[Ashley] It's raining tonight. Perhaps that's the best reminder that winter is soon to be over, that the world is waxing once more, that it's waking up. If you asked Ashley she'd say that it's remembering how to be alive - perhaps because it correlates so much with where she was at this time last year - but chances are no one would. It's the danger of heavily expressing one's more pragmatic aspects to others.
It's not yet warm enough to fool anyone into thinking it's spring, though. Ashley and Zane and Luka have spent a couple of uncomfortable weeks in spite of Ashley's command of the Ars Essentiae; sometimes there's only so much she can do, and the house is still bare. Until Friday it was still lit by candlelight.
When Jarod approaches it this evening, though, there's a warm glow coming out of the main room. Power. He's been here since they got back from New York, a couple of times this week: Ashley's father appears to have worked wonders with some of the structure of the house. The porch isn't sagging anymore; the railing is in one piece. The windows and the front door have been repaired. It looks less like a derelict and more like...well, a house.
Inside, it's largely still barren, though she at least has a bed to sleep in. He's seen that. It's clean inside. She just hasn't had much opportunity to fill it up yet. He is greeted, upon his arrival, with a tired smile just before she stands on tiptoe and kisses his cheek. "Hey. Look, heat."
[Jarod] He'd been careful, coming here. He was always careful: masking his resonance and parking his car a reasonable distance away. More often than not, he left it in the lot of a book store or coffee shop, making a detour there before walking over. He even turned his phone off.
And today he'd dressed in an outfit that wasn't quite so out of place here as some of the clothes she'd seen him wear. It was a Sunday - not a school day - and as such he was in casual attire (jeans and a long-sleeved burgundy t-shirt.) Ashley looked tired, but his smile was warm and friendly when bent down to accept the kiss. "I see that," he mused as he stepped inside, noting the change in temperature. "Ashley McGowan, moving up in the world. No longer living in a hovel." The words might have been construed as offensive, but his tone was light and playful. "Now you just need a working shower."
(Jarod would think of that, of course.)
He walked inside and found a place to hang his coat and take off his shoes. This was the first time he'd really been able to do that here, so it was noteworthy. Then he wandered back into the bedroom of his own accord and sat down on the edge of Ashley's new bed, lying back onto the mattress and crossing his arms underneath his head as he gazed up at the ceiling. "It's not a bad place to hide, really."
[Ashley] "I got my water hooked up when I got the electricity," she tells him, walking back toward her bedroom with him. He'll have to go up a stairway - she has one now - and there are several bedrooms upstairs. Empty, at present; she's taken the largest one. And, apparently, the other has been converted into a mundane study (the magical one is downstairs.)
Who knows how she managed to get the new bookshelves and new books up there.
Her room is largely still bare. The new clothes she's come by have been placed in the closet, and the battered doors have by now been replaced. Little by little, it's starting to look livable. She still doesn't have a dresser or an end table or a carpet or many of the things she had at her old apartment, but she'll come by those things in time, one would assume.
The violin case that had been downstairs when she first went to ground here is up here in her room now, propped up against the wall. And across the walls...black and white pictures. Some reprints of the ones that had been in her old room, some new ones. All framed.
"At least it smells a lot better than it did," she says, lowering herself onto the bed next to him. She edges a little closer, enough to drop her head into the crook of his shoulder and rest a hand on his stomach while they talk. There's a glance up and around at the photographs. "Justine sent me more copies of the pictures I had once she found out what happened."
[Jarod] Chances were, if Ashley was the sort of person who accepted help more easily, Jarod would have already tried to stock the new house with furniture and appliances. Someone with the kind of money that he made (he'd never actually told Ashley what that was, but judging by the way he always seemed to have plenty to toss around at a moment's notice, it was probably quite a bit - more lately than it had been before, even) probably had contingency plans for things like this. He probably could have renovated and re-furnished a house completely in a manner of days.
But that would have been patronizing, and anyway... he liked that Ashley was a self-sufficient person. It was one of her more attractive qualities. So he hadn't tried to press his assistance on her. She had her father for that. (And it was a fair bet that James Novotny was probably a bit more skilled at manual labor than Jarod was.) Ashley mentioned that it smelled better, and he agreed. "That it does." When she mentioned the pictures, his eyes shifted to take them in for a moment thoughtfully.
"Have you been keeping up with things at the chantry?"
[Ashley] Whatever help he might have tried to offer would have been summarily refused, so perhaps it's lucky he hasn't tried. Many of Chicago's magi have run afoul of Ashley's pride in the past. Many members of House Tytalus have strong feelings about its members accepting charity; this has been conditioned into her as much as the idea that her Will be done. She doesn't seem to be doing that badly, though, for all that: the bed is not as expensive as his, but it isn't cheap, and neither is the deep red spread covering it or the sheets beneath. The house is a little chill - spartan houses generally are, and this one is bare - but not more than to make one just mildly uncomfortable.
Her head tilts up a little when he asks about the chantry. There's a pause, one that indicates that the question is perhaps a touch unexpected - or one that she has to gather her thoughts before answering. "I'd been meaning to talk to you about that, actually," she says. "I didn't want to lead anyone there, so I haven't gone for the past few weeks. But I was thinking about stepping back anyway."
She knows he will ask. So she doesn't give him long to sit on that information. Her fingertips are idly brushing up and down over the fabric of his shirt; she doesn't seem to notice. "I kind of had a falling out with Israel a couple weeks ago, right before the Technocracy came to my apartment." There's an audible breath, not one laden with emotion but just meant to be bracing before she explains. "Remember the rogue Technocrat I told you about? I guess Emily didn't pass along the information about that to Solomon, who...is officially her mentor, I guess. Israel confronted me about it. I didn't actually want Solomon involved because if he had been a lot of it would've been out of my hands, but I didn't tell Emily to keep him out of it, either. Israel blamed me for a lot of it though, and said stuff about how she'd been right to curb what I could do politically back in July and how she'd been willing to give me a chance but she was wrong."
He might remember the night she'd come to his apartment, upset; she hadn't told him what the problem was. She hadn't even mentioned it to him, point in fact, though he'd picked up on her emotional state - and said precisely what she'd needed to hear. She doesn't sound overly emotional about it now; Ashley often takes on a matter-of-fact tone with these things once she's had a chance to gain distance. "Anyway, I'm...really tired of it and I don't have the time or inclination for internal conflict when there are other problems."
She runs a hand back through her hair. "I was talking to Tom and he said he'd found a separate node. It's unstable and it needs to be tended before it's usable, but it would be another option."
[Jarod] Jarod's comprehension of this situation was unfortunately limited in some regards, as he'd never met Solomon and consequently knew little to nothing about him. It was a name he'd heard mentioned maybe once or twice. Israel he'd only met briefly, and the finer details of chantry politics had never been a matter of importance to him. He liked to know what was going on insofar as it might affect him in some way, or possibly make for useful background knowledge, but the reality was that more often than not he genuinely didn't give a shit. The world was a lot bigger than one smallish group of Awakened beings who happened to claim ownership over a couple of useful resources. (And he was a lot safer if he didn't attempt to ally himself with them.)
One could make the argument that his relationship (such as it was) with Ashley may not be the best choice for staying under the radar either. Then again, it always helped to have powerful friends in high places, so perhaps in her case it was a risk he was willing to take. (Or maybe... he just really liked her.) He'd asked after the chantry mostly because he knew that it was a major part of her life, but the answer she gave him wasn't what he'd been expecting. He turned his head to regard her more directly, and couldn't help but laugh quietly when she mentioned what Emily had done. His humor sobered when Ashley mentioned how Israel had interpreted this.
"Sounds like she was just looking for a reason to be angry with you. If Emily isn't communicating with her mentor, that's his problem, not yours. Mentors are bullshit anyway. This isn't a feudal system. We aren't fucking beholden to people."
Of course he would say that. Ashley may or may not agree. It might also be fair to suspect Jarod of having a bias, given his history with the Singer and his general worldview. Either way, he wasn't the type to try and convince Ashley to reconsider her point of view. She said she was tired of it - that she didn't have the time or the energy. What he heard was: I'm sick of the bullshit. When she mentioned a second node though... his eyebrows went up. The look was something akin to a mix of surprise and selfish interest.
"So resign," he said, as if it weren't a big or complicated decision at all. "No point bothering if you aren't getting something out of it."
[Ashley] The Order of Hermes has very different ideas than Jarod about the relationship of mentor to student. This is the sort of perspective on it that Ashley has been brought up with, as a Willworker - rather similar to Solomon's, overall. Still..."That's what I said," she says, of Emily. "It's not my problem if he can't control his student. I mean, I did actively choose not to involve him myself, but I didn't exactly set up a campaign to keep him out of it."
Jarod might indeed be biased; if he is, Ashley either takes this into account or chooses not to care. His feelings for Emily, or what he might once have felt for Emily, are rather inconsequential given the situation.
He tells her to resign. Simply. Ashley doesn't seem to take the brevity of his answer poorly; for her, it really is a do-or-don't sort of decision, the same way it is for him. She's more heavily invested, of course, which necessitates more thorough consideration, but her mind is largely made up about the entire affair already. It must be, or she probably wouldn't even be discussing it with him.
"That was my thought," she says. "It no longer seems worth the investment to me. But given that I'll be barred access to the node, I wanted to have something else lined up before I cut myself off." She glances up at him then. "I thought you might know enough to tend the one Tom found until I can handle it on my own."
Implicit: she wants it there in front of him so he knows she's not manipulating him. She's not ordering him or commanding him to do it; this has the tone of a request - as much as anything Ashley says can, anyway.
[Jarod] Ashley's interpretation of Jarod's comment about Emily and Solomon was slightly different than his own had been, and he noticed the difference. Had they been talking about someone he didn't know or care about, he probably would have just smirked and let it go. For as antagonistic as Jarod could be, he didn't like to be wasteful with his time and energy. Arguments were something he needed to be invested in. They needed to seem to him like they had some definitive purpose beyond the clashing of Wills, or else he viewed it as wasteful - in much the same way that one might view lighting money on fire or throwing away perfectly good food.
But they weren't talking about just any person. They were talking about Emily. Jarod's jaw clicked, and he shot Ashley what looked like an irritated glance when she said the words: not my problem if he can't control his student. It angered him enough that he actually disentangled from her and sat up.
He let her continue speaking though. And he listened to her idea for the new Node without comment at first, mulling these things over in his head.
"You want me to try and stabilize a new node. That currently belongs to... Tom." He shot her an incredulous look before standing up and pacing a few steps away. "And you think this guy Solomon's problem isn't that he's too controlling, but that he's not controlling enough? That is fucking bullshit, Ashley. If he was trying to control her, then fucking good for her if she didn't let him."
[Ashley] Jarod pulls away, and Ashley is actually a little surprised when he does. There's a flicker of confusion in her eyes as they trail after him when he rises, and she raises herself up onto her elbows. She doesn't know what she said to make him angry, or even why he would be - that much is obvious.
"If you don't want to do it," she says, when he shoots her that look after mentioning the node, "I'm learning on my own anyway." Her tone is...not quite indifferent, but there's something steeled about it. She probably hadn't expected him to say he would do it in the first place; she's prepared for a refusal. She's reminding him that she's perfectly capable of doing it on her own if he does refuse.
Debate about mentorship...well, that illuminates the issue a little more clearly for her - or, at least, why he got angry. She's known other people to get angry before when she's said similar things. She knows it isn't something people like to hear.
"I'm saying it's a weakness on his part if he can't get her to do his Will as her mentor," Ashley says, "not a good or bad thing. And a strength on hers. That's what a mentor does. I mean - I agree, good for Emily, particularly if she's decided to pick and choose what was useful to her from him and she didn't let herself be controlled. I didn't say it as a moral judgment."
[Jarod] He might have taken claim for that himself if he'd thought to. One of the first things he'd told Emily was not to trust other people's agendas, and to always believe only what she wanted to believe. He'd told her not to let other people control her - even him. But he didn't think to take credit for that, for the same reason that he'd gotten angry at the implication that Solomon had failed in some way by not controlling her - because Emily was a person, not a lump of clay, and she made her own choices.
Ashley's further explanation soothed his irritation a little, at least enough that he no longer felt upset. When Jarod was angry, his nostrils tended to flare a bit when he breathed. It was subtle, but anyone who spent a lot of time closely watching him would notice the tell-tale cue. He'd done it a moment ago. Now he stopped.
"That's not what mentors do. That's what controlling assholes do. The whole point of teaching someone something is to make them better able to control their own lives." He rolled his eyes when he said that, the expression one of resigned nihilism. As if to imply, despite his statement, that he knew perfectly well that most supposedly wise people were not any less self-motivated than the rest of them.
And he hadn't actually told her he wouldn't help with the node, but he certainly hadn't said that he would either (and given their history, she had no reason to think that he'd be easy to convince.) Ashley's not-quite-indifferent comment didn't really do much to help, as evidenced by his eventual summary of the matter.
"Well since you can handle everything yourself, you don't really need me, do you?" His voice sounded calm now though, and he sat down on the bed again.
[Ashley] [Be sensitive, Ashley, be sensitive...]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Ashley] "When have you ever known someone to teach someone anything without an agenda?" Ashley asks him, glancing at him sidelong out of the corner of her eye. "If you teach an apprentice something, you're teaching them your beliefs. You're furthering your own Will through them. Some people are just more blatant about it than others."
She didn't take an apprentice as a result. For a long time. Perhaps she acquired Morgan because she believed herself capable of using her, or believed Morgan was the kind of person she could use. Maybe it was something else. Maybe her idea of getting other people to do her Will is simply more broad than other people generally interpret - or than she wants them to interpret, from what she says.
By the time he's seated himself again she's already pushed herself into a sitting position, her knees drawn up against her chest and an arm wrapped around them. She watches him as he sits. For a long moment.
"I don't need you," she says, "but that doesn't mean I don't want your help." A beat. "But it's...I know it's a lot to ask. So if you don't want to do it, I meant I'll do it on my own."
[Jarod] "Having an agenda isn't the same thing as thinking you have the right to control another person's life," he said quietly. "If I'd believed that, Emily would be a Verbena."
Ashley had been critical of his methods and motivation with Emily, once. Many people had been, and perhaps not entirely without merit. But that was a long time ago. All three of them were different people now.
I don't need you, she said, and it was probably the truth. He didn't seem upset by that so much as... distant. Like he'd pulled into himself and shut off his thoughts from outside contact. This wasn't an unusual reaction for him. He often became aloof when he had a lot of things on his mind. Less with her lately, but that... wasn't saying much. He didn't return her gaze, choosing instead to stare at the wall - at the pictures hung there.
"I'll think about it," he finally responded, and for what it was worth he didn't sound like he was trying to blow her off. Perhaps he just needed a bit of time to mull the whole thing over.
[Ashley] Perhaps it's for the better that Jarod did not grow upset. If he had, there would have been very little Ashley could have done to reassure him or assuage him. Ashley knows better than to allow herself to need other people. The fact is, life is conflict. The fact is, when you need a thing the way you need to breathe or eat or feel joy you're broken when it's torn away from you. When you need a thing you forget how to live without it.
"People manifest their control differently," Ashley says, "but it is what it is. You try to get the rest of the world to do your Will. It's part of living."
She looks toward him again. She can tell he's closed off or shut himself away, but she doesn't know why. Not precisely. Moreover, even if she had a few accurate guesses - and she may - there isn't much she can say to make it better or make it different. They are what they are.
He says he'll think about it, and she just nods once. "Okay."
[Jarod] His eyes shifted and he looked at her for a long moment. There was a light huff of breath, possibly something akin to amusement, though it seemed a bit cold. She wasn't really wrong. He didn't try to tell her that she was, though another person probably would have. That didn't stop it from bothering him a little though. An observant person might point out the irony. It wouldn't have been lost on him.
"I should go," he said. "Ilana's home by herself."
He touched her knee gently with his hand as he stood up, a lingering trace of connection before he disengaged completely.
[Ashley] There are times when Ashley would like very much to be proven wrong. Perhaps one of the things she wants - almost as much as music - is to voice that analysis of the world and her own pragmatic approach and see someone else flagrantly defy everything she's observed about how the world works. No one has. Maybe it's a confirmation bias and maybe it's because it's cold hard truth; she's erred on the side of the latter for a long time.
When he announces his intention to go, her eyes meet his and she just stares at him for a long moment. He wouldn't be mistaken if he thought he saw some anger there, but it's hard to tell where it springs from or why. Maybe there's no real reason to it.
If there isn't, it would explain why she doesn't give voice to it, at least. "All right," she says. "I'll see you."
[Jarod] [Someone's being a hypocriiiite... does he notice?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Ashley] Given what happened recently with Israel, it probably isn't the best time to expect Ashley to be particularly trusting of other people and their motivations. He doesn't know the extent of her friendship with Israel - or with Kage, or with Thomas, or with Emily - but there's still a lot of lingering hurt from it. There are a lot of other things playing into her mood here, but they're difficult to guess at: there are a lot of things about her pre-Chicago life that she hasn't told him about. There are a lot of things about her Chicago life that she hasn't told him about.
He might suspect that much like him, vocalization of her worldview has been a thing that puts a distance between herself and other people. She's used to this being one of the ways in which they react. She's not surprised. A little hurt, perhaps, but not surprised - and utterly unrepentant for having argued what she argued. When she says she'll see him there's some uncertainty that she will, or that things will be the same if she does.
All of it makes her angry. She's angry a lot; it's better than being upset.
to Jarod
[Jarod] Ashley was angry. In truth, he was angry too, but for whatever reason he didn't seem to want to acknowledge it. Perhaps he thought that it made him weak. Perhaps he'd taken what she'd said to heart - that everyone tried to make everyone else do their Will. Perhaps he remembered other things she'd said in the past as well.
But he did catch the look she gave him, and he wasn't unobservant enough to claim that he didn't understand the complexities of what was going on. It meant that if he ignored them, it was by choice. Maybe Ashley knew that. Maybe that was part of the reason why she was angry. But perceptive people could be just as selfish and cold as ignorant ones. Sometimes they needed to be, to protect themselves.
She said all right. She said she'd see him. He paused for a moment, watching her.
"It's not that simple," he finally said. "Everyone tries to survive. Everyone uses everyone else to get the things that they want. That doesn't mean that people aren't capable of doing things for selfless reasons, or of caring about things that are bigger than themselves. If I believed what you'd just said to me, we wouldn't be friends. I'd have just fucked you and then moved on with my life like I do with everybody else. Because people who think that they have any right to control me aren't worth one single second of my time."
[Ashley] Perhaps she considers responding by reiterating her point that others manifest control differently, that he won't find someone that doesn't - except, no. There's Justine. There's Kage. They haven't ever struck her as trying to get her to do what they wanted (perhaps they have, but she hasn't noticed.) Ashley has, particularly during her Awakened life, been something that other people found it necessary to control - her anger and her nihilism and her obvious strength would be dangerous if left totally unchecked.
It is most certainly affecting her opinion now. It's the experience she has to draw from. If the problem is her, even partially, maybe she doesn't even realize. She doesn't have that perspective, that ability to view herself from an outside lens.
She looks back at him, the delicate line of her jaw harsh and tensed, the whites of her eyes clearly visible. She considers a lot of responses; some are rational, some are things that would be said out of hurt or anger. At the moment, she can't tell which is which. So she says nothing. And eventually some of the anger drains out of her, and it just leaves...
She isn't sure what. Something hollow. Her nostrils flare a little as she releases a long breath. "Forget it," she says. "I'm just...tired. I can't even remember if this has a point. But I'm not...trying to control you. I just don't want you to control me."
Someone more perceptive, or at least more self-aware, might see the irony in that - in the way they circle around each other trying to avoid it. She does not.
[Jarod] Ashley was quiet for a long time as she attempted to process what she was feeling, and Jarod watched her with an expression that looked more placid than he probably felt. He was better at masking his emotions than she was, mostly because he cared about it more.
She couldn't remember if this had a point. It didn't, really. Whatever points either of them had wanted to make had already been made, and in both cases they were largely arguing not with each other but with the world at large.
"Do you think that I am?" he asked quietly, and after a long moment he shifted to sit down beside her on the bed once more. His pose this time was different - perched, not relaxed. Ready to move again in short order if such a thing were required.
[Ashley] He sits back down on the bed. Ashley isn't looking at him; her eyes have found a place on the wall across from her. A place where a dresser or a mirror would normally be; she had one there, before, in the room before this. There's nothing there now. The wall is bare and slightly scuffed. The entire place needs to be repainted.
She lets out a slow breath, a measured one, and then says, "For a while I thought you might be trying. People usually fuck the head of a chantry for a reason." And Jarod, well, he isn't too involved in mage society at large and he's remained out of affairs in Chicago. It isn't hard to see what benefits the relationship has for him. Protection, for both himself and his daughter. Favor.
But she stopped being concerned with that, or wondering about it, a while ago. After a moment, she shrugs. "I mean, that's just...what people do. I've said that. It's not a you thing." Her hand shifts gradually, raises upward to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I'm just trying to enjoy whatever I can get out of this. I don't want to think about it."
Even this, in pieces though it is, is quite a lot for her to divulge about her emotional state. That she's making an effort at all says something - even if it's still not much to go off of.
[Jarod] "If I cause you that much anxiety, Ashley, then you probably shouldn't be friends with me. There are plenty of less threatening, and probably less selfish people out there for you to spend time with." He pointed this out with a calmly observational tone, though there was a flicker of something sad in his expression.
"Anyway, contrary to popular opinion, knowing you is more of a liability for me than a benefit." He gestured around them at the old house, still in need of so many repairs, as if to remind her that danger tended to follow on the heels of ambition. Especially for people like Ashley who were willful and fearless enough to pursue their goals without much regard for who they happened to piss off along the way. "At least, it would be if that was why I spent time with you. For favors."
Which implied, of course, that it wasn't. But Ashley knew that. They'd moved past the point of wondering at motives by now, surely.
"I think," he said quietly, "that you're afraid I'm going to hurt you, and you don't want to give me that kind of power." A pause as he watched her, noting whatever reaction she might have to that. "There isn't anything I can say to make you feel better. The situation is what it is. When you care about people, they can hurt you. And they will. You'll hurt them too. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it."
(To decide if I'm worth it.)
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry that the world is such a shitty place. I'm sorry that people have hurt you." And that... was really all he could say, without knowing details. But he leaned in and wrapped his arm around her waist, gently so that she could pull away if it wasn't what she wanted.
[Ashley] Jarod offers up his assessment of the situation, and he can tell by the way she looks over at him and then away that he has the right of it. The hand on the bridge of her nose slides down to tug at her lower lip instead, an expression that is somewhere between pensive and abashed flickering across her face. Ashley does not like to be afraid of anything - but here, he's spoken the truth, and she won't lie by denying it.
It isn't quite a fear - though fear is present. She knows this will end in getting hurt. Everything ends, and in her experience it ends sooner rather than later.
"It's worth it," she says, with that same certainty. Tired, but with a deep conviction that springs out of somewhere, the core she usually keeps hidden and shrouded in shadow. That same hunger. "I just wish there was another way than..."
But she stops. Because wishing doesn't do anything, not without Will, and he's wrapping an arm around her. Like before when she's been upset, it takes her a moment to accept the gesture. She wraps an arm around him, a little more tightly than the one he has around her - she's less thoughtful about staying gentle. And after a few moments she says, "Earlier, I didn't...I didn't mean it the way I think you thought. Like with Morgan, it's...I want her to be happy. I want her to be self-sufficient and do all of the things she wants. That's my Will. I want the same thing for you."
There's a reluctance in how she says it. As though she's admitting to something, or offering up a secret, or...well, it doesn't matter. Listening to her speak there can't be much doubt as to her sincerity.
[Jarod] Jarod was fairly certain that most of what he'd just said would not have been construed as reassuring by most people, so there was some small flicker of surprise when Ashley calmed a bit and leaned into him. That may have been less to do with him and more to do with her own desire to simply let the matter rest, but either way... it wasn't what he'd been expecting.
He pulled her into his side more tightly and leaned down to bury his nose in her hair, kissing the side of her head gently. "I know you didn't," he responded when she tried to explain what she'd meant earlier - when he'd gotten upset. "You were just... being you." Which could have come off as insulting were it not for the note of warmth in his voice. (Maybe it did anyway.) He didn't take the thought to its conclusion, however. (I got angry because I care about her too.) Maybe Ashley had already figured that out on her own.
"I'm not any good at this," he finally admitted with a frustrated sigh. "I'm sorry. I was being moody. I... really do need to get back, though."
[Ashley] She was just being her. Ashley doesn't seem to take it as an insult; there's a gentle huff of wry laughter, in fact. There's a note of warmth there too - because she was being her and he's still here. Because he's understood things she didn't say, and he actually came to the right conclusions, and that's more than she can say for most people.
"I'm not good at it either," she says. She could apologize too, but she doesn't - less because she doesn't want to or wouldn't than because she isn't sure what she would be apologizing for. What she should be apologizing for - whether it would be just because he was hurt by what she said or for all the things she is or for all the things she is not.
But he has an eleven-year-old who is home by herself, and right now they both know it isn't a good idea for her to be anywhere near his home. "Okay," she says, and kisses his cheek before she pulls away. "I'll see you soon," a wry smile, "and I'll do my best not to piss you off."
Or maybe she just means she'll do her best not to hurt him. That, too, goes unsaid.
