When he finally stepped out of the way so that she could come into the apartment, Ris felt her heart sink. Sinking at last. She realized then she had already been cast off. After all, hadn’t she been bobbing in the water for these last few months? This was the line being cut at last.
"You didn't call?"
At that, her spine stiffened, hackles raising. He should've remembered that she wasn't afraid to argue with him. That very first night they'd met, they'd spent half of it bickering. He should have known better. A flare of anger licked at her insides. He had spent half of that autumn glued to her side, tendrilling around her, squeezing so hard sometimes she feigned having to go to thebathroom just to have a few minutes by herself. She had stood up her friends, been late to work, missed other commitments.And now he's going to fucking ask why didn't you call first?
"Would you have responded as I had?" Ris shot back, dropping the pizza boxes she carried on the counter. "Or would you have left me on read just long enough to get your point across before sending some half-assed excuse?"
His face screwed up, but she pushed him directly into the corner. There was nothing he could say to refute her words, because they were true and he knew it.
"I don't understand what happened with us, Ains. Like, at all. You went from wanting to spend every night together to ‘you didn't call first?’ Are you fucking kidding me? If you don’t want to see me anymore, just fucking say so. Don't string me along like I'm some stupid little 22-year-old following your band around town. You want to be involved with a grown-up? Then act like a fucking grown-up. I’m tired of the games."
Her words seem to hang in the apartment, a tangible cloud between them. Its opacity nearly blurred out the sight of him. The sharpness of her voice seemed to waver in the corners of his apartment’s high ceilings, and Ris wanted to snatch them back, stuff back every harsh word said in anger, hide them away where she couldn't cut him with their sharp edges.
"I've never been a very good grown-up," he said finally. "I'm pretty sure you've always known that."
"Maybe not, but we've always been good attalking, Ainsley." She crossed the room to him in exasperation. "Haven't we? We used to talk to each other about everything. Good communication, that's what we did.” Ris had latched onto his sleeves, desperation making her clutch tightly. “What happened? Just tell me what happened so that I can fix it."
He scoffed at her words, but allowed her to drop against him, relenting and enfolding her into his arms a moment later.
“I don’t think there’s anything to fix, Ris.”
His voice was low and flat, utterly resigned. Ris closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, as if she squeezed them tight enough, she could squeeze this moment out of existence.Take us back to five months ago.
"Don't tell me that," she murmured against his chest. "I refuse to accept that."
Sitting on his sofa wasn't what she wanted. She wanted them to laugh, wanted him to discuss his day at work and listen to her tell him about ballet, wanted to eat pizza and watch documentaries and go back to the way things were. But sitting on his sofa wasn't standing out in the hallway looking at his closed door.Take what wins you can.
"How is any of this supposed to be fixed, Nanaya?”
The sound of her nickname instantly set her a bit more at ease.Good. That’s good.
“How am I supposed to tell you what's wrong, when fuckingeverything is wrong? There's nothing for you to fix. Everything was already broken.”
Tears burned in her eyes at the anguish in his voice, her fingers twisting in her lap, but she said nothing, letting him get it out.
“Isn't that supposed to be my takeaway from the last four months? My whole life for the past however many fucking years was just one big puppet show and I'm the only one who wasn't getting paid?”
"That’s not true," Ris argued gently, laying her hand against his arm. "We'vebeen real. You had other good things happen in the last –"
"Have we?" His head swung around, pinning her to the spot on the sofa.
Ris felt frozen, the incredulous look on his face leaving her unable to draw breath.
"Has anythingactuallybeen real?” Ainsley had dropped back against the sofa, his tongue pushing out against his lower lip, tenting it against his tasks for a moment before he went on. "My best friend was just . . . what? Going through the motions? Putting together a really interesting diorama that looked like a life before deciding he was finished with it and walking away? My other friend lied about the diorama; has been lying the entire time we've known each other. And now I'm supposed to just do . . . what, exactly? Pretend he's dead? How do I do that? Do I have some sad, cautionary story I can tell about drunk driving or untreated depression? Am I supposed to take a can of coffee grounds and pretend that's him? Talk to it every day for catharsis? How am I supposed to feel, knowing that I was just a little cardboard cutout in his fake life? That I never actually mattered? How am I supposed to trust a single word Elshona ever says to me again? What am I supposed to do withanyof that?"
Ris realized she didn't have much experience with grief. Her parents and extended family were still alive and would be for years. She went back home a few times a year to visit, still took a trip with her parents every year to the seashore, and would visit with the same familiar faces she'd known growing up from the edge of the Elvish community. There was no one else in her life she knew well enough to have registered their absence, if they had passed on. Not in a way that affected her. She didn't know what it was to nurse an ailing relative, had never had to say goodbye prematurely to school friends or teachers or neighbors.And this is why elves stick together.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. "I don't know what anyone is supposed to do with this, Ains, any of it. But I don't think you're right. Not about all of it."
His head swung around, mouth twisting into a sneer. Ris could see the rebuttal forming on his lips, but she held up her hand and quickly went on.
"Ofcourseyou meant something, Ainsley. I don't know why you would think that. I don't know why you would think anyone who's ever met you would say you don't matter."
He rolled his eyes, head dropping back against the cushions. "Nanaya –"
"Do you know what Tate told me? Last year, after we went to the pig face party? You went to the bathroom, and he told me you would scrape your way into my heart and there was no getting rid of you after that. That there was no way to keep you out once you had decided you wanted in. Do you think hewasn'ttalking about himself? Of course you mattered, Ainsley."
“We were all just pawns, using us in this bullshit pretend game of—”
