( unhelpfully, her stomach somersaults into a confused belly-flop — the moment of dread right before you fall face-first into the deep end of a pool, waiting for the hard, bone-breaking impact. it's endearingly like paul to invite her to have the floor, letting her voice be heard first, ever the dukely gentleman. but she hates him a little for it, too, in the moment, feeling more like she's being invited to march first to an execution as paul watches her dangle guiltily on her own hangman's noose, doing nothing to alleviate a slow death.
stiff, she nods, all of her knobby parts bumping into his as she shifts, fussing for comfort she won't find. the nearness makes it worse, somehow, as though — she won't be able to disentangle herself, unknot the parts of herself that live inside him, given over to him, if he decides he's done with her. her fault, alina thinks, for forgetting herself. for getting too comfortable with him, her place in his chest cavity, living inside of someone else's home. )
I ... I don't know where to start. ( it's a deliberate distraction, plucking at the purple bracelet wound around his wrist. not for long, maybe, alina's fingers snapping it back and forth like he'll leave me, he'll leave me nots, stalling for time — hoping she'll find a prophetic answer there, rather than in paul's reaction to a bomb dropped into his lap, liable to blow up in alina's face. ) You know I've been with other people.
( a poor start. the coward inside of her wants to say it didn't mean anything, it was an accident — an unfairness to alia, alina knows, whose only ever been kind to her. alina's fingers drop, picking at her knuckles, peeling back layers of paint glued to her skin. her eyes fall to watch, speaking to her fumbling hands. )
Not on purpose. It's — Otherworld. That place has a way of getting in your head. ( a hasty, rambling continuation. that's truer, even if she thinks of sharing warm, lakeside kisses with alia, innocently girlish. ) But I owe you the truth of who I've been with.
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stiff, she nods, all of her knobby parts bumping into his as she shifts, fussing for comfort she won't find. the nearness makes it worse, somehow, as though — she won't be able to disentangle herself, unknot the parts of herself that live inside him, given over to him, if he decides he's done with her. her fault, alina thinks, for forgetting herself. for getting too comfortable with him, her place in his chest cavity, living inside of someone else's home. )
I ... I don't know where to start. ( it's a deliberate distraction, plucking at the purple bracelet wound around his wrist. not for long, maybe, alina's fingers snapping it back and forth like he'll leave me, he'll leave me nots, stalling for time — hoping she'll find a prophetic answer there, rather than in paul's reaction to a bomb dropped into his lap, liable to blow up in alina's face. ) You know I've been with other people.
( a poor start. the coward inside of her wants to say it didn't mean anything, it was an accident — an unfairness to alia, alina knows, whose only ever been kind to her. alina's fingers drop, picking at her knuckles, peeling back layers of paint glued to her skin. her eyes fall to watch, speaking to her fumbling hands. )
Not on purpose. It's — Otherworld. That place has a way of getting in your head. ( a hasty, rambling continuation. that's truer, even if she thinks of sharing warm, lakeside kisses with alia, innocently girlish. ) But I owe you the truth of who I've been with.