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Silence fills the room between them, Carol awkwardly sitting in her chair, one leg beneath her and one propped up to lean against. She nurses the whiskey in her hand, watching the sun go down through the shaderoom windows.
Zosia sits in the other chair, where Helen once sat, that still distantly smelled of her. Just like everything in this house. A sandalwood, vanilla muted scent mixed with seasonal lotions from bath and bodyworks. Zosia doesn't smell like that, no matter how they try to replicate. She smells florally, like a field of flowers and it suits her much better than the small of the pacific northwest.
It's a comfortable silence till it isn't and then it's unusually quiet, and she can feel Zosia keep looking over to try and catch her eye. But she doesn't look, her eyes stuck downward on the now dark sky.
“Do you want us to put on some music?” Zosia asks, like a rehearsed question for small talk.
Carol rolls her lips, downing the last of her drink, “Sure, the vinyls are— you know where they are.”
Zosia nods. “Anything specific?"
Carol looks over, and raises a lone eyebrow. Zosia knows what she likes, and has told her she knows as much. That they know her as much as anyone who has known her has. Knows her favorite anything and everything. The thought makes her skin crawl.
But they can’t read her mind.
“Can you uh— can you put on Helen’s favorite? You know what that is right?”
Zosia nods, putting the half finished glass down on the table on the coaster then walking to the shelf. The coaster Carol had created for Helen, and Helen only. She quickly reaches across the table, moving the glass off the coaster and putting it down on the wood.
Helen would roll over in her grave at the sight.
The light sound of a familiar voice begins to trail in through the hall, like the memory of a melody and then the volume is raised and she knows exactly what it is. Not that they — the hive slash Zosia — isn't correct on the song choice, but she was more expecting the cheerier songs, the ones that echoed through the house at seven am while her wife got ready for work.
Her face must be stuck in a sadder expression than before because Zosia looks concerned.
“Are you okay Carol? Is this not correct?”
“You throw your head back laughing like a little kid.” The lyric dances through the hallway, making her stomach flip at the thought of what it once meant.
Carol rubs her nose, blinking quickly to push away the threatening tears. “Yeah, just peachy.” She gives her best dimly lit smile.
Zosia doesn’t seem convinced, moving her body to face the other woman. “Did we upset you with the choice of song?”
“No, no.” Carol shakes her head aggressively, “It’s fine, I’m fine. Just surprised.”
Zosia hums, her eyes still running up and down her face. An attempt at trying to figure out her many emotions. “Are you not a big fan?”
Carol huffs, “Don’t you already know the answer to all of these questions?”
“We thought you’d like to share yourself.”
Carol gives her another look, then rolls her eyes. “I don’t dislike her. I just don’t like her music that much, and she’s probably listening to everything I say which is great. Sorry Taylor Swift. But Helen loved her, especially this song.”
Zosia smiles. “Red is a good album. Fun fact, it was number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.208 million copies, surpassing Garth Brooks's Double Live (1998) as the fastest-selling country album.”
“Wow, that's… cool? Is Garth Brooks that good? Actually don't answer, I don't really care that much.”Carol pours herself another glass. Her eyes look over at Zosia, who is still smiling at her, almost expectantly. She clears her throat. “Did Zosia, or your old body like Taylor?”
Zosia nods gleefully. “Zosia— I loved her. I went to the Eras Tour in Poland.”
“Oh.” She purses her lips, “Me too, I went to Glendale. Well I guess you knew that.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Do you have a favorite album? I hear that question a lot when Helen meets other fans.”
Zosia pauses to think. “Lover,”
“That’s the pink album?”
Zosia nods, a giddy smile on her face like she’s retelling her favorite memory. “One of the songs from that album was her surprise song as well. The night I went.”
“That’s cool.” She says lamely. “Do you listen to music much, in this body?”
Zosia shakes her head, sipping her drink. “No, only when I’m with you.”
Carol nods absently and finishes her glass, thinking about what to say to that. It’s an odd thing to think about, how the entire hivemind works. What they think about if they even do and the memories they contain. It reminds her of those social experiments she heard about where you sit in silence in a pool and dip into your chakras or whatever.
“But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again.” The chorus of the song replays itself and it pains her the more it goes on. Her eyes sting at the softness of the words, and the memories that reply in her head. The cafe spot Helen had always claimed was theirs on the other side of Albuquerque, and the seats they always took.
“Do you wanna put on some music that Zosia liked?” She asks, wishing for something more upbeat before she turns into a puddle of tears.
Zosia looks at her with curiosity, then shakes her head. “You’re already listening to this.”
“But you can change it and put on what you want.” Carol sniffles, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes shift over to dark brown wide ones, staring at her with rue. “Whatever album you liked, see if it's there and put it on.”
Zosia waits another second before nodding, eyeing her with this saddened brown eye look. She walks back around to the vinyl player to sort through their shelves of music. Carol sniffles again, wiping at her eyes as Begin Again ends and the next on the tracklist starts up.
Her eyes build with tears quickly from the beginning notes, and it annoys her with how sappy she is becoming over songs she used to heavily push away from her listening ear. Another swig of the brown liquid in her glass stings the back of her throat. She coughs, and it irritates her throat even more.
“Are you okay?”
Carol turns her head, seeing Zosia stand behind her chair with two albums in her hands that she cannot see from how low she is sitting.
“Im fine.” She says, clearing her throat. “Find an album? I know there is a lot over there.”
“Yes.” Zosia nods, but sounds unconvinced by herself. “Do you want a happy album?”
A shrug. “It wouldn't hurt.”
Zosia purses her lip, then turns around and slides one of the vinyls back into their place and stops the one already playing to swap it out. The song that starts up is pop-y and Carol barely recognizes it as another Taylor song but smiles nevertheless. Smiles at Zosia who almost skips back over to her seat. She takes another drink of her glass, finishing it off.
Carol holds up the bottle, shaking it so the liquid inside hits the sides of the bottle, “More?”
Zosia shakes her head, instead walks over to the front of her seat, smiling down at her. She reaches her hand out. “Do you want to dance?”
Carol lets out a chuckle, “I don’t dance.”
“I can teach you.” Zosia smiles, dropping her hand back to her side.
Carol scoffs, shaking her head. “I can’t learn either. I have two left feet. It would break your brain to try to teach.”
Zosia stares her down, looking at her legs then at her face with a pursed lip, “Are you being sarcastic?”
“Nope, the doctor told me I was born with two left feet.” She says, the grin on her face growing bigger and bigger.
“I think you’re lying.” Zosia says, a smile growing with Carols, as she leans in closer to her. Her hand gently touching her knee, and slowly dragging up to her thigh.
“Well, maybe you’ll just have to find out.” Carol's face was smug, a complete opposite of her insides that began fluttering violently with nerves and the voice of her brain telling her to make a good decision for once and stop. But she has never been one to listen to correct advice.
She takes control of Zosia's hand, and pulls it further up her thigh till it hits her hip bone. A soft thumb caresses the bone through her shorts gently, and she freezes.
Zosia pauses as well, stopping the movement but not moving her hand. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Just don’t— don’t do that. Please.”
Zosia nods, settling in her lap and moving her hand up to the side of her rib cage instead. “Can I do this?”
Carol hums, letting herself sink into the chair behind her. Her cheeks began to pinken under the sudden attention. Zosia leans closer, eyes dipping down to lips before overtaking them with her own, soft and warm and slick against her lips. She pauses, letting the thought of the emotional weight of her impending response come and go through her mind before she acts on it. Overtaking the warm mouth on her with just as much power.
She barely registers the song playing behind them is about to end, a less upbeat guitar song beginning. Pleasure and warmth blooms inside of her chest. The heavy weight of it all she can take on tomorrow, because for tonight everything is in the palm of her hand.