Another person might have heard this confession and taken some pleasure in it. Derrica understands why that might be, but for her—
A little frisson of tension pulls through her body. Discomfort. It ebbs away, settled by their clasped hands and Derrica's determinedly steady breathing.
Ellie has been truthful. Derrica owes her nothing less than further clarity regarding what had they had skirted around before. And it's why there is quiet for a stretch, while Derrica runs her thumb over the calloused stretch of Ellie's palm.
"I don't know," she answers, soft but even. "I don't...I would have said no. Part of me wants to say no right now."
And that no is in her body, that flicker of tension. Something that wants to draw back.
"No one has ever said things like that to me without turning them into a kind of trap. Or using them to try and push me into giving them something they want. Or guilt me for not feeling the right way in return."
Between her hands, she turns Ellie's over. Idle contact, holding there while she settles on, "Or they want more, even if they didn't at first. And it hurts them, when I can't give it."
Ellie can feel when it hits. Derrica's trying so hard not to show it, but the fact that she's so still gives away that she's trying to control her reaction. The smile fades off of Ellie's face, replaced by-
Fuck, what is it? Worry? Hurt? A tiny bit of relief? (How fucked up is that part?)
It's the relief that she digs into, as Derrica responds and clarifies, and works into the harder answer.
Yeah, it fucking stings. That Derrica's afraid of Ellie doing this. Afraid of this from her, and moreso because Ellie can't say in total honesty that it wouldn't- that it doesn't fucking hurt. That it won't chafe over time. It might not, but she just doesn't know that. How can anyone know that?
The relief comes from the honesty. Derrica trusts her enough to tell her this instead of sucking it up. The one thing she worries about with Derrica is how much of herself she gives to others, to making sure they are all right.
Now she knows where Derrica stands. That this was the hesitation and not that she didn't actually want Ellie at all.
"Okay," Ellie answers, the word a little thick, flicks her eyes upward from Derrica's face. Palms up, open, the heel of her foot sliding back and forth across the floor, that small fidget coming out somewhere else, before it settles.
"I want you," she says frankly, drawing her attention back to Derrica's eyes. "I want to kiss you. And sleep with you. And I want you to want me, too."
Deep breath.
"If you come to me that way, I want it to be because you want me, and I don't want either of us to be fucked up about what might happen. Because if I'm the dumbass who hurts my own feelings-"
She says, in the tone of someone who already kind of has, who makes a habit of it and keeps on being that dumbass:
It does Ellie a disservice to try and make this choice for her. Derrica has seen her strength. Ellie has come through so much strife and agony and remained whole. Whatever they make between them, and whether or not it ends and if it ends well or badly, surely that won't break Ellie where so much else has not.
But still, Derrica can't help but hesitate.
"I do want you," is easy to say, because of course that isn't the problem. "And I care for you. I don't want to hurt you."
It's hard to accept that it would only be Ellie's doing if she were hurt. Derrica's thumbs soothes across Ellie's palm.
"And I can't make you promise me anything about what might happen. Because it would be impossible, and selfish besides."
Ellie keeps her hands open, palms up, and lets her eyeline dip back down. Derrica strokes the center of her palms where the skin is still soft, and it tickles.
She gets it, though- gets that Derrica is always, always watching out for her. That it'll hurt her to be the source of any pain, or pressure.
It hurts. It's gonna fuck with her, a little. She can't deny that. And if Derrica put her on the spot right now and asked whether she'd really, eventually be okay with this, she wouldn't be able to answer with total confidence.
She can't know until she lives it.
"You either," Ellie murmurs, and hitches up one side of her jaw. You either. All of it. There are a lot of half-formed thoughts spitballing around inside of her head, but the most important things have quieted.
She wants to say something too, something about being sorry for making it weird, about how she wants Derrica to keep being honest with her. How it's probably going to keep being a little bit weird for a while while they figure out what this is going to look like.
But it's all a little jumbled up in her head, and she both wants space and wants the closeness, wants Derrica to see her and wants to be invisible, for a while.
And what does come out is stupid and honest.
"You remember when I first got here, and I flinched when you touched me, 'cause I wasn't expecting it?"
Of course she does. It's not something she could forget. It's a memory that becomes more stark when set against the present. Ellie has changed, all for the better. Looking at her here, with their hands linked this way, throws into such sharp relief those very early days of their friendship. Acquaintance. Whatever word might fit the beginnings of knowing each other.
Her head tips, posing the question without saying the words. Yes, she remembers. Why?
Shit. How does she put this? The corner of Ellie's mouth twists as she tries to give shape to the feeling, to pull things into place.
"I needed that. To kinda call the shots. Figure you out."
And now Derrica can reach for her when she's not looking. She can touch her face and draw her close. She can take her hands and guide her to a chair and hold them, and look in her eyes, and Ellie won't flinch, because she knows her, and knows what she won't take.
"You- flinched, just now. When we were talking about feelings? So-" Ellie licks her lip, shifts in her seat as she tries to figure out how to say it right.
"Maybe you need to be calling the shots. For that stuff."
It feels like a stupid way to put it, but it's a type of hurt and a type of healing she knows, so she uses that language to shape it.
Derrica has never thought of it as a type of injury, though maybe it is that. To have an understanding and see it come apart—
Very rarely had her own feelings factored in when she considered it before now. They hardly do now, even when Ellie draws this comparison.
She turns Ellie's hands in her own, as she tries to envision what this proposal might look like in practice.
"I don't know if it's that easy. It's not just about me."
And it is so hard to think only of herself. All she can think is that this is about finding a balance, threading carefully between what they both might need.
"Will you be able to tell me if you need us to stop and go back to the way we were before?"
It's not so much that Derrica is the one hurt, Ellie thinks- there's nothing wrong with how she is. But what she saw in her eyes, how badly she was fighting not to pull away?
People have obviously pushed Derrica to be something she wasn't. And for this to work, Ellie needs to not be one of them. But she's not sure how. How to balance a fledgling newness between them while patching up her own bruised heart. It could be smart to back off. It could be cowardly, just another symptom of her own fear.
Ellie doesn't know what the right answer is, and maybe that's her answer.
"... I don't know," she admits. She takes a deep breath, lets it out.
"I kinda thought this would go differently," she adds, pursing her lips. She leans her head forward, just a little. Thunks their foreheads together lightly.
"I thought I understood what you needed." She tries for a smile, a twitch at the edge of her lips. "Maybe we should go back, and I get my head on straight. And then... maybe, we'll find ourselves here again. And it won't be so complicated."
"It's always complicated," is not necessarily a condemnation, only acknowledgement. "And you understood part of what I need. The rest is just...not so simple, I don't think."
All the ways people come together are complex in their own right. Derrica doesn't know that any amount of time might pass to wear down every single jagged edge that might exist between them.
Here, she touches Ellie's cheek again. They are close enough that their noses brush, a little touch before Derrica straightens. Not far, just far enough so she can see all of Ellie's expression when she asks, "Can you tell me how you thought it would go?"
The tenderness hits good. The softer touches. Ellie can feel something in her relax. There's no forcing this. There's no doing the right thing all the time. They are just people, trying be.
Ellie tries again for a smile, and doesn't quite get there, so she stops trying.
"It's dumb," she admits, letting her eyes fall mostly shut. Or maybe it's not dumb, but to her own ears, it's sure going to sound like it is.
"I thought... you might- feel the same way. Or if you weren't there yet, maybe happy about it." Ellie shrugs one shoulder. "I thought it would be- friendship, but maybe more romantic than that. And yeah, going to bed together, but. With kissing, and holding hands, and- dancing. Sometimes."
She chokes on the last word, just a little. Embarrassment that she fights back, so she won't choke up completely. She's so quick to make fun of others for being sappy, but. In her heart of hearts, Ellie does want that. The closeness, the obvious caring. That enduring sort of love.
"And I figured you'd have other people, and maybe I would too, when I got there. And maybe it wouldn't be a future with us settling down or anything. But- we'd do our own things. And always find our way back."
And maybe that all sounds like friendship, of a sort. But she honestly can't say that she knows where the line is. What kind of closeness the both of them crave, what's too much.
A silent shake of her head at it's dumb, fingers tapping softly at Ellie's cheek in denial. No, it's not foolish.
"I don't know if I feel the same way."
Soft. Honest. Does that mean she doesn't care deeply for Ellie? No. But love has always felt like something bigger to her. Love the way Ellie means, the way others have described, always feels as if it should be set apart from the way she cares for Ellie now, the love that is so intrinsic to that affection.
But beyond that—
"I do like that. Everything you described."
It feels like an arrangement that leaves room for Derrica to breathe. Better for the idea that maybe Ellie would have someone else as well, that there would be more for her than just Derrica.
"It just worries me. That what I feel isn't going to be enough, even if we could have everything else."
Derrica's fingers on her cheek ease her back in, the little tap of no, stop that.
It hurts. There's no way to escape it hurting, when you care about somebody and they don't feel the same. But that hurt can pass, or it can turn into something rubbed raw and bitter, and the longing can ease, or it can turn into resentment.
It's what they're both afraid of, and rightfully so. They're only people, and nobody's perfect.
"Yeah. And I guess that worry is what I'm worried about," Ellie mumbles. "Like, can you be happy with what we've got without second-guessing yourself all the time because you're trying so hard not to hurt me? Can I do that? Are we gonna... I dunno. Psyche ourselves out?"
Ellie drops that, though, and runs her thumb along Derrica's palm, turning her hands again. This habit of theirs, worry stones.
"How did you think it was gonna be? If you thought about it at all."
A strange question, if only because Derrica has no frame of reference at all from which to draw on.
What changes? She never thinks of such things for herself. So little has changed for her and Kostos, So much has changed between her and Loxley. The shape of these things is so mutable.
But she does give it due thought. Considering the formless sense of pleasure at the kind of connection Ellie's describing, that they've talked around so carefully before now, she finds herself without any more concrete thought than—
"I think it's something we decide on together," she says softly. "I've never thought of the future, not this way, but what I imagine about the present isn't so far off from what you've said."
All thoughts of the future are so consumed with what waits for mages and rifters on the other side of this war. And it feels so vast, thinking that far ahead of them.
"I don't know that we can't try. But slowly," is the caveat. "to see if it suits us. If they way we want to go forward can work if we try it together."
So much of what Ellie's said, they're already doing. So many times they've been close, but danced around the subject. Flirting that got a little too serious to be laughed off. A closed door, or that time in the garden, outside the ring of dancers, where Ellie had confessed to not being ready.
Part of it was just- being close to Derrica. She's intimate with her friends, touches often. She treats her the same now as she did when they began, though with less hesitation. But looking back on it, she can see a lot of things that felt like more.
Ellie nods slowly, spooling it out between her hands.
"So... what we have now," Ellie says, for clarity's sake. "And just add in whatever we both want, whenever it happens."
And then, because she has to: "Is there anything I've done that you- wanna put the brakes on?"
The only thing that comes so immediately to mind is Love me a little less than you do.
But that's something unfair to ask. Derrica knows it's rooted in fear, or self-preservation, and it's not necessarily about Ellie at all. So she casts about for a variation, trying to think what she might ask that is reasonable.
"I want you to protect your heart," feels in the ballpark of reasonable. "I can't say there's anything I want you to stop, just that I want us to be honest with each other."
Including honesty about when they might have to stop. Honest about wanting more.
Ellie nods, the motion a tiny rub against Derrica's forehead. Closed eyes, while the two of them rock in this, rise with the tide.
She sniffs once, thickly, knows what's coming.
Fuck, but tonight's gonna suck.
"Honestly," she says, swallowing hard, "I kinda need some space, I think. Just for a few days. Some time to get my head right."
As she says it, she closes her fingers around Derrica's hand, just to squeeze reassuringly. Some time to process. To feel whatever bullshit she needs to feel, because there's sure to be some.
Of course it is. It's what Derrica had asked, isn't it? For Ellie to say such things, ask when she needs them.
When she kisses Ellie this time, it's just as gentle. But brief, a brush of lips before Derrica sits back slightly. It's only to create a little space, acknowledge what Ellie's asked for.
She doesn't need to tell her again: of course, Ellie can change her mind too.
The kiss is there and gone, so soft and brief that it's just a lingering warmth before Ellie can properly decide how to feel about it. Both a reassurance and a sting.
The sting, she feels now. The reassurance will grow stronger, later, when she's rearranging all the pieces inside herself. It'll be warmth, and a cracked-open door. A reminder of what they haven't lost.
"Yeah," Ellie whispers back, and it's rough around the edges. She squeezes Derrica's hands again, makes herself look her in the eyes properly. Her color's high, her eyes a little bit shiny.
"I feel like shit right now," she says, and it hurts even coming out of her mouth. She holds the words on her jaw for a second before she lets them out, measuring each one.
"But. I'd have really felt like shit if you'd said yes. And then I found out it wasn't want you wanted."
The right thing to do is let Ellie go. Process and settle this discussion without Derrica watching her, exacerbating whatever hurt she's carrying. Her grip loosens on Ellie's hands, but doesn't quite break, Derrica's face tipped up to watch Ellie's expression as she gets to her feet.
"Thank you for thinking of me," is a soft offering in return. "For asking me."
When it would have been so easy for Ellie to have glossed over any part of what Derrica thought or wanted.
"Don't be a stranger?"
Regardless of what decisions Ellie makes, what outcome she arrives at after this conversation settles in her mind.
Ellie knows it hurts for Derrica to be the source of any pain, and she wishes that she could let her in, for this. Could let her try to fix Ellie's hurts, to heal her with her own hands. She knows how important it is to her that leave things better than she left them.
But this is one thing that she just can't, neither of them can.
(She wishes it didn't feel like a betrayal, even if that's not a logical thought.)
Shaking her head, Ellie squeezes her fingers back, brings both of her hands up; leans forward to kiss her knuckles. It's light but warm, and hopefully that'll lessen the blow of pulling away.
"Okay," she manages, before her throat closes, and she leaves before she can reach the breaking point of the pressure in her chest.
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no subject
A little frisson of tension pulls through her body. Discomfort. It ebbs away, settled by their clasped hands and Derrica's determinedly steady breathing.
Ellie has been truthful. Derrica owes her nothing less than further clarity regarding what had they had skirted around before. And it's why there is quiet for a stretch, while Derrica runs her thumb over the calloused stretch of Ellie's palm.
"I don't know," she answers, soft but even. "I don't...I would have said no. Part of me wants to say no right now."
And that no is in her body, that flicker of tension. Something that wants to draw back.
"No one has ever said things like that to me without turning them into a kind of trap. Or using them to try and push me into giving them something they want. Or guilt me for not feeling the right way in return."
Between her hands, she turns Ellie's over. Idle contact, holding there while she settles on, "Or they want more, even if they didn't at first. And it hurts them, when I can't give it."
no subject
Fuck, what is it? Worry? Hurt? A tiny bit of relief? (How fucked up is that part?)
It's the relief that she digs into, as Derrica responds and clarifies, and works into the harder answer.
Yeah, it fucking stings. That Derrica's afraid of Ellie doing this. Afraid of this from her, and moreso because Ellie can't say in total honesty that it wouldn't- that it doesn't fucking hurt. That it won't chafe over time. It might not, but she just doesn't know that. How can anyone know that?
The relief comes from the honesty. Derrica trusts her enough to tell her this instead of sucking it up. The one thing she worries about with Derrica is how much of herself she gives to others, to making sure they are all right.
Now she knows where Derrica stands. That this was the hesitation and not that she didn't actually want Ellie at all.
"Okay," Ellie answers, the word a little thick, flicks her eyes upward from Derrica's face. Palms up, open, the heel of her foot sliding back and forth across the floor, that small fidget coming out somewhere else, before it settles.
"I want you," she says frankly, drawing her attention back to Derrica's eyes. "I want to kiss you. And sleep with you. And I want you to want me, too."
Deep breath.
"If you come to me that way, I want it to be because you want me, and I don't want either of us to be fucked up about what might happen. Because if I'm the dumbass who hurts my own feelings-"
She says, in the tone of someone who already kind of has, who makes a habit of it and keeps on being that dumbass:
"-then that's on me."
no subject
It does Ellie a disservice to try and make this choice for her. Derrica has seen her strength. Ellie has come through so much strife and agony and remained whole. Whatever they make between them, and whether or not it ends and if it ends well or badly, surely that won't break Ellie where so much else has not.
But still, Derrica can't help but hesitate.
"I do want you," is easy to say, because of course that isn't the problem. "And I care for you. I don't want to hurt you."
It's hard to accept that it would only be Ellie's doing if she were hurt. Derrica's thumbs soothes across Ellie's palm.
"And I can't make you promise me anything about what might happen. Because it would be impossible, and selfish besides."
no subject
She gets it, though- gets that Derrica is always, always watching out for her. That it'll hurt her to be the source of any pain, or pressure.
It hurts. It's gonna fuck with her, a little. She can't deny that. And if Derrica put her on the spot right now and asked whether she'd really, eventually be okay with this, she wouldn't be able to answer with total confidence.
She can't know until she lives it.
"You either," Ellie murmurs, and hitches up one side of her jaw. You either. All of it. There are a lot of half-formed thoughts spitballing around inside of her head, but the most important things have quieted.
She wants to say something too, something about being sorry for making it weird, about how she wants Derrica to keep being honest with her. How it's probably going to keep being a little bit weird for a while while they figure out what this is going to look like.
But it's all a little jumbled up in her head, and she both wants space and wants the closeness, wants Derrica to see her and wants to be invisible, for a while.
And what does come out is stupid and honest.
"You remember when I first got here, and I flinched when you touched me, 'cause I wasn't expecting it?"
no subject
"Yes."
Of course she does. It's not something she could forget. It's a memory that becomes more stark when set against the present. Ellie has changed, all for the better. Looking at her here, with their hands linked this way, throws into such sharp relief those very early days of their friendship. Acquaintance. Whatever word might fit the beginnings of knowing each other.
Her head tips, posing the question without saying the words. Yes, she remembers. Why?
no subject
Shit. How does she put this? The corner of Ellie's mouth twists as she tries to give shape to the feeling, to pull things into place.
"I needed that. To kinda call the shots. Figure you out."
And now Derrica can reach for her when she's not looking. She can touch her face and draw her close. She can take her hands and guide her to a chair and hold them, and look in her eyes, and Ellie won't flinch, because she knows her, and knows what she won't take.
"You- flinched, just now. When we were talking about feelings? So-" Ellie licks her lip, shifts in her seat as she tries to figure out how to say it right.
"Maybe you need to be calling the shots. For that stuff."
It feels like a stupid way to put it, but it's a type of hurt and a type of healing she knows, so she uses that language to shape it.
no subject
Derrica has never thought of it as a type of injury, though maybe it is that. To have an understanding and see it come apart—
Very rarely had her own feelings factored in when she considered it before now. They hardly do now, even when Ellie draws this comparison.
She turns Ellie's hands in her own, as she tries to envision what this proposal might look like in practice.
"I don't know if it's that easy. It's not just about me."
And it is so hard to think only of herself. All she can think is that this is about finding a balance, threading carefully between what they both might need.
"Will you be able to tell me if you need us to stop and go back to the way we were before?"
no subject
People have obviously pushed Derrica to be something she wasn't. And for this to work, Ellie needs to not be one of them. But she's not sure how. How to balance a fledgling newness between them while patching up her own bruised heart. It could be smart to back off. It could be cowardly, just another symptom of her own fear.
Ellie doesn't know what the right answer is, and maybe that's her answer.
"... I don't know," she admits. She takes a deep breath, lets it out.
"I kinda thought this would go differently," she adds, pursing her lips. She leans her head forward, just a little. Thunks their foreheads together lightly.
"I thought I understood what you needed." She tries for a smile, a twitch at the edge of her lips. "Maybe we should go back, and I get my head on straight. And then... maybe, we'll find ourselves here again. And it won't be so complicated."
no subject
All the ways people come together are complex in their own right. Derrica doesn't know that any amount of time might pass to wear down every single jagged edge that might exist between them.
Here, she touches Ellie's cheek again. They are close enough that their noses brush, a little touch before Derrica straightens. Not far, just far enough so she can see all of Ellie's expression when she asks, "Can you tell me how you thought it would go?"
no subject
Ellie tries again for a smile, and doesn't quite get there, so she stops trying.
"It's dumb," she admits, letting her eyes fall mostly shut. Or maybe it's not dumb, but to her own ears, it's sure going to sound like it is.
"I thought... you might- feel the same way. Or if you weren't there yet, maybe happy about it." Ellie shrugs one shoulder. "I thought it would be- friendship, but maybe more romantic than that. And yeah, going to bed together, but. With kissing, and holding hands, and- dancing. Sometimes."
She chokes on the last word, just a little. Embarrassment that she fights back, so she won't choke up completely. She's so quick to make fun of others for being sappy, but. In her heart of hearts, Ellie does want that. The closeness, the obvious caring. That enduring sort of love.
"And I figured you'd have other people, and maybe I would too, when I got there. And maybe it wouldn't be a future with us settling down or anything. But- we'd do our own things. And always find our way back."
And maybe that all sounds like friendship, of a sort. But she honestly can't say that she knows where the line is. What kind of closeness the both of them crave, what's too much.
no subject
"I don't know if I feel the same way."
Soft. Honest. Does that mean she doesn't care deeply for Ellie? No. But love has always felt like something bigger to her. Love the way Ellie means, the way others have described, always feels as if it should be set apart from the way she cares for Ellie now, the love that is so intrinsic to that affection.
But beyond that—
"I do like that. Everything you described."
It feels like an arrangement that leaves room for Derrica to breathe. Better for the idea that maybe Ellie would have someone else as well, that there would be more for her than just Derrica.
"It just worries me. That what I feel isn't going to be enough, even if we could have everything else."
no subject
It hurts. There's no way to escape it hurting, when you care about somebody and they don't feel the same. But that hurt can pass, or it can turn into something rubbed raw and bitter, and the longing can ease, or it can turn into resentment.
It's what they're both afraid of, and rightfully so. They're only people, and nobody's perfect.
"Yeah. And I guess that worry is what I'm worried about," Ellie mumbles. "Like, can you be happy with what we've got without second-guessing yourself all the time because you're trying so hard not to hurt me? Can I do that? Are we gonna... I dunno. Psyche ourselves out?"
Ellie drops that, though, and runs her thumb along Derrica's palm, turning her hands again. This habit of theirs, worry stones.
"How did you think it was gonna be? If you thought about it at all."
no subject
What changes? She never thinks of such things for herself. So little has changed for her and Kostos, So much has changed between her and Loxley. The shape of these things is so mutable.
But she does give it due thought. Considering the formless sense of pleasure at the kind of connection Ellie's describing, that they've talked around so carefully before now, she finds herself without any more concrete thought than—
"I think it's something we decide on together," she says softly. "I've never thought of the future, not this way, but what I imagine about the present isn't so far off from what you've said."
All thoughts of the future are so consumed with what waits for mages and rifters on the other side of this war. And it feels so vast, thinking that far ahead of them.
"I don't know that we can't try. But slowly," is the caveat. "to see if it suits us. If they way we want to go forward can work if we try it together."
no subject
Part of it was just- being close to Derrica. She's intimate with her friends, touches often. She treats her the same now as she did when they began, though with less hesitation. But looking back on it, she can see a lot of things that felt like more.
Ellie nods slowly, spooling it out between her hands.
"So... what we have now," Ellie says, for clarity's sake. "And just add in whatever we both want, whenever it happens."
And then, because she has to: "Is there anything I've done that you- wanna put the brakes on?"
no subject
But that's something unfair to ask. Derrica knows it's rooted in fear, or self-preservation, and it's not necessarily about Ellie at all. So she casts about for a variation, trying to think what she might ask that is reasonable.
"I want you to protect your heart," feels in the ballpark of reasonable. "I can't say there's anything I want you to stop, just that I want us to be honest with each other."
Including honesty about when they might have to stop. Honest about wanting more.
no subject
She sniffs once, thickly, knows what's coming.
Fuck, but tonight's gonna suck.
"Honestly," she says, swallowing hard, "I kinda need some space, I think. Just for a few days. Some time to get my head right."
As she says it, she closes her fingers around Derrica's hand, just to squeeze reassuringly. Some time to process. To feel whatever bullshit she needs to feel, because there's sure to be some.
"Okay?"
no subject
Of course it is. It's what Derrica had asked, isn't it? For Ellie to say such things, ask when she needs them.
When she kisses Ellie this time, it's just as gentle. But brief, a brush of lips before Derrica sits back slightly. It's only to create a little space, acknowledge what Ellie's asked for.
She doesn't need to tell her again: of course, Ellie can change her mind too.
"You know where to find me when you're ready."
no subject
The sting, she feels now. The reassurance will grow stronger, later, when she's rearranging all the pieces inside herself. It'll be warmth, and a cracked-open door. A reminder of what they haven't lost.
"Yeah," Ellie whispers back, and it's rough around the edges. She squeezes Derrica's hands again, makes herself look her in the eyes properly. Her color's high, her eyes a little bit shiny.
"I feel like shit right now," she says, and it hurts even coming out of her mouth. She holds the words on her jaw for a second before she lets them out, measuring each one.
"But. I'd have really felt like shit if you'd said yes. And then I found out it wasn't want you wanted."
She squeezes once, hard, and gets to her feet.
are we approaching bow territory
"Thank you for thinking of me," is a soft offering in return. "For asking me."
When it would have been so easy for Ellie to have glossed over any part of what Derrica thought or wanted.
"Don't be a stranger?"
Regardless of what decisions Ellie makes, what outcome she arrives at after this conversation settles in her mind.
yes ;;
But this is one thing that she just can't, neither of them can.
(She wishes it didn't feel like a betrayal, even if that's not a logical thought.)
Shaking her head, Ellie squeezes her fingers back, brings both of her hands up; leans forward to kiss her knuckles. It's light but warm, and hopefully that'll lessen the blow of pulling away.
"Okay," she manages, before her throat closes, and she leaves before she can reach the breaking point of the pressure in her chest.
She leaves the scroll with the sketch behind.