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She forgets or so she claims the way he laughed the way he cried and the way he leant over her desk the way he leant into her and the way he always knows what she's thinking he didn't misinterpret anything and when she grabs charcoal or paints or pencils she draws faceless people because drawing him would be admitting and objects with memories like cards on a table and terraces with flowers and Cujino's napkins.She's tired so tired of the way things are going when she picks up the phone and she recognises his voice as she hears him breathe and they fall back into what they had so quickly she doesn't know what's happening but then they finish and she feels gratified and she thinks maybe she still has a chance.
She's stupid so stupid to think that things would be okay as soon as he gets back that maybe that phone call meant something and when they aren't she can't face it and she starts building a wall again reflexively and she tries to make herself cheer up but she can't so she gives up.
She's trying so hard but it doesn't work when he avoids her when he acts the part that she gave him: a friend and all he does is glance at her and prank her she can handle the prank but the looks say nothing and it makes her smile for a little while before she realises that's all she's going to get.
She can act so well like she's her friend because she genuinely likes her but she would be blind not to notice the way he looks at them and she wants to ask him what he wants and can he make up his mind? and even when he finally accepts her present he doesn't seem as into it as he used to be and she wonders if he's acting still.
She's close so close to telling him things that she's forgotten how to just be anymore let alone be around him but she doesn't and she tells him to move ahead and tells her new friend he was being ridiculous and she smiles and smiles and it hurts so she cries.
Sometimes she wonders always she wonders what he's thinking does he realise what she's thinking? and what he's doing does he think of what she's doing? and what he's feeling does he even care what she's feeling? and the questions the possible answers twist her insides and makes it harder to breathe.
She lies it's so easy when he asks her about Dwight asking him why she was crying like she's his responsibility and she tells him it's part of the next CIA assignment although now she has to think up of something for that and he accepts it so quickly that it hurts that he can't see through her lie but before he leaves that evening he asks her to tell him if anything was wrong it's easy to lie again and she nods as she wonders if he's choosing not to see through the lie.
She doesn't she doesn't she doesn't want to show anything anything of what she thinks and knows and does and feels but something slips and all that she avoids showing ends up being shown and he notices because how would he not? and she runs away because she always does.
She feels bad when she's relieved when her newest friend confides that she'll be the next one to go because of some relationship problems so she tells herself promises herself to tell her what she wants to what she needs to and tells her to keep in touch and ignores him glancing at her before he grabs his coat and leaves.
She tells her everything everything from start to finish from side to side on the phone two weeks after she moves to New York and she in turn tells her to do it just do it before she breaks before she does something she shouldn't be doing and before he feels like he hasn't got a chance just like before.
She thinks a lot about the things she says her lies and how much they defer from what she thinks the truth and how she both of them can say one thing and look at the other in the eye and show a different meaning entirely: you can tell me anything to can't to we're friends but the strange part of it is that it makes sense because that's who they are because it's just like them silences.
She hates the parking lot it has an element of danger because she's already ridiculously bad with words but something about the parking lot dark and quiet and strangely intimate makes her stumble and grasp and ramble when she's trying to find the voice to be heard and she just messes everything up and it frustrates her but she wants to do things differently this time.
She gathers courage she steps closer and she disregards all the signs and decides to just be and she tells him and confesses to him how it takes two to tango and she's not the only one who made the mistakes but she didn't mean to do what she did she didn't want to break his heart but what had he expected from her from Boring Old Almost-Anderson Beesly?
She's broken the ice the silence and
She waits.
