(taken and edited from live writing. Thanks, Terry!)



When Melanie finally left the Outback, her steps were cautious, almost shy. She knew she'd been wrong. The splash of green, mint green, that spread across her chest by way of a form fitted tank to, would likely not be enough to push away the fact that she'd been wrong. Her outburst, wrong. The toxic nature of her words had been pointed at the wrong target. Light steps took her towards a bench filled by the familiar form and a slight glow, the end of a cancer stick. As she stepped closer, she hesitated before falling into a seat near Terry. "I'm sorry." Simple words, a rare confession.



Her second one, the cigarette that is, with a long pause between the two of them. The first had been left discarded on hard ground in front of her while the other pressed to her lips once more for a drag. She exhaled to the side while eyes seemed to be focused on the touch screen she held. Idle thumb swiping off and on -- going through the photos of a gallery. One which held photos of the woman who took a seat by her side. Terry curled a finger the instant she caught a glimpse of Mel's form and locked the phone; the light fading to return to a darkened screen. Two words, simple words at that, were taken in. Terry's lips pursed some in thought before she replied. "I'm not ashamed of bein' seen with you." She looked to her. "Okay?"


"I'd have liked if you'd have asked me." Her words were almost pained, though she surely glanced down at the phone. Curious. No questions were asked as she looked away. It probably wasn't any of her business. Another sigh pressed fingers to her lips, it blew past her mouth. "I know." Two more words, that was all for now. As her fingers twisted into the fabric of her top, she lost a black stare into the dark night. "But, Terry, can I tell you something real?" Finally, she risked a glance to her side.


The burning stick held between her fingers had been left to do just that without the aid of curled lips. Soon enough, Terry would drop it from her lightly pinched grip and allow it to fall to the concrete. Sandal rose and fell to snuff out the cigarette as she replied. "I tried. Then Izumi got upset, then you did.. I can't even win at losin' in these things." She'd admit. Her body hunched so that arms could press to somewhat bent begs. Her hands grasping at one another. She'd peer up at Melanie. "You can tell me anything."


Before she spoke, Melanie laughed, she laughed loud. "Don?t blame everyone else." That had to be said. As Terry slumped, Melanie shrugged and pressed her body along the other woman's shoulder, close. Almost intimate. "Look, I know you and I know myself. If someone asked me who I was in love with? I'd know the answer. I also know reality." She seemed, for a moment, sad. Poetically sad. "I know what we are, I know what we can be tonight, you know? And I know what we'll be tomorrow. All I'm saying is this." It faded, the moment. Blunt and honest, though no less sincere. "If it's behind closed doors, that's fine, but there it stays, you know? I want something more, and if you can give it, I'd love that. If you can't, I'll still love you and I won't hold it against you. We're different people, yeah?"


"I have a feeling we'd have the same answer." Terry would admit within the close space between each other. Terry's expression fell more. Her eyes half lidded and her lips pressed into a thin line. "Honestly, what I want? I want you to be happy.. What makes me happy is our time together, but -- our style of happiness is prolly two different things, you know? I enjoy bein' with you, an' I'm not even talkin' about sex.. Real talk." Terry slowly set a hand to Melanie's knee. "Even without that, I'd be what I am with you know. Even with all the fightin' and rough times, I'm always gonna be your friend.. What I'm gettin' at is, I know I can't give you what you want, an' it pains me too."


"I want someone who will hold my hand in public and kiss my cheek when people are around, you know?" Hearing Terry speak, she dropped a hand on top of the other woman's, each finger seeking one of Terry's. They were alone, there was no one else, no cameras. "It is." Her words were quiet, they were short whispers in the relative darkness. Quickly, Melanie turned her face to the side, she'd not show the layer of sadness that came with the soft squeeze she applied to Terry's fingers. "I know, I know on both accounts. I know it does, I do. I don't blame you. You're you and and I'm me, right? No one's wrong, no one's right. It is what it is, I guess."


Terry swallowed back roughly. The urge to speak what her heart truly felt, yet a part of her kept it at bay. Why open up? Why let it out and give way to possible pain in the future? She looked down at her own lap for the moment and thought over her options, but in the end -- the truth had been what finally left her lips. "I want that.. I wanna hold your hand an' kiss your cheek." She looked back to the Outback. "In there, when you kissed me? I didn't want it to stop." Her fingers curled about Melanie's own and returned the squeeze. Terry's form them shifted, her back meeting the bench while head gave a tilt back so that she could look up at the sky. "Why am I even sayin' this though?" The question more for herself than Melanie. She'd let out a long breath then.


"Prove it." The words came quickly. She'd recently learned to stick up for herself, to fight for herself, not everyone else. "Because, Terry, right now, I won't buy it. You didn't want it to stop, but you didn't chase it." She shook her head, dark strands thrown across her shoulders. "I'm not being mean, I'm being real. Something I've not been with anyone else." She risked yet another glance, another serious thing. "I'm glad you met Rick, because while it won't ever work with he and I, it might with me and someone else, you know?" She caught Terry's glance, she followed it and looked up. "I'm not saying no, but I'm saying this." For some reason, Melanie's hand reached up and wiped a dark swipe across darker, black eyes. "Like I said, I'll never hold anything against you, and we'll be friends. but how much longer is it going to last? I'm an adult, I am. I'll get it, and not a lot will change, but you said it best. My idea of happiness isn't dances where no one can see. Your's might be, and that's fine, I mean it. But, I like the light, and if someone else can give me that, so be it."


"I don't like 'em.. but, that's because I'm the jealous type." She continued to stare up at the sky, unwilling or perhaps even scared to look into Melanie's gaze. "That's how I know I love someone.. an' then I realize, I prolly make others feel that way all the time." A weak willed, almost forced laugh let out there. "Prove it.." She muttered those words to herself. It was then that she leaned a little forward and looked back into the night across from them. "I've never been good at these sort of talks.. Usually, my relationships never get to this point."


"Is this the usual relationship, Terry?" She wasn't quitting, she wasn't giving up. "You do, and it fucks with all of us, because while you can come to us, we can't come to you because, if we do, there's always a phone call, there's always a text. I'm saying this and I'm saying it now, Terry. I'm not leaving what we are, but the clock's running out. You're playing a losing game." Melanie's sigh was longer, her expression quicker. Terry looked back up, Melanie looked to the side, away. Her fingers went limp, though she didn't pull them away. Not yet. "All I'm asking for is answers, not promises, and you can't even look into my eyes, Terry? Really?" Again, her head shook, this time quickly, almost harshly. "Maybe if you tried a bit more, they would. Did you ever think about that? People walk away for a reason, Terry. Some are crazy, we can both name one of them, but some probably really did try, and when you push them far enough, they keep going."


She drew in a breath and held it. Her gaze lowered, then leveled upon Melanie. She'd watch the woman shake her head, and once growing tired of seeing the sway of beautiful hair -- it would be then that she reached in. Cautious fingers, almost unsure in their touch, sought to guide their gaze to one another by pressing to a well sculpted chin. Terry's heart beat faster than it should. Nervous, unsure of herself -- it was a feeling she usually ran away from; but here she was. "Melanie, I love you." Something said once before, but felt oddly different from her lips. Her jaw set some. All she could do is stare. Only after some moments did she finally speak again. "I'm sorry." It was her turn to say it. "Not jus' about the prom, or now.. Jus', about everything."


"Thank you." For the fact that eyes had found hers, pools of blackness shot through with dark purple, bolts of lightning within a stormy sky. When she felt familiar, fond figures rest along her chin, she went with the motion, she turned in for what she'd been expected. What had been expected so often of her. The words, however, when lips were not pressed to hers, drew a pause, a noticeable one. Almost shy, so far from the arrogance she typically she displayed, she drew her chin down, though she did so within the confines of Terry's fingers, entirely unwilling to leave the comforting hold. She'd been told these words twice, just two times. Once in this city, once in a dead world, something gone and far away. "I love you too." Whispered against Terry's fingers, her lips barely moved. "I don't want sorry. I want to know where this goes from here so I can know how to handle myself. I know you're speaking the truth, but while I'll buy that, that leaves so much open to question, yeah? I've got all the faith in the world when it comes to you, Terry, so long as you want to do something. I just don't know if you want that...." They were quiet, almost hopeful, almost scared. Quiet, soft.


A slow stroke of fingers along the Mando's jaw, followed with a slow lean forwad. She drew closer to Melanie, but still kept away enough for shadows to not completely overtake the woman's features. "I want you.." She truly did. She longed for the woman. The urge to wrap her within her arms, to draw her in close -- it is all there; but the one thing keeping it back would soon be aired. "I'm weak.. an' I'm selfish. I'm not a good person.. an' right now, it's prolly soundin' like I'm making excuses, but this is me tellin' the truth. I love you Melanie, but I love you enough to know I ain't good enough for you.. an' all I do is hurt you.


"It doesn't sound like excuses." She'd heard the words quickly enough, she'd turned her face away from fingers, her entire body away from Terry. "It's funny, King..." The lack of the personal name, something replaced by the formal name, was ominous. "you'll fight for an Opal or a Barony if you want it, but you won't fight for me. You'll risk that, a loss there, but you won't risk it here. It doesn't sound like an excuse, it sounds like 'I don't care enough to try.' That's what it sounded like, a whole lot like that, champ." Another name, another nickname she offered to the masses. "I get that, and what hurts me is that, the fact that you'll tell me you love me but you won't even try to make it reality, rather you'll be scared of yourself and here we'll sit, again, like we always have, each looking the other way. Why even fucking say it?" Plaintive, the words, almost pleading. "Bridges burn quickly, and this I've come to realize, I have. You love me enough to let me know that you don't think you're good enough, so you'll let me walk away, but you don't love me enough to try to be good enough. That's all you just said."


"Why should I change myself?" There they were. So close one moment, yet so apart the next. Terry slouched once more, her fingers curling and grasping one another. "Why should I be somethin' I'm not? Why does it have to be me who changes myself.." She saw through her own words, the error of them all. It was as Melanie said -- because it pushes others away when they want something more in return and in the end, she'd be alone. Terry, knowing this, dipped her head and pressed her hands to either side of her skull. "I said it, because I mean it.. But what do I do? I love Daxia, I fuckin' love you.. but I can't have it all, an' in the end I'm hurtin' someone." She lowered her hands and looked to the other woman. "I don't know." She shook her head then. "I jus' don't know."


This was always going to be the choice she made, the decision she made in the depths of so many nights, so much shadow. She turned again, she looked honest, more open than before. This time, wide eyes leaked, black things were shimmering fountains. "An easy choice, Terry. Tell her, don't tell me, not ever again, unless you're prepared to do something on it. Hurt me, not her, not you." The words were a rush, a sharp babbling across broken rocks, jagged spires. "Don't change, just don't expect me to be there while you're as you are. I can't, I won't, I won't be there. I'll go get my things tomorrow, from the house. It's not working and it hurts more than it seems to be worth." Honesty, a rare and naked feeling. No photo shoot, no video could ever make her feel so open. "I get it, I do. It is what it is, it will be what it was, Terry."


"No, Melanie." She choked up a little. She reached for her, but even the reach faltered some after some distance; though soon gained strength once more as she sought to grab hold of the woman's arm. She wanted to tell her not to go, but a twinge of self hate and the knowing that it could do nothing but possibly hurt them more had been there within her thoughts. "Where will you go?" Defeat. That's all this had become. She couldn't keep her happy, not without hurting herself. In the end there had been one direction this whole conversation had been leading to -- the wrong one.


"Eight or nine months, and this. Three little words killed it all, because after that, Terry, it can't go anywhere." She shrugged away from the touch, she pulled back into her own body. "Where does it matter where I go, because you've made your choice, that's clear. What's it matter where I'll go, you'll only chase when you want to." She spat the words, venom layered on poison, toxic and acerbic. Instantly, she shook her head and relaxed her back. "I'm sorry, for for once, I'm fighting for myself, and all I can see if this failing and me being hurt. My brand's got a building in New Haven, there's a suite I've kept on the upper floors of that building. There, I guess."