A Heavy Heart • •

[octavia gisele sanford]

When Octavia could avoid the rest of the world she did. She would slip in her earbuds, choose the appropriate playlist for her mood and hit play on her iPod. Headphones were the one thing that got her through each and every day. She had eight pairs in total, and they were scattered across the locations she frequented. Some were in her office at the campus, some were in her car or her apartment, and one pair always lived in her bag. That pair was blue, and they were forever getting tangled and knotted regardless of where she put them or how delicately she placed them when she was done using them. Octavia’s time without music was temporary and only ever because she needed to do something else that usually involved interacting with other human beings. Her job – helping students who needed it – was probably the best reason she had to step away from her bubble of mood appropriate playlists. When she was off the clock though, Octavia had very little to help keep her balanced other than her music.

She had moved to New York City in the hopes that the constant bustle would keep her from remembering where she had come from. There were days when it did help, but there were also days when it pissed her off to no end and she just wanted to explode and scream at every single person who got in her way. She wouldn’t do well in a small town though. A small town would remind her too much of her past, or give her too much time to think. Octavia’s mind was a broken, shattered place. It didn’t do well when it was allowed out to play unsupervised. She never let her thoughts wander far. She kept them contained to paper, kept the music loud to keep any niggling voices quiet. If she was lucky she could stay in control of her emotions that way. Luckier still, she might be able to keep the nightmares at bay if she could keep control. For Octavia there was nothing worse than reliving the years she wanted to forget each time she closed her eyes.

Her playlist that day was a strange one; songs with lyrics trapped somewhere between hopeful and melancholic. It was the type of thing often heard these days in coffee shops or being played live by artists who claimed they weren’t doing it for the fame, but for the message. Octavia listened to it because she didn’t know how she felt today. It was unusual, but welcoming. It was often one extreme or another for her and her emotions and it was ungodly and exhausting in ways she couldn’t begin to describe sometimes. Octavia adjusted the earbud on her left side as she moved through the doors of Barnes and Noble. She wasn’t looking for anything specific, but she felt like she ought to read something. The mood had taken her. Slowly, she moved around the tables that showed off the offers, the bestsellers, and various other arrangements laid out by the staff. She picked up a hardback that proclaimed it could help you love the real you. She wasn’t really interested in it, but she wanted to see what nonsense it was trying to trick people with. She rolled it over in her hands, letting her dark eyes read over the back before she scoffed loudly and uncaringly at it. In her opinion, anyone who spent the twenty dollars on it needed to have their head checked. She put it back down and looked at what else the table had to offer. Was it all utter garbage?

• • •

TAGGED! Malachi Bellamy O'Roarke
WORDS! 609!
OUTFIT! Disillusioned Dear!
LYRICS! Fragile Bird - - - City And Colour
NOTES! <3

[Malachi Bellamy O'Roarke]

Mal knew he could have created art anywhere in the world but New York had still held some appeal when he'd finished school so he had stayed in the city that never sleeps. And the city had been quite good to him in all those years so he wasn't in any hurry to move on. Plus his little brother was around and someone needed to take care of that ball of energy. Their mother liked the small town they had grown up in and chose to stay there when her sons had run off to the big city. Aris being in the city was another reason why Mal wouldn't leave. He couldn't leave his little brother alone in the big apple without someone around to help him. It was just an added bonus that he could continue to do his art there. And it helped that he had someone around who didn't look at him like he was another quirky artist when he said certain things after letting himself get a little carried away with his synesthesia. It was a quirk but it was one Mal didn't advertise because he didn't like those looks. He wasn't a troubled artist. He created art because of the way he saw the world.

And now if he didn't stay there indefinitely, he would probably decide where he wanted to move on to when Aris decided he wanted out of the city. They were as close as brothers could be and Mal loved the annoying little kid from the day their mother brought him home. It had never mattered to any of them how Aris had come to be part of their family, only that he was. And technically speaking, they were related; they were cousins. Harry had taken him in when her sister had given birth to him. The boys though, knew nothing more than that they were brothers. And Mal had always teased Aris, picked on him like only brothers could. He also stuck up for him, taught him how to take care of himself with bullies and rude people. Mal already knew how cruel the adult world could be when they didn't understand the children surrounding them. Sure, Mal and his synesthesia were a rarity but that shouldn't have mattered. And yet it had mattered too much, which was the whole reason Mal didn't advertise his "condition". He hadn't wanted those looks as a child and nothing had changed in the years that followed.

He should have been back in his apartment, being the reclusive and quirky artist he'd been dubbed as being but he'd promised Aris he would pick up some books the kid needed for some post grad work. Mal would be lying if he said he knew what his little brother was talking about when he went on but he hadn't the foggiest of clues. Usually he just let Aris run off until he asked Mal a question and then it was a standard, non-committal answer; which was how his brother managed to get him to agree to pick up the books. The page Aris gave him was as long as his hand and the titles made his eyes cross but every book was crucial to whatever it was Aris needed it for. Mal knew maths and sciences but this was something that surprisingly bored him; history. But it was for his brother so he was at Barnes and Noble, roaming the stacks until he found all the books he needed to bring home with him. Maybe then he could get back to his work. Minding his own business, he was skirting a table a little too closely and bumped into it, bouncing off and checking the woman standing next to it as well. "I am so sorry." He said, rolling the taste of the words around on his tongue. Sorry had always tasted a little different. Not good, not bad but...different. Mal looked at the woman he was apologising to and realised he knew her. "Octavia? I don't know if you'd remember me, Mal O'Roarke?" He said, wondering if she did recognise him or if this was all a mistake.

Tag || octavia gisele sanford
Words || 694
Clothes || Messy Artist
Music || This Is That Night --Scotty McCreery
Notes || <3!

[octavia gisele sanford]

Octavia hadn’t been back to Wessington Springs since she was eighteen, and she had turned her back on South Dakota once she had graduated college. They were places she never wanted to return to. She already did her best not to think about them, but it was nearly impossible. At least New York was a city of distractions and strangers. Octavia didn’t want to find herself in a small town again. Despite the struggles with her mental health, she held down a career here and she was capable of helping the students who came to the office seeking advice and guidance. She might not have many friends, and Octavia mostly kept to herself with a scowl most days, but after what she had been through, she wasn’t expecting a fairy tale ending. She didn’t know how she’d be one hour to the next and people tended to tip-toe around her because of it. Octavia didn’t broadcast her past or her problems to the world, so she just came across as moody to those who worked with her or lived in her building.

Octavia didn’t want to hear whispers about her in the offices on the campus, or have people treat her like she was made of fine china. About three people in the city knew and they knew because of reasons Octavia couldn’t avoid, like medical or occupational. Those people constantly greeted Octavia with the same patronising small smile that she hated more than anything else from other people. She’d rather people just think her crazy than tell them the truth and face that from everyone. New York City had plenty of colourful characters to help her vanish into a crowd anyway, even on the days she considered to be her bad ones.

When someone bumped into her, the first thing Octavia did was tug the headphones out of her ears. There were so many times when strangers were oblivious to the music she was listening to and just spoke at her and looked bewildered when she accidentally ignored them. Octavia had taken to pulling herself back to the world around her at every tiny thing just to avoid that; unless she was feeling rotten then she didn’t give a damn about anyone else and they could fuck off for all she cared. She held the buds in her hand, wires wrapped around her thin fingers as she looked up at the familiar man. She didn’t place him until he said his name and then the memories rushed back to her, though they were part of the collection she kept locked away and tried not to peek back at. “Mal, of course I remember you.” She said, though her expression stayed sombre. He had been one of the closest things she had to a friend back in the darkest of times, but it still hurt to remember everything. She struggled for a moment to think of something to say, fighting with her own feelings and trying to put those old memories back behind a locked door where they belonged. “How have you been?” She asked weakly, not knowing what else to ask. Octavia hadn’t kept in touch with a single person from South Dakota, and she didn’t expect to bump into anyone in the city. It had thrown her a bit, to say the least.

• • •

TAGGED! Malachi Bellamy O'Roarke
WORDS! 659!
OUTFIT! Disillusioned Dear!
LYRICS! Fragile Bird - - - City And Colour
NOTES! <3

[Malachi Bellamy O'Roarke]

Mal had only been back to that small town he'd grown up in a couple of times; to visit his mother and to help Ari move to New York with him for college. After that, it was easier for their mother to visit them in the big apple than it was for them to visit her down south. And all the times between then, his family flew into New York for Christmas and stayed through New Year's. It was fun and exciting and Mal missed it when they had gone home again. That small town wasn't where he belonged and although he'd had a decent childhood there, his heart wasn't in that place, only his mother. And she visited so often she may as well have moved up to the big apple with her kids! Mal genuinely thought the move was coming, she was just trying to get her ducks in a row before she followed through with it. She was always making comments and saying little things about the neighbourhood's that led both her boy's to believe the move was only a matter of time.

The artist was a big family guy. If Ari hadn't decided to move to New York for school, Mal probably would have figured out a way to make travelling around work because he really needed his brother and mother around him. As it was, and it was probably a little clingy, he called his mother every day. They were constantly sending messages back and forth and he was still constantly asking her what she thought about this and that. She was his sounding board in a world that didn't quite understand him; which was another reason he needed his family around. He often said awkward things out loud and strangers thought he was a few sheep short a herd when he was perfectly sound of mind. It was the synesthesia but that was hard to explain to people who didn't get what it was or that it was even a possibility existing.

He'd kept his interesting condition to himself for the most part because it was just that difficult to explain and he kind of liked being the mysterious artist type. It saved him from answering all sorts of questions. And being an artist made it easy to stay away from people because he was always putting something together. He wouldn't have been out today if he hadn't needed a supply run and his brother wasn't able to do it for him. If it wasn't him, it was his agent. But the one was doing something for school or work and the other was being ignored until he was ready to talk again. He did it often enough that she knew to drop by his studio with his favourites and a full bag or two of supplies. Mal smiled, shaking his head. "Sorry, as usual my social skills are lacking." He'd never been very good at the finer points of socialising. His social cues were usually good enough but he was an artist and occasionally forgot that not everyone wanted to be noticed. "I've been doing well. Keeping busy. What about you?" He asked. When she vanished, it was strange but it was also the same time that he was dealing with everything in his life so a more active social life had a habit of falling through the cracks. He would apologise for that to whoever expected one from him but they wouldn't get an explanation. It wasn't deserved or required.

Tag || octavia gisele sanford
Words || 588
Clothes || Messy Artist
Music || This Is That Night --Scotty McCreery
Notes || <3!

[octavia gisele sanford]

Octavia only had her biological father left in her life. She didn’t speak to her mother, or her step-father for reasons she thought were obvious. Her father flew in for Christmas, and called often enough to keep up to date in his daughter’s life, but Octavia understood that he was busy, and still felt the guilt at not being around when she was younger to notice something was wrong sooner. She had never blamed him, but he would always blame himself. She couldn’t fix that. All she could do was reassure him that she was fine, and that she didn’t mind living alone, or staying in on her weekend evenings. She couldn’t sit around laughing and joking with people so easily. It wasn’t something that came naturally to her, and Octavia struggled to share fond stories, and silly anecdotes when so many of her memories were shrouded in darkness and wrapped in a demon’s grasp.

As such, she didn’t think much of family. They weren’t something Octavia needed in her life. She considered being alone a defence mechanism. No one could hurt her if they didn’t get close to her, and she had been hurt more than enough for one lifetime, by the very people a girl was supposed to be able to trust. After that Octavia hadn’t wanted to make connections she couldn’t cut at a moment’s notice, turning her back and running away the second it pleased her to. There was so much she was afraid and wary of, but the dark haired beauty was far too stubborn to admit to any of that. She had to be strong in her own eyes, not anyone else’s. She couldn’t break down and show a single weakness, not even to her father, who had already seen her when she was at her worst. No, she needed to show the world that she was surviving, that she was able to put one foot in front of the other and make it from one day to the next. Octavia had this insane notion in her head that the second she fell there would be people there to drag her away and lock her up, even though it was ridiculous and so far from the reality. She knew it wasn’t real, but she couldn’t stop herself from believing it.

Octavia didn’t even think of the people who used to be a part of her life. Her thoughts hadn’t cast back to Mal in a very long time, and seeing him now felt surreal. A part of her felt seventeen again, torn between telling him her secrets and pushing him away harder than before. Instead she fiddled with her headphones, tangling the wires around her slender fingers, whilst her eyes moved from his face to the books around them and then back again, over and over. “I don’t even have them.” She joked weakly, a faint ghost of a smile quickly flashing across her face before it was gone again in the next breath. She was anxious seeing a face from her past. It was the last thing she expected in a city as big as New York, where people barely paused for air, let alone to look at each other. It was one of its appealing charms to Octavia. “I’ve coped.” It was the vaguest but truest answer she could give without delving too much into her problems or her life. She didn’t want to, if she was honest, but at the same time, she was trying to quit lying like some people quit smoking. It had been a nasty habit since she was a teenager, and only reminded her of those bad memories she longed to let go of.

• • •

TAGGED! Malachi Bellamy O'Roarke
WORDS! 621!
OUTFIT! Disillusioned Dear!
LYRICS! Fragile Bird - - - City And Colour
NOTES! <3