He watches her try to be nonchalant, her arm wrapped tightly across her stomach (as if to keep everything inside from tumbling out), fingers playing with the charm on her necklace. Fingers that itched to do something different than type on a keyboard and push buttons on a phone. She's unsure, but so, so excited. And really, no one deserves it more than she does.

He tells her she should take it. It's not wrong to want something more.

It's not so much an argument, what they have. It's more like her pretending not to believe him, doing whatever she can to stay together, stay in one place, stay in one piece. Pretending that she hadn't been shot down.

He doesn't have to look too close at her as he leaves to notice she'd been crying.

=======

She's been through enough of those times in her own life to know what's going on. She recognizes the look. When she approaches him, she wonders if she's out of line. How could it ever be her business? But he's a friend. Just a friend.

Friends tell each other everything.

He does, too, and maybe for a moment it's too much, more than she wants to hear. Maybe she wants to agree with him, say it's too close too soon. But maybe she wants to be bigger than that. Better than that. Not only for him, but for herself, too.

She watches him watching her closely as he leaves that night, with someone else by his side, and hopes he doesn't notice she'd been crying.