Limelight

Zeke and Izabelle: Meltdown

(Zephzo and Chanzie are ready for the Christmas fics, and after tomorrow, so will Zebelle and Rozeira be! Here's the second-to-last pre-Christmas Zebelle Limelight~)

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Since the incident a few days ago, Izabelle had been acting especially irritable around Zeke. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, she was glaring at him but if he ever dared try to make eye contact, she'd turn away. If he said her name, she ignored him. And yet, she wasn't avoiding him. Not completely. She, along with Riza and Zadie, still stopped to talk before class started, although Izabelle was directing her words more at Hazen lately. If the trio caught sight of Zeke, Diaz and Fritz out freerunning, Riza and Zadie would be calling out their usual playful taunts and jokes but Izabelle didn't join them. Zeke did spot her watching him once, when she thought he wasn't looking, with a blank expression. He was getting such mixed signals from her.

You blew it. You kissed her and now she hates you. It could have worked out if you just took it slow but you had to kiss her, didn't you? the voice in his head kept saying, only for a second voice to counter it.

This isn't your fault, she's just working things out. Remember, she did kiss you first. That's a good sign! If you can talk to her about it alone-

When could you possibly talk to her alone?

Apparently, now that he didn't have Izabelle to argue with, he was resorting to arguing with himself.

He hadn't breathed a word about it to Hazen, either, and that just made it worse – he told Hazen pretty much everything. He could have, but he held back.

"Seriously, what is going on with you and Iza? You were finally friends with her, and that takes a lot, and you even admitted you had a crush on her. But it's like you hate each other again!"

"I don't hate her," he assured him, keeping his eyes down and shaking his head. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes then ran his hands through his hair and tipped his head back, "Z, I definitely do not hate her. I just have to hope she doesn't hate me."

"Why would she? What happened?"

Zeke sighed, "If she doesn't want me to talk about it, I'm not gonna talk about it. She'd kill me and I can't risk anything else going wrong."

All he needed was a chance to talk to her.

– LIMELIGHT –

He was walking down the hallway alone when he heard people whispering Izabelle's name in scared and worried tones. They were all looking further down the hall in the direction he was heading in and he kept going until he saw her. She was pacing back and forth, her breathing heavy and her eyes burning. She was saying something under her breath and as he got closer, he could just make out what it was.

"Rizaka... Gozrea Rizaka...? Zadika, zet..." Where's Riza...? Or Zadie...

He recognised her signs of a meltdown immediately. One brave human girl approached her to ask if she needed help but Izabelle growled lowly and slammed a fist against a locker beside her, making the girl yelp and run off.

Anyone else who passed by avoided getting too close and scurried away. They knew her for being violent and unpredictable, they weren't her friends. They didn't know her like her friends did. But Riza and Zadie were nowhere to be seen. Hazen, he suspected, was with Suzanne or Azure or someone. Bonzo was in music class. Zeke was standing in front of her within seconds, his hands resting on her arms with a comforting touch.

"Izabelle?" he kept his voice low, not wanting to overwhelm her anymore than she already was. Her breathing quickened and she wrenched herself out of his grasp to go back to pacing. Zeke patiently pulled her back to him, muttering soothingly to her, "Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me," his hands went to her shoulders and she slowly started to lift her head as he spoke, "Izabelle. Listen. You're OK. Let's get you somewhere quiet."