another person and knowing they’ll do the dance with you. Knowing they’ll see the horrible parts of you alongside the good without flinching away, and doing the same for them. It’s hard to explain, how this feels like such a crossing of the line. It’s not really about the logic of it. This feels different. Viscerally so.

A smile tugs at her lips thanks to Rory’s efforts - nothing more than a ghost, but there’s a rush of affection nonetheless. She leans into her cousin, letting out a shaky sigh.

“Yeah,” she agrees, with a hint of bitter amusement. She pauses, before starting to add, “I mean, maybe...” but the words trail off. Maybe what? Rory had always been better at hope out of the two of them. All Zahra has is the sick vindication that she knew this would happen, eventually. There’s no satisfaction to it. “This feels different,” she says instead of tugging the thread of maybes, shaking her head slightly. That’s the best she can explain it. She’d known it was different that night, watching prom turn bloody and brutal. Looking back, it feels like the miscalculation started with Casey. The one person in the equation she hadn’t cared about - but who knew what the fuck Lux was on, she’d actually been friends with him, hadn’t she? - and hadn’t spared even a first thought, let alone a second one. Not until - well.

“Oh fuck,” Zahra blurts suddenly, “she still doesn’t know about me and Casey. How the fuck did that not come up?”

“You know that’s not funny, Zahr.” Harvey barely remembered punching Casey now, but the feeling of face against fist was still somewhere, engraved in the wrinkles on his brain. He could tell from the way his hand ached at the mention of it all; the way his chest tightened like it always did when he felt the rage trying to claw it’s way out. At least he and Casey had both made it out of the night with sore faces, though, right? Maybe the bandage hiding that mysterious slash that stretched across his cheek was a clear sign of karmic existence: he hit Casey, and the universe hit him right back.

“The last time we talked I was on a shitload of the Candy Girl’s drugs, and - ” Harvey cleared his throat through the hesitation, but somehow he managed to mutter, “And Elaine makes me feel like a little fucking kid, okay? I don’t know what she’s got over me, but she’s got it.” Even to the untrained ear, his words would have sounded wholly defeated, but for someone who was there to see just how badly he had his heart broken? He hoped at least, she might understand how much pain cut through his heart when it came to matters of the girl he had loved since kindergarten. 

“Safe to say we didn’t exactly get a fair shot, right?” Harvey breathed out, like that was a question too. “Come on, Z. Just a couple minutes.”

“I’m not laughing,” Zahra shot back, with an unmistakeable edge. She wasn’t dwelling on why that edge was there. She definitely hadn’t cared this much the last time she’d seen Harvey swing at Casey, had she? She wasn’t dwelling on it. She wasn’t.

She bit back a sigh at Harvey explaining how Elaine made him feel. The urge to tell him she didn’t fucking care was there, but the words tapped against some part of her that registered them as familiar. It was how she felt when talking to Alice. That was enough to give her pause. 

The truth was, Zahra had always been Elaine’s friend more than Harvey’s. Or, maybe not always. But long enough. As long as she’d called Elaine a best friend. Frankly, she just loved Elaine more than she did Harvey. She’d always focused more on Elaine’s pain in the aftermath of prom. It was hard not to. It was Elaine’s tears she’d wiped away, Elaine’s hands she’d held. Harvey, as much as she loved him, had been second thought. And Casey hadn’t been a thought at all. Now Harvey was the first one reaching out, for better or worse. And Elaine had cut her out. And Casey... well. Funny, how things turned out.

“Don’t have a great track record with you asking me for shit lately,” she replied, even as she pulled the door open to let him in. She’s not all that good at letting go, is the thing. And years of habit are hard to break. She can give Harvey a few minutes - she’s done it a hundred times before, after all. “You’ve got a couple minutes. What do you want?”

⚡️

His face flushes and his voice becomes gruff by the time he speaks next. “Well, that’s what they say, isn’t it?” They being every writer he can ever think of seeing an interview with on breakfast television. “Keep a journal. Write your feelings and shit…” And maybe it’s just a result of the weekend that had passed but he feels a little embarrassed to have mentioned it at all. Like all the times he had wanted to duck under the table when Mac and he wrote songs together. His posture becomes a bit more rigid alongside his nerves, hands reaching defensively up to cross over his chest and away from reach of the papers in his pocket and eyes seeking out the spot on the horizon where she’d been looking moments before and doing his best to fixate on the clouds rather than the fact he can practically feel her gaze on him. It’s easier somehow that way. Less bare.

 “So, y’know… I did that. Stayed up in my room the night after we talked on AOL and I wrote my feelings.”  Finally a hand reaches down to his jeans and he pulls out one of the handful of crumpled receipts from his pocket, turning them in his palm to reveal his messy handwriting that he hadn’t even bothered to polish up beforeheand. “So either you can read them or I guess I can but… but… all I know is I don’t wanna run my mouth and say a load of shit that I’ll regret tomorrow. ‘Cause I… I…“ The orange hue of the sky isn’t enough to stop him from envisioning what her expression must look like from feet away. And it feels like the bravest thing he’s ever really done when he tears his gaze from the sky to Zahra with a rather exaggerated sigh as he tries to track his thoughts. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting to see - the version of Zahra from the lake house who had seemed so small in comparison to her usual self? High school Zahra who had been so untouchable that he’s pretty certain could have shattered him in an instant with just the right look? As his eyes dare to lock with hers, she’s neither of those. She’s just his Zahra. Strong. Effortlessly confident. With all the airs of fearlessness that he wishes he had in the moment. “Because - fuck. Zahra, I love you and that’s all I can keep coming back to because nothing else about this entire fucking situation is making much sense to me at the moment.” 

Zahra is aware she’s staring at Casey as he meanders his way through some sort of explanation - not one that really explains anything, or makes her feel less like she’s sidestepped into a different conversation - and can’t bring herself to care. It just - this doesn’t make sense. She’s confused, and all the more tense because of it. And, when he pulls crumpled receipts out of his pocket with something scribbled on them, it’s just more complicated because she’s a little hopelessly endeared as well. It feels a little like the words he’s saying aren’t processing properly - she’s hearing without understanding. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. This isn’t how she thought it would go. Frankly, she thought this talk would either be quick and brutal or excruciatingly dragged out. This is... different. 

Everything snaps into focus when his eyes meet hers. For a moment, Casey Russell is the only thing in the world. And then -

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Her breath catches. Her heart stutters. For a small perfect eternity between one moment and the next, she lets it wash over her. The world is good and people stay and Casey loves her. And then. And then that tide of warmth and comfort pulls back again, leaving reality in its wake. And fear whips through her like a cold wind. If she were a better person, maybe she would hug him. Kiss him. Say it back. But when she opens her mouth, “no, you don’t,” tumbles out instead, tasting as bitter as a lie. Not even denial, but a lie. Because, fuck, she believes him. She believes him. But -

But it’s like being offered a hand to hold that’s only going to be wrenched from her grip. But she’s been clutching the certainty of you are going to leave me like a shield. But the ground has just shifted beneath her again, leaving her stumbling and off-balance again. But its a little fucking laughable, because her best friend wants nothing to do with her, but Casey loves her. How the fuck does that make sense?

“No - this isn’t - you don’t,” she repeats, scrambling to her feet. She’s stumbling over her words too much to give them an edge. They’re not sharp enough, not guarded enough, not fucking coherent enough. Fuck, what the hell happened to the lake house? To barbed words over coffee and spitting venom because of a prom several years in the rear view mirror? To calling her actions cruel like it was fucking news. She’s been sitting with it all like a festering fucking wound, waiting for one last twist of the knife. She can’t help missing the anger. At least she knew what to do with it. 

The thing is, she isn’t even sure what she means by ‘you don’t’. You won’t. You shouldn’t. It’s somewhere between a plea and a warning. This doesn’t make sense. Her mind keeps getting stuck on that. He’s wrong, because this is the thing that makes the least sense about the entire fucking situation. She huffs, frustrated at him and herself and the world, forcing her whirring mind to channel the frenetic energy into sentences. Arguments.

“How is that what makes sense? What are you - what happened to not good enough? Or me pretending? Or before that, when you said you can’t fucking do this? What, I’m dead to Elaine and you -” she cuts herself off. Elaine is too raw a wound. Maybe that’s part of it. Elaine. The latest in a growing list. Elaine knows the worst of her, and Elaine is done. She loves Elaine and knows Elaine loved her at some point, in some way, and Elaine is done. Her heart wants to beat right out of her chest to the rhythm of you are going to leave me. What does love have to do with anything? What is she supposed to do with it? She needs - something. She doesn’t know what. Proof. To understand. More, somehow. As if that’s at all fair.

Her eyes fall on the receipts. That’s more. The not-a-poem. Unthinkingly, her hand gently grasps his wrist the same way he’d grabbed hers while standing on her doorstep weeks ago. She takes a shaky breath. “What did you write?” she asks. There’s a fragility to the words, even despite the frantic edge.

⚡️

Casey’s been treading water ever since the return home. Head barely above water as he tries to process the weekend and everything that had come alongside it. Usually he’d turn to Noah when things went this badly wrong. Elaine. Cris, sometimes. Just like he had when the affair first came out. And Zahra. For the longest while with them it hadn’t even felt like words were necessary to cheer him up. She’d climb through his window and enter his arms, and all it’d take was an inhale of the scent of her perfume and it’d feel okay.  Now all four were caught up in it and instead Casey’s been left with himself as company for the first time ever. His tongue has remained whiskey-laced in the time since. It’s miserable, he’s realised. He’s miserable.

For the first time since returning home, as he shows up at the dock he’s not tipsy. If Zahra’s AOL messages hadn’t been sobering enough, the thought of having to face her for the first time certainly had been. He can’t quite bring himself to look at her and for the first time it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be okay as she doesn’t bother to greet him. No pulling of the chain around his neck to bring him down to her height and no kiss. Rory knows and Noah does too and he can’t even bring the words out because he hasn’t even talked to his own brother since then. “Must be nice,” he remarks a little more sarcastic than he intended. “Having someone to talk to when you’re going through something.” 

He huffs then, his own words seemingly grabbing him by the throat. “Sorry. I didn’t…” Mean that? Instead, he trials off, looking to the sunset and stuffing his hands in his pockets where they promptly collide with a fistful of fast food receipts. It’s only at her next words that his attention becomes fixed on her. “The end?” He glances at the top of her head for the first time, voice catching in his throat with the mention of it. Of the conversation or them? His mind may have been a flurry of thoughts but he hadn’t managed to prepare for the second eventuality. Somewhere in between the rest of his life crashing down around him it’s almost like he’d clung to the thought of her being in it tightly. Standing in the backyard of the lake house he hadn’t quite been able to deal the finishing blow to them. It’d crossed his mind once or twice since returning home. How easy it would be to flirt with someone at the bar and wind up in their bed for the night. How simple it would be to talk to someone new at orientation and move on from everything that was affiliated with Cherry High. Except he’s not that good at letting go. He never has been despite how much he’s lied to himself over the years.  “I, um… if you don’t mind I wrote you a thing actually.” He looks down at the cracks in the wood beneath his feet to where the waves crash over one another. Seems simpler somehow than glancing at her. “It’s not… it’s not like a poem or any of that flowery shit but I just thought since I’m not good at airing things out I wanted my feelings on paper this time. Didn’t wanna… didn’t wanna fuck up.” 

When he speaks, her whole body tenses. For all her talk with Rory had eased the everything she’d been feeling since Cristiano opened his stupid mouth, she’s still on edge. It doesn’t feel right, but at least it’s a guard up. So she scoffs at the sarcastic response and rolls her eyes at the apology - she doesn’t care. “Sure,” she says, dismissive and biting, but leaving it at that. She wants to fast forward through this part more than she wants to truly bite back. There’ll be plenty of time for petty jabs for as long as she’s stuck in this hellhole, after all.

So she keeps her mouth shut and waits impatiently for him to break this thing between them that she’d never really let herself latch onto too tightly. She locks her eyes on the horizon and resents the sky’s lack of clouds - it feels like the sky should be darkening, like thunder should be rumbling. In the masochistic moments she’d imagined the aftermath of her secret coming out, she’d imagined the beach and a storm and a lot more yelling. Something suitably dramatic. But the sky is clear and colourful with a sunset, and the air is warm with the end of summer. And, for some reason, Casey doesn’t just say we’re done. Instead, he says he wrote her something. Zahra blinks. Frowns in confusion. “What?” It throws her off so abruptly she momentarily forgets what she was waiting for. The guard falters. She whips her head around to look at him, rapidly trying to reorient herself and regain her footing. The rest of her body twists around to follow, one leg still dangling over the edge but the other pulled up and bent so she’s halfway to sitting cross-legged. It feels like it’s been an eternity since she’s looked at him - really looked at him, not watching him out of the corner of her eye as the Gang made their way out of the lake house - and her breath doesn’t even catch in her throat because she’s busy asking, “What the fuck are you talking about?” Somewhere between poem (it’s not a poem, apparently) and didn’t wanna fuck up (???) her brain short-circuited, and her walls go back up quickly, sure, but she’s still utterly baffled.

🌱

It was hardly a surprise when Zahra slipped into her bedroom instead of her own once they’re finally home. Rory glanced over at her cousin out of the corner of her eyes as she squeezed her pinky tight. She’d been hoping Zahra would come straight in tonight, had been expecting it a little. They gravitated closer than ever after things like this weekend, things that reminded them I could lose you. Loss had been grafted into their young bones long before they had to share a house (a town, a school, a Rocky), but Rory couldn’t lose Zahra. She wouldn’t survive it. And she knew that neither of them would ever leave the other behind, no matter what secrets were spilled by supposed friends. It made her want to scream, the way they’d all turned on each other in an instant, spilling secrets and aiming for the jugular. 

“Don’t be,” Rory shook her head immediately. She wasn’t sure anyone got or dismissed Zahra Jackson apologies as readily as she did. “Nothing you could’ve done to keep me from getting drugged off a stupid letter.” It’s even less Zahra’s fault than  she knows, but trying to tell her about the time warp and the truth of what happened last night would be an exercise in futility. But it still sat bitter in her throat. Another secret. Just what they needed. “You were handling your own thing. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” She wasn’t exactly known for being the vicious fighting type, but she’d have done it in a heartbeat if it could have shielded Zahra from whatever the hell went down in the backyard. 

“I don’t think we can, Zahr,” she whispered, words even more true than they’d register to Zahra. “Leave everyone? In Candy’s clutches?” She couldn’t imagine leaving her best friend. Her boyfriend. Her uncle. Even as she said it, Rory couldn’t help feeling like it was one of those arguments they’d had before, even though they’ve never really discussed leaving Cherry, not seriously. “You’re not usually one to run away from anything.” She studied her cousin’s expression. “Did things go that badly last night?” 

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t’ve been alone,” she murmurs, more because she wants Rory to know it than to really protest Rory’s dismissal. That’s her biggest problem with it. Rory had been alone, and Zahra can imagine what that would mean in the worst case scenario. Rory had been alone, and Zahra had been caught up in high school bullshit instead of at her side. And that’s what it had been, when you boil it down. High school bullshit. So when Rory says she’s sorry, it’s easy to quickly reply “don’t be,” echoing her cousin with a wry smile. “It wasn’t about you,” she adds gently, not to discount her but to let her off the hook. Zahra hadn’t expected her to be there in the first place, wouldn’t have wanted her to be. Everyone who knows Zahra knows the best way to hurt her is Rory, and everyone in that conversation had wanted to hurt each other.

She had no real expectation that Rory would just agree to run away, but anger flares up so quickly when she mentions everyone that Zahra almost surprises herself. “They voted me most likely to be sacrificed last year - I’d just be returning the favour,” she shoots back with a sudden viciousness. Fuck everyone else. Fuck staying just so they can go through this nightmare together. The rest of Cherry can burn for all she cares. And if it keeps pushing her - if it keeps hurting Rory - then she might just light the match herself. She gives a frustrated huff, softening when her eyes flick to Rory’s face. “We could make a family road trip of it. Go see some giant balls of twine or whatever,” she mumbles, knowing they won’t. Rory has reasons to stay, which means Zahra does. So she softens. 

She tries not to flinch when Rory mentions last night.

“I don’t run away from you,” she counters, a little petulant and obviously putting off the question. She’d known she wanted to talk about it, but now that Rory’s asking, the words are caught in her throat. 

“Elaine...” she starts, before trailing off. She remembers walking home with Rory in her freshman year of high school, announcing I think I've found my new best friend (Followed by, I'm totally gonna make high school my bitch, Ror. And, Half those cheerleaders can't tumble for shit, it's embarrassing.). And, before that, she remembers locking eyes with Elaine Archer on the first day of varsity cheer and feeling something click. There you are, she’d thought. There's the competition. There's the only person here worth talking to.

And now that was gone.

“...Yeah. It went badly,” she says finally, the words quiet and her voice breaking despite herself. She clears her throat before continuing to attempt an explanation. 

“Um. Casey said I’d been pretending. And what we did was cruel - like that’s not fucking hypocritical. He and Elaine got into it pretty badly. Uh, Harvey punched him, said none of us cared about him which is such - whatever. They kept wanting me to explain why we did it like that and I don’t - it’s been years, and the fallout was so awful, I don’t know why they thought I’d remember. Like - like I’d have the fucking minutes for every talk we had about it, like we’d debriefed after, like I’d bother remembering exactly what happened before when the aftermath was so... But apparently that’s not good enough - which is fucking infuriating because it’s not like there’s an answer that would be good enough. God, just - fuck all of it. Fuck the lake house, and fuck Cristiano, and fuck them, and fuck Lux for leaving me there alone -” It starts slow and quiet and faltering before she builds up momentum and and heat, the anger flaring up as easily as it had all weekend. At least until Lux’s name spills out shakily and she abruptly cuts herself off. Lux, whose absence had been her constant companion since her birthday ended. Lux, who she’d spent that argument missing and despising in equal measure. She pulls away, unlinking their pinkies and sitting up. The heel of her hand scrubs at her eyes, with the same frustration she’s always had with herself when she starts tearing up. Fucking Lux.

“Elaine -” she starts, before hesitation grips her. Because this is what’s stuck in her head. These are the words that get caught in her throat. When she speaks again, the anger has drained away again and left an emptiness in it’s wake. Emptiness, and resignation. “Elaine said I was as dead to her as Lux. So. Yeah. Badly sounds right.”