always // treebros soulmate au

chapter nine ~ the zoe interlude

zoe murphy often felt like a supporting character in her own life.

no matter how many times her family referred to her as the "perfect one" behind her brother's back, she still felt like she was playing a minor role in the connor show. their parents focused on him, worried about him, even fought about him.

sometimes zoe needed someone to worry about her. instead, it was "oh, we know zoe's fine. is connor doing okay?"

the truth was, zoe wasn't fine.

she was pretty sure she had some type of undiagnosed (and extremely internalized) anxiety disorder. what type? she had no clue. but the thoughts that circled in her head daily couldn't be normal, and everything she googled just got her more confused.

zoe knew that if she told her parents about her suspicion that her parents would blow her off. it was easy for them to believe connor had bipolar because he was so externalized about it all - throwing things against walls, banging on doors. in the back of her mind she could still hear her brother trying to break down her old bedroom door, yelling that he hated her, he was going to kill her, et cetera. she can still see her tears staining the carpet while she backed up into the corner of her room farthest from the door, her heart beating with fear.

so it was not a shock at all to the murphy family when the diagnosis was made and the anti-depressants were prescribed.

but zoe didn't show any signs of anxiety. in fact, she had people tell her that she was actually very socially graceful.

of course, those people didn't see the panic attacks she had after she made any sort of minuscule mistake - things that a logical part of her brain told her no one else noticed, but that never mattered. she had noticed and she would stress over it for days.

yes, something was definitely wrong with that.

zoe didn't know why she hadn't told connor yet. they had become so close in the past year, trying to find evan (who zoe still hadn't met yet, even though she risked her life for him). now, connor came to zoe with little ideas about gifts for evan, and sometimes even went on about all the reasons why he was pretty sure he was in love with his soulmate.

zoe was more than willing to help connor with the gifts and listen to the daydreaming and rambling. but there was part of her, a little selfish voice in the back of her mind, saying "you're still a background character in the connor story."

and zoe couldn't help but selfishly wonder, dammit, when is it my turn to step into the sun?

***

new york city hated zoe.

zoe decided to hate it right back. she never walked through the crowded streets of fifth avenue or broadway, or tried to enjoy the towering buildings all around her.

instead, she walked on central park roads and enjoyed the one feeling of calm in the midst of the chaos.

so that's what zoe was doing. walking through central park, looking at the gardens, minding her own business.

when suddenly, she saw a girl.

the girl was sitting on a bench, bent over a book, with a stack of them beside her. she had black thick-rimmed glasses, and her smooth dark hair was tied up into a ponytail. she was mumbling to herself and writing notes in the margins of the book.

zoe had to catch her breath for a second. something about the girl was so radiant - she shone from the inside out - that everyone around her seemed to have been cast into an invisible shadow.

then the girl looked up, dark brown eyes meeting zoe's lighter ones, and the world exploded with colors.

suddenly the flowers she had been looking at were a light shade of pink, the grass was a bright green, and the girl's book was a dark red.