"Isn't it funny," she says, holding her arms tighter to herself to ward off the frigid November morning, "how life never works out how you thought it would?"
He looks at her. Really looks. She remembers she didn't properly brush her hair this morning, just hastily clipped it back because Roy turned off her alarm and decided it romantic to not wake her until five minutes before they needed to leave.
"It still can," he assures, his breath visibly puffing out of his mouth, and even that is earnest and good. She wants to bottle it. Bottle him. Eau de Jim's innate optimism. She'd put it on every morning. She'd bathe in it.
She can't look at him, because she'll see his judgment, know that she'll never measure up. She's settled, settled for a life he doesn't approve of. Sometimes his scorn makes her indignant, makes her balk at the need to defend herself and her choices to him. How dare he presume to know her, what she wants, what she needs, who she loves, what she deserves.
Today, though, well, today she just kind of wants to be that girl. Be the person who tries, who speaks up, goes after what she wants, the one who loves who she wants, not just who is there.
If she were that girl, she would untwist her arms from her coat and ghost them over his slight frame. He'd be warm, and still, but he'd soften, welcome her in. She'd wrap herself around him, slowly, and his heat would seep into her as their bodies collided. Her cheek would rest against his chest, and the whole world would settle, just for her, just for a moment.
"I'm cold," she tells him instead, allowing herself to brush her sleeve against his as she passes by on her way back into that drab, gray, building.
***
"Isn't it funny," he tells her, during an inadvertent encounter in the parking lot, both eyeing each other unsurely, "how we still take breaks at the same time?"
She looks up at him, so much hope in her eyes that he has to look away. Her earnestness burns, then hardens him, part of a metamorphic process that began on a warm evening this past spring.
"Well," she starts, and he dreads the joke he knows is about to fall from her lips, "this is the time of day that Michael's morning sugar and caffeine buzzes reach their joint peaks, so I think it makes sense in a twisted sort of way."
How dare she ignore his pain. How dare she try to be his friend now, smile at him, expect one in return. He grunts instead, the barest of acknowledgments that she's spoken at all. He glances down at her face again, this time hoping he's hurt her. Her lips are pursed in a way he used to see all the time when Roy would turn his back to her, so he knows he's succeeded.
She looks back up at him, then. Right at him. Like a guilty boyfriend, he scratches at his neck to hide the hickey Karen left last night in his apartment. Their first time. A new beginning he's embarking on, a ship without her name or likeness. He stares at her curls, so soft and long these days, and he admits to himself that, while she has no place in his new life, her shadow shall follow him wherever he goes.
"I'm cold," he declares, clenching the fist that wants nothing more than to stroke through her hair, as he half-jogs back toward the office to go flirt with Karen.
Chapter End Notes:
These are really short but i wanted to share 'em!
