[ It should be the easiest, quickest no in the world. He's the kind of guy she would've enjoyed hustling back at Shorty's, putting her tab on his card and cash and disappearing before it was deep enough into the night for him to start patting his pockets for a hotel room key. She even opens her mouth to say it, before shutting it again, abrupt.
There's no right choice when you're the problem. Things she can't stop thinking — there's no happy ending here for her, and not for Edward, either, if he sticks with her, which he will because he's the most loyal man she's ever met, she'll have to run him off like a dog if she wants to break this connection, fling rocks and sticks at him and yell at him to go away while she hopes he doesn't see that the thing she hates about this could never be him, it's always only her —
And that buzzing, circling thought that she can hear in his Russian and her own English, the two languages merging easily and without any sign that neither of them should be able to understand each other (she understands him all too well; not like Edward, who right now feels like an extension of herself and vice versa, but like looking into a slightly warped mirror) and saying one thing over and over again: I can't go back. I need to get away.
I need to escape.
She presses her lips together, then breathes out in an aggravated puff through her nose, nostrils flaring, before she jerks her head toward the path that leads out of town. ]
No place around here to drink, so you may as well tag along with me.
no subject
There's no right choice when you're the problem. Things she can't stop thinking — there's no happy ending here for her, and not for Edward, either, if he sticks with her, which he will because he's the most loyal man she's ever met, she'll have to run him off like a dog if she wants to break this connection, fling rocks and sticks at him and yell at him to go away while she hopes he doesn't see that the thing she hates about this could never be him, it's always only her —
And that buzzing, circling thought that she can hear in his Russian and her own English, the two languages merging easily and without any sign that neither of them should be able to understand each other (she understands him all too well; not like Edward, who right now feels like an extension of herself and vice versa, but like looking into a slightly warped mirror) and saying one thing over and over again: I can't go back. I need to get away.
I need to escape.
She presses her lips together, then breathes out in an aggravated puff through her nose, nostrils flaring, before she jerks her head toward the path that leads out of town. ]
No place around here to drink, so you may as well tag along with me.
[ God, they really need a saloon. ]