She's settling into his hands, warm and large on her waist, and smiling sweet and bright and flirtatious as he's bending down to her, and then he's a breath away and the world is tightening close, right before it comes to a screeching halt like the a needle ripping across the surface of a spinning record, or like a car crashing.
Steve doesn't. Hasn't. The times he's pushed her away -- there must have been some right, though she's shuffling through the deck of cards scattered across the floor of her memory and is coming up blank -- have never been so sharp. Like he has to distance himself so he doesn't...what. Fall into a pit? Like he's jumping back from a cliff edge, Steve, who has never done anything but dive off without even looking to see if he's being followed.
And the sudden shrinking, sick feeling that she, somehow, is this mysterious cliff he can't topple over.
Can't doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense, and she's staring at him in outright surprise, feeling blank, like an interruption made human, the space between, white noise and static. And if can't doesn't make sense, the last words don't even register as English. She has to shake herself a little, just to be sure she heard them.
"There's..." Blinking. Befuddled. Dropped suddenly into cold water, sparking, electric flirtation smothered with a damp rag. "What?"
Too baffled even to be hurt. There's never been someone else. Never. Not a someone else who leads to can't. There have been people, over the years. Here and there. She doesn't ask a lot of questions, and neither does he, but there are months or sometimes a year or more where they don't see each other, and it's not like they spend that time in solitary confinement. There are men and women. There's companionship and good times. There has, occasionally, even been a boyfriend or two serious enough that she's called things off, though usually gone by the next time they meet.
But Steve? Steve has never. Not since she's known him. Not even her, back when that was what she wanted from him, and that's a mean, jealous little dig that's beneath her, twisting there in her stomach, so she ignores it, in favor of staring at Steve like him sprouting a second head or a third arm would be less surprising, because it is. "You are..." Floundering, picking up words like pebbles and dropping them through numb fingers again.
"You're seeing someone? Like actually, seriously, seeing someone?"
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Steve doesn't. Hasn't. The times he's pushed her away -- there must have been some right, though she's shuffling through the deck of cards scattered across the floor of her memory and is coming up blank -- have never been so sharp. Like he has to distance himself so he doesn't...what. Fall into a pit? Like he's jumping back from a cliff edge, Steve, who has never done anything but dive off without even looking to see if he's being followed.
And the sudden shrinking, sick feeling that she, somehow, is this mysterious cliff he can't topple over.
Can't doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense, and she's staring at him in outright surprise, feeling blank, like an interruption made human, the space between, white noise and static. And if can't doesn't make sense, the last words don't even register as English. She has to shake herself a little, just to be sure she heard them.
"There's..." Blinking. Befuddled. Dropped suddenly into cold water, sparking, electric flirtation smothered with a damp rag. "What?"
Too baffled even to be hurt. There's never been someone else. Never. Not a someone else who leads to can't. There have been people, over the years. Here and there. She doesn't ask a lot of questions, and neither does he, but there are months or sometimes a year or more where they don't see each other, and it's not like they spend that time in solitary confinement. There are men and women. There's companionship and good times. There has, occasionally, even been a boyfriend or two serious enough that she's called things off, though usually gone by the next time they meet.
But Steve? Steve has never. Not since she's known him. Not even her, back when that was what she wanted from him, and that's a mean, jealous little dig that's beneath her, twisting there in her stomach, so she ignores it, in favor of staring at Steve like him sprouting a second head or a third arm would be less surprising, because it is. "You are..." Floundering, picking up words like pebbles and dropping them through numb fingers again.
"You're seeing someone? Like actually, seriously, seeing someone?"