I'm like a titan that's risin'
The fold of her arms is starting to seem less like a barrier she's setting between them and more like an attempt to hold herself together. He can see the way she's digging into more than just the ground with her stubbornness, she's also pressing into herself with all the same desperation of holding back a leak in a boat with nothing more than paper and her palm. This is upset of a greater magnitude than he'd realized over the letters. He thought he'd seen it at its worst when she tried to murder him with spice (not the dragon) that day on the pier, but he'd rather that a hundred times over than this, because at least then she'd been fighting to hold onto something other than her composure.
The laugh lands like a slap, stinging and harsh against him, dragging out a frown. Yeah, okay, she's big mad, but why? His stare persists, focusing on the heart of what she'll be saying amongst the inevitable theatrics, brandishing it like a ghost hunter does their trusty flashlight in the dark. He just doesn't expect to find any ghosts here today, but surprisingly, one drifts up from his past words already, as startling as any phantom. "I—I didn't think that had mattered to you," he can barely get it out around the surprise that's set its hand to his throat. When he'd told her that, he meant every word, but she'd not acknowledged them—the kiss and then the attendant had overshadowed them a bit, but the ease with which she let them fade, and the refusal to even see him much afterwards had seemed indicator enough of how she'd received them.
"Flora, I—" he's fingers flex at his side, like he might physically grab onto the words and set them straight. "I thought you didn't want that. What I said. I mean, you barely even responded, and you stayed further away afterwards. Fuck, Ro, you'd barely even look at me." His voice is low, heavy with all the things that don't make sense weighing it down so it takes effort to get it out. He'd been ready to go all in with her that night, but she'd put distance up like a reminder of the rules they'd laid out. "Which I mean, I get why you wouldn't. We said we'd just be friends and none of that was very friendly." A ragged sigh winds out as a hand ruffles the back of his hair in frustration. He blames himself for being the one who couldn't handle reverting to the way things had been, for being unable to let one night stay one night.
"So...yeah, I asked Soh to be there, since I was making it worse for us. She confirmed you wanted to stay friends and I've been working on that. On not...saying or doing any of that again." Soh had also told him not to create the very distance he did, but he'd taken her advice with a grain of salt because he couldn't tell her why being with Flora would be so complicated. Not without risking Koa in some shape or another, something he wasn't ready to do with Soh. "Which I know is why you practically wouldn't stop telling me to go after Caly. Why you talked to her even when I told you not to, so I had Soh help me with that too."
It felt like Flora had insisted on it, like she intended for Caly to be a buffer between them, a distraction to keep him from ruining everything between them even further. He liked Caly. She's special to him in her own way, and maybe with enough time he'd have been able to redirect all his feelings to her, but not when everything that kept getting asked of him meant giving up Flora entirely. "I didn't even do that right though," he mutters, bitter with his failure. "Safrin wouldn't help me make something for her unless I always put her first, and I refused to do that...so I wrote a letter instead and had Soh read it over before I sent it." Some big plan.
The laugh lands like a slap, stinging and harsh against him, dragging out a frown. Yeah, okay, she's big mad, but why? His stare persists, focusing on the heart of what she'll be saying amongst the inevitable theatrics, brandishing it like a ghost hunter does their trusty flashlight in the dark. He just doesn't expect to find any ghosts here today, but surprisingly, one drifts up from his past words already, as startling as any phantom. "I—I didn't think that had mattered to you," he can barely get it out around the surprise that's set its hand to his throat. When he'd told her that, he meant every word, but she'd not acknowledged them—the kiss and then the attendant had overshadowed them a bit, but the ease with which she let them fade, and the refusal to even see him much afterwards had seemed indicator enough of how she'd received them.
"Flora, I—" he's fingers flex at his side, like he might physically grab onto the words and set them straight. "I thought you didn't want that. What I said. I mean, you barely even responded, and you stayed further away afterwards. Fuck, Ro, you'd barely even look at me." His voice is low, heavy with all the things that don't make sense weighing it down so it takes effort to get it out. He'd been ready to go all in with her that night, but she'd put distance up like a reminder of the rules they'd laid out. "Which I mean, I get why you wouldn't. We said we'd just be friends and none of that was very friendly." A ragged sigh winds out as a hand ruffles the back of his hair in frustration. He blames himself for being the one who couldn't handle reverting to the way things had been, for being unable to let one night stay one night.
"So...yeah, I asked Soh to be there, since I was making it worse for us. She confirmed you wanted to stay friends and I've been working on that. On not...saying or doing any of that again." Soh had also told him not to create the very distance he did, but he'd taken her advice with a grain of salt because he couldn't tell her why being with Flora would be so complicated. Not without risking Koa in some shape or another, something he wasn't ready to do with Soh. "Which I know is why you practically wouldn't stop telling me to go after Caly. Why you talked to her even when I told you not to, so I had Soh help me with that too."
It felt like Flora had insisted on it, like she intended for Caly to be a buffer between them, a distraction to keep him from ruining everything between them even further. He liked Caly. She's special to him in her own way, and maybe with enough time he'd have been able to redirect all his feelings to her, but not when everything that kept getting asked of him meant giving up Flora entirely. "I didn't even do that right though," he mutters, bitter with his failure. "Safrin wouldn't help me make something for her unless I always put her first, and I refused to do that...so I wrote a letter instead and had Soh read it over before I sent it." Some big plan.
Kaisel
Show you the harder the battle, the harder I fight
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
