[IC Inbox | Meadowlark]

[lifetothefullest]

@lance.sweets | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

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[lifetothefullest]

I want some hint that you care at all about--

[And he stops, more because he can't find words than because he intends to, closing his eyes a moment and trying to get control over his emotions. The rush of anger that had just been present is rapidly fading, being replaced with the lower, nauseating combination of fear and resignation that appears as calm when he tries to speak again.]

We're not getting anywhere. Could you move?

[evocation]

I do care.

[It comes out as a sort of desperate emotional outburst, her voice quavering at the end. She doesn't understand why people are viewing this as her turning against them. She doesn't understand how her intentions can be so completely misconstrued by people she cares for and trusts so deeply.

Maybe if she were calmer, she wouldn't care about that tremble in her voice, but right now she's regressed to her old instinctive humiliation at any show of vulnerability. Emotion other than anger is too easy for people to use against you, too easy for people to seize on to crush you. Suddenly, she can't look at him, too overcome by that old, longstanding fear that she isn't actually worth understanding to anyone.]

Fine. Just leave.

[She hates that she still can't keep her voice steady, that it comes out hurt rather than the uncaring dismissal she was aiming for. He does get what he wants, though—she steps aside.]

[lifetothefullest]

[On some level he's worried that she won't move and then he'll have to figure out how he's going to handle that, but thankfully she steps aside and although he's registered her words and her tone and body language they don't actually process yet, his attention entirely on getting out of the apartment and somewhere else.

So he's gone the moment he has the chance, not really sure where he's going but leaving that as an issue for later.]