Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’re planning to start her on piano lessons as soon as possible.”

An awkward silence fell over the dinner table.

“...And that has what to do with our previous conversation?”

“C’mon, Zoey,” David whispered, nudging his twelve-year-old sister. “Be nice. Uncle Bill doesn’t mean any harm.”

“But look at her,” Zoey protested, gesturing to where a very young Victoria was sprawled on the living room carpet and completely engrossed in a storybook. “She’s still so little. I don’t want her to spend her days sitting at a dusty piano and being yelled at by some old guy.”

At the head of the table, Mitch stifled a laugh before looking at his brother’s offended expression, clearing his throat, and turning back to his daughter.

“Zoey, you know that not all piano lessons are like that. Music may not be your thing right now, but it’s very important to your aunt and uncle that their daughter is at least given the chance to learn about it and appreciate it.”

“She’s only five!”

“She could very well be a child prodigy,” Bill said pridefully.

As if on cue, Victoria dropped her book on her face, and a crazed, pealing fit of laughter rang from the living room. Zoey rolled her eyes and looked at her uncle with a clear expression of really?

“Sweetie, I’d been hoping you’d have a little more faith in your cousin,” Sierra said, addressing her niece pointedly.

“I do believe in her. I just wish she’d have more time to be a kid.”

“Okay,” Maggie interrupted, cutting the tension in the room. She took a few breaths and directed a look at her daughter before trying to change the subject. “Who wants dessert? We’ve got fresh cheesecake in the fridge-”

“Wait a minute,” David said quietly, and all attention at the table turned to him. “I’ve got a few years before I leave for college. If she does want to take piano-which, by the way, hasn’t at all been mentioned during this whole conversation-I’d be happy to teach her.”

“That might be a good idea,” Mitch said to his brother, “and it could save you quite a bit of money. You’d do it for free, right, Dave?”

“Now, I don’t know about-”

“I’m not sure,” Sierra said. “We want to give her a real education. Do you think he can handle it? How long has he been trained?”

“Well, first of all, I’m right here,” David said, trying to hide the hint of bitterness in his tone. “I tutored kids during middle school music classes. I think I can handle teaching her the basics.”

Bill and Sierra glanced at each other, communicating wordlessly for a few moments before turning back to their nephew. Looking over his wife’s shoulder toward his brother, Bill sighed and tried to give a nonchalant shrug.

“This could work. David, come over tomorrow, precisely at four in the afternoon, and we’ll try to figure things out;” he said before addressing his daughter. “Victoria?”

The girl on the living room floor rolled over and went to rest her chin in her hands on the table next to her cousins, looking up at them with wide hazel eyes.

“We’re going to have company tomorrow,” Sierra said in a voice far too babying for a five-year-old. “David is going to teach you to play piano.”

“If that’s what you want,” the boy clarified, the annoyance in his eyes invisible to everyone but his sister.

Victoria nodded enthusiastically, lifting herself into a chair, and the subject of conversation eventually moved on.

After a few minutes, Zoey felt a breath next to her and the soft weight of a head falling against her shoulder. Stunned, she looked down at her younger cousin, who appeared to have fallen asleep.

She’d always been the younger sibling, the one to be protected.

Now it’s my turn.

Sierra had been scrolling through her Facebook, looking for a video which she was currently showing to Mitch and Maggie in the living room. Unable to move from her current position, Zoey made pointed eye contact with David, who nodded and went to look over his parents’ shoulders. After a few moments, he came back and plunked himself into his chair.

“It’s some little girl singing opera on a TV show,” he reported under his breath. “Her technique is perfect, and her parents in the audience are beaming, but her eyes are completely dead. Mom and Dad can see that; the other two definitely don’t. You can tell that’s what they want her to be.”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

David nodded and stared forward for a moment, and Zoey sighed. Her brain, in all of its middle school seriousness, had already begun spinning, trying to think of ways that she and her brother could babysit their cousin more often and get her away from her parents.

Bill’s hearty laugh came from the living room, followed by Mitch’s, which was polite but slightly strained. Smiling tiredly, Sierra entered the dining room, taking a sip from her glass of water and looking toward Zoey as if she’d forgotten she was there.

“Straighten your posture, sweetheart. You know how much Victoria looks up to you, and you have to be that role model for her.”

“I know.”

Zoey smiled at her aunt as she left, and her shoulders relaxed the moment the older woman was out of the room. She made eye contact with David, who shook his head and began picking at the remains of his dinner.

Okay, I’ll be a role model.

Victoria laughed slightly in her sleep, and Zoey made her a silent promise.

I won’t let them get to you. I won’t let anyone get to you.

Chapter Text

“I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.”

“What?”

At the sound of her brother’s laugh, Zoey lifted her head from the pillow she’d been exasperatedly yelling into.

“You’re back! I thought summer break wasn’t for another two weeks.”

“Nope,” David said, picking up the SAT booklet that had been tossed to the side on Zoey’s bed. “Test prep seems to be going…”

“Less than well. The science is easy, the math is easy; it’s the reading that’s getting me.”

“Completely the opposite of my experience,” he smirked as he flipped through the booklet. “It’s just analyzing words, Zoey. You’ll be fine.”

“Says the guy currently in law school,” came her muffled voice from the pillow.

“I’m completely serious. You’ll almost definitely get a perfect score, just like on every other test. Ever.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’ll still be fine.”

Zoey sighed and looked at her brother gratefully as he continued.

“Honestly, you’re probably the only person in your class who will. In the future,” he chuckled, “I fear for the first person you meet who also got that perfect score.”

“Oh, you should. They’ll have to face my wrath in a bloody rivalry of wits,” Zoey said with a sense of tired melodrama, pathetically punching her pillow.

“There’s still a few weeks until you take it, right?”

“There are, yeah. I just need to get the poetry section down and I’ll be okay.”

“Oof, that one was rough for me.”

“I don’t understand how Tori likes reading that stuff.”

“Speaking of, where is she? Aunt Sierra called me last week the second she found out I’d be home for the summer. They can’t afford to get that college professor from last year, so they want me to continue giving her piano lessons. Actually, I feel like she’s almost at my skill level at this point, which is terrifying given that she’s eleven.”

“She’s downstairs in the greenhouse, helping Mom with the plants. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“Hopefully more thrilled than you sound right now,” David joked, earning yet another tired groan from his sister. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“See you then,” Zoey said before returning her face to her pillow.

As he left, David closed the door behind him, and the ginger was once again left alone with her test prep. With a sigh, she picked up her booklet and opened it to a sample of poetry, and a few minutes passed before she heard a few scales played on the dusty upright piano in the guest room. There unfortunately wasn’t much space for it anywhere else, her mother had said, so they’d had to move it when David left for college. Victoria had started to come over more and more often as she grew up; she’d told everyone that it was for the sake of nostalgia, simply to play her cousin’s old piano, but all four of the non-extended Clarkes could sense that there was another reason she didn’t want to stay at home very often.

...Anyway.

From her room, Zoey could hear the conversation going on below.

“So, what are you playing these days?”

“I just learned the Moonlight Sonata, could you help me a bit with that?”

“Considering that I didn’t learn that piece until my freshman year of high school...yeah, absolutely.”

Victoria’s fond laughter floated up the stairs, and Zoey turned a page of her booklet to find an analysis of some old-fashioned love poem. The language was too opulent for her taste; too many metaphors, too flowery to seem genuine at all, and the test booklet’s heavy analysis of each line made it even harder to digest. Zoey set the book down in frustration, flumped backwards onto her bed, and once more covered her face with a pillow.

The Moonlight Sonata, soft and haunting, slowly creeped its way up the stairs.

Zoey hadn’t heard it before.

Without realizing it, she had let out a long-held breath.

Rolling her head to the side and considering something, she eventually picked the booklet back up, folding back the page of analysis so she was only looking at the poem itself. The words almost seemed to fit with the soundtrack that was now coming through her door, and something almost clicked in her brain.

Almost.

Chapter Text

“Was he planning on keeping it from me until this exact moment?”

“...I don’t know.”

Zoey was standing next to her cousin at the side of the living room, and the taller girl (when on earth did she get so tall) was staring blankly at the banner that read “Congrats, David and Emily” as if she still couldn’t quite believe its implications. Victoria had come through the door in a rush, alone (her parents were attending a TED talk) and stunned, having been texted only the day before that her cousin was having an engagement party.

“Maybe he just didn’t mention it until now because...you and Emily have never exactly been...each other’s biggest fans.”

“I don’t-”

Interrupting herself, Victoria sighed and lowered her head, massaging her temples in an attempt to get her brain to actually work.

“I like her, I really do, I just... didn’t at first. I don’t know why-”

“Because, the first day you met, she went on a rant about the uselessness of musical theatre without knowing that it was your entire life’s passion?”

“...Yeah, that. And she never seemed to like me either.”

“Because you seemed incredibly passive-aggressive for the rest of the night and started talking about your art as if anyone who didn’t understand it was ignorant.”

Completely called out, Victoria stared down at her older cousin with an incredulous expression. In response, Zoey turned forward and took a sip of wine.

“What? I’m not always emotionally inept.”

“I want to apologize. I just don’t know how to, or whether she’ll take it.”

As if on cue, the rounds made by the couple of the hour led them in front of the two gingers, and Emily’s smile grew tight.

“Hi, Zoey.”

David nudged her slightly from the side, and she gave him the world’s quickest death glare before turning to the taller girl.

“Evening, Victoria.”
“Emily, I-I wanted to-”

“Tori,” David interrupted, trying to dissolve the tension, “given that this is kind of a big moment in my life, and you’ve always been an important part of it, I wanted to know-would you be willing to come up with some repertoire to play or sing at the wedding?”

This brought on three separate eyebrow raises from the women around him, containing the gratefulness of his cousin, the concerned amusement of his sister, and the pointed surprise of his fiancee. Zoey watched as Victoria’s focus darted between the faces, quickly making a realization as she spoke.

“I’d love to, but...only if it’s okay with both of you.”

Emily’s eyes began to hold an expression that her future sister-in-law had never seen before, and she looked between them with a slightly open mouth, completely unsure of what to say. In a moment, she seemed to remember herself, snapping her mouth shut and turning to the man next to her.

“I thought you said we’d make these decisions together.”

“We will, I just-we need a musician, she’s good, I-”

“I don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”

This was blurted out by Victoria in an attempt to stop the argument she thought she’d caused. With all three heads turned toward her, she took a deep breath and looked up to face her future cousin-in-law.

“Emily, I’m sorry that I was so pretentious when we first met. I’ve wanted to say that for a while, but I never found the chance. I truthfully do admire you, I, uh…”

She trailed off, looking around at the party and realizing that she didn’t want to make even the slightest shade of a scene. Taken aback, Emily looked at the younger woman for a moment before nodding slowly.

“I’m...sorry, too.”

“So am I,” David interjected, still looking at his fiancee.

A few moments passed as the three of them attempted to clear the air through their silence, and Zoey took a long and tired sip from her wine glass. She wasn’t sure how many more unspoken, uninterpreted words she could take before she heard the faint buzz of her cousin’s phone.

“Sorry,” Victoria said with a wince as she fished the device out of her pocket, and her eyes widened when she noticed the caller ID. “It’s my mom.”

Time for another drink.

The others stood awkwardly, watching as she took a breath and answered the call.

“Hi, is everything okay?”

There was a pause as she listened to the voice on the other line.

“No, I-I’m at David and Emily’s engagement party, I thought you guys were coming later.”

David sighed and put a hand in his pocket, looking down, and Emily took his arm.

“It’s not-that scholarship isn’t due for five months, I think I can be here for my cousin’s engagement-I’ve already written an essay like that-”

Her breath was quickening, but her words suddenly stopped, and her eyes went blank in reaction to something that her mother was saying.

“How-”

In that one word, her voice broke, and she launched into a bewildered, tearful defense.

“What do you-how does this mean I don’t believe in myself? I’ve already-no, please listen to me, I’m not ignoring responsibility, I’ve been working on these nonstop for the past few weeks-Mom, please, I don’t want to get all emotional at this party-how are you saying it’s my choice to feel this way, do you think I want to-”

She blinked, stood struck for a moment, and slowly lowered her phone, staring forward and not looking at anyone in particular.

“She hung up.”

Zoey took another drink.
“She said I was supposed to continue on a certain scholarship application today, but they’d never told me about that plan, and they said that-that this didn’t matter, because they’d already put so much of their money and time in me that if I took any time away, I’d be wasting their energy, and I couldn’t live up to everything I could be.”

Victoria had been trying to hold herself up for the duration of the explanation, but that last fear threatened to break her voice and her composure. She took in a shaking breath and resolved something to herself, finally looking up.

“But I’m staying. For now, I’m already here, and my house is an hour away. I’ll read her tweaks on my essay tonight-you know, she likes to write them herself in my voice and try to convince me to turn them in that way-but that’s not relevant, today is about you…I’m really sorry. If you want me to leave, I completely understand.”

David stepped forward, clearly about to say something, but it was Emily that spoke first.

“It’s not your fault, I get it.”

Victoria looked at her, hazel eyes glazed with tears but awoken with surprise as Emily continued.

“My parents were the same way. I’m sure college applications for your major are... very different from mine, but as much as I don’t understand it, you’re the most dedicated person I’ve ever met. You’re...gonna be okay.”

Touched by the unexpected display of empathy, Victoria nodded.

“Honestly,” Emily laughed, “my dad used to do the same thing with my applications. They weren’t quite as invested as yours seem, but it was definitely difficult.”

“For sure,” Victoria said, and a noticeable weight left her shoulders as she followed Emily into the kitchen. Zoey could hear them continuing to share stories as they left, and watched them with a curiosity; she and David had grown up with a constant ear, and she was still getting used to the idea that just one listener could change a life.

“I literally never thought that would happen,” David said as he took a place next to his sister. “I’m trying to bridge these different parts of my life, and…”

His gaze traveled down to Zoey, who was draining the last few drops of her wine as she looked back at him.

“Never mind.”

“No, it’s, fine, go ahead. I’m…I’m listening.”

Chapter Text

Hands still shaking, Zoey twisted her doorknob with difficulty and practically fell into her apartment. She fumbled her phone out of her pocket and, without a speck of thought that she shouldn’t confide what she just saw, called Mo’s number.

As the dial tones rang, she leaned against the wall, taking a real breath for the first time since she’d speedwalked out the door of SPRQpoint. She wasn’t at all looking forward to being haunted by the latest heartsong, but the sight she’d just seen and its implications were simply too much to take in the moment, and she needed to get out.

Eventually, the dial tone stopped, giving way to a voicemail message. Zoey sighed and hung up, wanting nothing less than to hear a recorded voice. She let her head lean back and hit the wall, staring at the ceiling as choreography that she still hadn’t recovered from flew in her mind’s eye.

I could have sworn he was almost my friend-why does this change things? I’ve known of her feelings for so long; it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise-

The phone in her hand buzzed, interrupting her train of thought. The universe had replaced her usual ringtone with a peppy, ragtime-ish version of the tune still running through her head, and she groaned and closed her eyes before answering it, not even bothering to find out who was calling.

“What is it?”

“Zoey?”

She opened her eyes at the sound of her brother’s voice.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay? You sound shaken.”

“Yeah, um...yep. You’re not wrong. Anyway-uh-”

He’s a pianist too, he knows music, maybe I just misinterpreted it, maybe it’s not what I thought it was, maybe he’ll understand without my telling him fully about the power-

I won’t ask right now, he’s the one that called me.

“What do you need?”

“I just wanted to know if you could watch Miles on Saturday afternoon.”

She checked her calendar, somewhat absentmindedly.

“Sure.”

“Great, thanks. I’ll see you later-”

“David, wait.”

A silence followed, but he stayed on the line.

“What…”

She blew out a breath, not fully sure how to phrase what she was about to ask.

“What do you know about...symbolism in musical numbers?”

“Only what I learned in my high school theatre class, why?”

“I was just...you know, casually wondering...what it means when someone is accompanying someone else on the piano and is watching the singer as if they literally can’t look away, and they’re both kind of weaving around the instrument and harmonizing, and there’s a general idea that each is the other’s-uh- poison of choice?”

“...So I take it your neighbor showed you some old movies?”

“No-well, yes, but not this time. I saw…”

I really did not think this through.

She took a breath, forcing herself to begrudgingly spit it out.

“Our younger cousin is in love. Mutually.”

There was an excruciatingly awkward pause.

“...And? She’s twenty-three, Zoey.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier. All those years ago, I swore to protect her, and now...now I don’t know how.”

“Maybe you don’t always need to protect her,” David said as if it were obvious. “I know it’s going to be hard for me not to have that instinct as Miles grows up, but that’s just how life works.”

Zoey nodded, realizing that she’d involuntarily stood up and begun to pace through her living room. After a few moments, David’s voice came through the phone again.

“Wait-you figured this out through some performance she was accompanying? Is she in a show or something?”

Okay, there’s a loophole.

“...Yes. That’s it, it’s just that my-my office is putting on a talent show. She’s...doing a duet. With someone. One of my coworkers. Who works there.”

“Do you think the chemistry you saw might just be part of the performance?”

“Trust me, I’d really like to believe that…”

The memory that had been burning behind her eyes popped up once more, completely unwelcome.

“And when I drink you down, my heart makes a sound...”

The bench, the keys, the dress-

“Yeah, when I drink you down...”

The choreography-

“My heart makes a sound-”

“No, it’s not just an act. Believe me, I could tell.”

“Yeah, she’s never really been a master of subtlety,” David conceded with a smirk that came easily across phone lines. “Remember when she was ten and convinced herself that Aiden was her soulmate?”

“Not until now, and I really didn’t have to,” Zoey laughed. “They thought they’d spend their lives traveling the world together, and she was completely enamored, but he didn’t have a clue-it was almost hilarious.”

“Surprising, given that he apparently has a thing for gingers.”

Silence struck as Zoey clapped a hand over her mouth with simultaneous amusement and embarrassment at the memory.

“Too soon?”

“Yes, David, too soon,” she said, barely able to contain her laughter. “I still haven’t told her about that, and I have no clue how I’d bring it up.”

“The girl was raised on Disney movies and acted accordingly; I can’t believe he was so oblivious.”

“That’s just kind of how Aiden was,” she said, sighing as her memory returned to the present. “For a while, I thought Leif would remain oblivious too, given his insecurity and tendency to overthink.”

Was Tori right when she said he and I are more alike than we care to admit?

Yeah, we’re not dealing with that today.

“Which one is he? I don’t remember meeting a Leif at your birthday party.”

“Oh, he wasn’t there, he was at a birding conference-”

“A birding conference? Zoey, he’s perfectly harmless.”

She plunked herself into a chair and rested her arms on the table, eyes widening incredulously as she attempted to process the statement.

“What? Is he not harmless?”

“Frankly, I don’t know what to say to that,” she said with a tired laugh. “I know him...more than I should, let’s just say. They both feel really deeply, and if things don’t go well, I’d have to deal with it on both sides.”

She almost shuddered at the possibility of having to insert herself in their relationship, lest she be haunted by a barrage of heartbroken heartsongs. She’d barely made it through “All Out of Love”; she didn’t think she could take any more.

“Or maybe,” David said, bringing her out of her thoughts, “this’ll be good for both of them. I can’t speak for Leif, but you and I have known Victoria her whole life, and all she’s ever wanted is to be wanted.”

“...That’s an interesting way to phrase it.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”

Zoey nodded, and her brain finally began to slow down for the first time since she’d heard that opening chromatic scale. Through her breath, the soft tick of a clock caught her ear, and she turned to see that it was almost midnight.

A soft cry came distantly from the phone.

“David, if you have to go, I get it.”

“Yeah, that’s Miles. I really should help him; Emily’s asleep in another room, she’s been through enough.”

“Absolutely. Again, if you don’t want Tori and I coming over for lunch this weekend like we planned, that’s fine-she doesn’t know about Emily’s postpartum, I didn’t want to worry her-”

“Zoey.”

“...What?”

“You said that you vowed years ago to protect her, and you kept that promise. She’s her own person, and she can handle things; she’s been handling things for a long time. The stuff she’s told me about her parents...I can’t get into it tonight, but-”

“I know how capable she is. I just-”

“It’s weird.”

“It’s so weird!”

David laughed on the other side at her exasperated outburst.

“Goodnight, Zoey.”

“Night. Tell them I love them.”

“I will.”

She could tell her brother’s smile through those last two words as he hung up, and Zoey was once again left alone with the ticking of the clock. She set her phone down with a sigh and went through the motions of getting ready for bed.

Once her head hit her pillow, she got approximately three minutes of rest before a soft guitar accompaniment began to fade through the walls. It seemed to be coming from far away; outside her bedroom door, outside her apartment, even all the way down the hallway. Drunk with fatigue and barely processing the heartsong, Zoey opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling as a voice joined the guitar.

“Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas…”

The melody seemed familiar to Zoey, but she’d never known anyone whose native language was French.

That didn’t stop Max all those months ago…

“Je vois la vie en rose. Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours, et ça me fait quelque chose.”

The voice that slowly made its way down the hallway was unmistakably Victoria’s, and if it wasn’t for the guitar that joined her, Zoey would have thought she was actually singing as she walked up the stairs. Though she didn’t know the song well, it didn’t take a lot of deduction to decipher the emotion behind it.

“Il est entré dans mon cœur, une part de bonheur, dont je connais la cause.”

Even in the darkness of her room, Zoey could practically see the choreography of her cousin’s dance in her mind’s eye. She sighed and rolled over, stuffing her face in her pillow as she was prone to do when she didn’t want to face something.

“C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie. Il me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie.”

Okay, fine.

Zoey begrudgingly sat up and blew a lock of hair out of her face. If now is when I’m supposed to deal with this…

“Et dès que je l'aperçois, alors je sens en moi…”

If I have to do this now, the universe must really have it out for me.

“Mon cœur qui bat.”

As she finished the first verse, Victoria’s voice seemed to slowly near the door of Zoey’s apartment. The accompaniment continued, now adding a piano to the guitar, and Zoey heard the soft unlock and twist of the doorknob. She reluctantly stood, stepped into her bunny slippers, and padded her way to the now-open door.

“Hold me close and hold me fast…”

Now singing a second verse in English, Victoria was leaning against the wall between apartments, taking the same position as the painted woman who’d greeted Zoey for the past few years. It was only then that Zoey realized how almost-spookily alike her younger cousin now looked to that mysterious figure in the mural; there was a sense of fate in her, and it bothered Zoey that she couldn’t quite place what it meant.

“This magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose.”

On the word “spell”, Victoria lifted her hand in a movement whose electricity gave Zoey a horrid sense of deja vu. Her wrist flicked gracefully before she brought her hand to her heart.

“When you kiss me, heaven sighs, and, though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose.”

The music seemed to draw the singer upward and away from the wall as she dazedly glided-there could be no other word than glided-past her cousin and through the door. Zoey turned to watch as she spun out of her coat and hung it up in one fluid movement, slowly dancing her way toward the kitchen.

“When you press me to your heart, I’m in a world apart, a world where roses bloom.”

Through the years, Zoey had been dragged to multiple recitals, and she knew her cousin’s voice well; this was not a polished performance. It wasn’t anything like the endless arias that she’d sung at middle school recitals, her parents mouthing the lyrics and giving directions from their seats as she was frozen on a stage. It wasn’t anything like the purposefully over-acted performances she’d given at events for her mom’s side of her family that were quickly plastered all over Facebook without her consent. Mo’s voice in Zoey’s head told her that, while the technique could be called perfect, the true core of this performance clearly stemmed from one simple emotion.

“And, when you speak, angels sing from above.”

All of the rest just came from that center. Zoey had watched as Victoria had freed herself over the months she’d stayed with her in San Francisco after her college graduation, she’d watched as the expectations of her aunt and uncle slowly faded away, she’d watched as the girl she’d sworn to protect became a person of her own.

Maybe she was always her own.

Maybe I just haven’t seen it until now.

And maybe the universe doesn’t have it out for me.

Bringing herself back to the moment, Zoey watched as Victoria sat on the dining room table, absentmindedly swinging her legs and playing with the hem of her dress as her mind replayed and replayed the events of the past hour.

“Everyday words seem to turn into love songs…”

She let her head fall back, and a small, contended laugh escaped her. Zoey was left completely breathless; this was the happiest she’d ever seen her cousin, and the knot of conflict in her brain seemed to loosen and tighten simultaneously. Victoria slowly lifted herself off of the table, gazing a few inches above her own eye level as if she were talking directly to the song’s subject himself.

“Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be la vie en rose.”

The piano and guitar continued, perfectly in tune and time with each other, as Victoria hummed over the accompaniment and gradually danced her way to the apartment’s smaller bedroom. Zoey tiredly stepped backwards into her room, smiling softly despite herself while the accompaniment gradually faded.

Climbing back into bed, Zoey flumped herself down and attempted to get at least a few moments of sleep. She drifted in and out of consciousness for a few minutes as the guitar and piano continued to fade, but long after they were gone, Victoria’s voice stayed on the heartsong’s melody, dipping and floating among its contour as she continued to dance around her room.

Zoey suspected that, by this point, it wasn’t a heartsong. The girl had returned it to what it was: something that was hummed when she felt too much to simply speak, something to sway and lean into, something deep and warm and light that is meant only to be felt.

There are just too many thoughts.

“Give your heart and soul to me…”

I’m dealing with this tomorrow.

“...and life will always be…”

There’s a smile in her voice. I can’t ignore that there’s a smile in her voice.

“...la vie en rose.”

Tightly hugging the pillow that once held all of her fears, Zoey rolled over and finally let herself sleep.