strangetrip | Two Women, Two Books (OTA)

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Two Women, Two Books (OTA)

It was a nice day out and the sun was shining bright.

Liz Parker took up residence in one of the lounge chairs by the pool, clad in jean shorts and a t-shirt, and was currently writing in her journal. She had a lot of thoughts about what she had learned with her readings with Emma. Several days after the initial news, Liz was no longer prone to crying if she dwelled too long on the subject of Max and Tess and Tess' pregnancy. Still, she hadn't quite gotten around to telling Kitty or Poitr or anyone else she might usually confide in. Only Peter knew.

I can't believe out of everyone at the Inn, the first person to know about my heartbreak with another guy is my boyfriend.

Meanwhile, a pregnant red Tiefling sat on the edge of the pool in a above-the-knee blue maternity dress. Her legs swished around idly in the water as she held up the What to Expect When You're Expecting. She was particularly looking for any sort of information on twins because, apparently, that was what she was having - they did run in the family, after all.

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This was probably going to be a mess. And it wasn't really her business, but the kid was talking to her, so she could take a crack at it. Corbie looked at a nearby deck chair, adjusted the umbrella--her skin could only take so much direct sunlight before she went red--and sat down. "Depends, I guess, on what you're worrying about and why you're worrying about it? I mean, if he don't know he's an ex-boyfriend, yeah, that'd get kind of thorny."

Liz closed her journal, drawing up her knees a little as sh sat there looking at Corbie. What did Max think of them? She hugged her knees to her chest thoughtfully. "I don;t know what he thinks of us... I got pulled here after doing something -" She couldn't quite bring herself to say it. "- to push him away."

She looked at Corbie. She knew she dealt with magic. "Max, my, um..." Well, Corbie could probably guess. "He showed up, from the future. And told me that us being together would cause the world to be destroyed and I had to make him stop loving him. So.. so I guess I did."

It didn't stop from hurting though and suddenly she felt the sting of tears as her eyes started to water and she tried to hold back from actually crying.

The benefit of doing magic and living in a hotel that defied all rules of time and space was that that indeed was not the weird part of the story. Though that meant that the weird part remaining was, how in the world did the relationship of a couple of kids destroy the world and why was the solution to do something that wasn't just have an honest conversation and break up?

The weird part. But not the important part.

Corbie got up from her seat to resettle next to Liz, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders. "I'm sorry. That's hard."

Liz nodded, resting her chin on her knees, looking out at their surroundings.

"I know it shouldn't bother me, especially since we can't be together, but..." It felt like a betrayal. "And then it probably hurts Peter too, that I do care, but I don't want to lie to him either."

"Feelings don't pay much attention to shouldn't," Corbie observed. She shouldn't have felt what she did for Felix when he was so violet it was blinding. She shouldn't still be hoping to see him when she had teachers here who did right by her. She shouldn't risk any feeling that might make Mildmay feel like he wasn't enough in himself when his arriving here had changed everything. She shouldn't. But she did. "Shouldn't only comes in with what you do."

Liz looked over to Corbie, a little confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Corbie bit her lip as she thought of an example. "You know how when you're a little kid and someone pisses you off, you hit them? And then you get punished? It ain't the mad anybody's punishing, it's the hitting."

Liz wondered if Corbie was talking about Max's reaction to her actions or if it was a cautionary tale about what she should or shouldn't be doing now that she found out what had happened back home.

"What do you think I should do?" Then she paused and considered. "There's not a lot I can do."

She stretched out her legs. "I just... I keep telling myself I shouldn't be so upset because it happened back home and we probably aren't together, but it still really hurts."

Corbie laid her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she considered that. "Grieve," she said. "If it still hurts that bad that he moved on, you're not done grieving. Let yourself do that. But you dumped him. Or you meant to. He's got a right to find someone else." As you've already done, was implied but not said. That felt mean.

Edited 2018-05-14 22:39 (UTC)

Part of her had to wonder if she hadn't left if the situation would remain the same.

Liz nodded. She knew Corbie was right, of course.

"... It's unfair to Peter, though, isn't it? To grieve."

Corbie shrugged. "Why would it be?" She paused a beat. "Unless you grieve at him, that would be kind of a dick move."

She pulled her knees back up and buried her head against her knees in response. That might have been what she did exactly.

Corbie bit her lip before she could laugh at that reaction. "Aw, shit, you already did, huh?"

Liz nodded against her knees and made a soft, mumbled sound of unhappiness. How could she have been so stupid? She should have gone to Kitty.

It was only when Liz was certain she wasn't going to cry that she lifted her head, but only a little. "How much did I mess up?"

Peter had seemed fine, but she realized Peter probably wouldn't tell her if she had hurt him.

Corbie couldn't resist the urge to tuck a lock of hair behind Liz's ear, so she allowed herself the gesture. "You might wanna apologize? Yeah, find somebody to unload on, but I don't think he can be it for this one."

She felt entirely stupid. Corbie was right, of course. She shouldn't have gone to Peter. He didn't need that in his life. It probably hurts him to know she even cared that much still, no matter how adamant she was that Peter was the one.

Liz realized she was apologizing a lot lately to him. She resolved to be better so she didn't need to do that anymore.

She exhaled softly. "Yeah... You're right. I'm going to have to apologize to him."

Corbie shrugged. "I've never been in love. Not really when someone loves you back and shit. But something that seems to be everywhere I go is this idea that the person you love is supposed to be and do everything you need. And that just... we don't even expect a parent to do that. It's why most of 'em don't go it alone." Gran had had to, but even then she'd passed around childcare duties with other people in their building. Something they'd all relied on for survival, and their neighbors had done the same. "Nobody can do everything for another person."

Liz took that in quietly and then nodded. It made sense. She wondered if that was why things with Max were always so up and down.

"I usually talk to Kitty... I just - I don't know why I went to him. I just sort of ended up at his room." And he hadn't taken advantage of her when she threw herself at him either.

"He keeps telling me he wants me to be happy back home and... Now I don't know if I can."

Corbie blinked slowly at that for several reasons, not sure which one was fighting hardest for attention. Eventually she landed on, "Why not?"

"Because... " Why not? "Because when I go back I'm still going to have to deal with aliens and the FBI and enemy aliens and who knows what else and I can't turn my back on my friends... But that means I still have to be in Max's life and, I don't know if I can be in his life and not be with him. We tried before and it's never worked out, being just friends."

Middle class girls had amazing problems. Corbie wished 'I can't be with this guy I like' had ever been her biggest problem. As it was, even when she'd been pining for Felix, she'd had to worry about rent and classes and trying to get her professors to take a mostly uneducated girl seriously. "I have no idea what an FBI is, but all that sounds like a fuck a lot of a bigger problem than some awkwardness with a guy."

Edited 2018-05-15 02:50 (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess your right." The whole thing was so complicated on top of the whole alien thing.

Liz sighed softly and let her legs stretch out again. "Thanks, Corbie..." She didn't have anyone like Maria to really talk to, so outlets like this were nice, even if they weren't quite the same.

Corbie nodded. "Do you have somebody you can tell all the messy details to?" Not that she wasn't willing to try herself, but not everybody went for telling their business to people they didn't know particularly well.

"Yeah.. Yeah I do." She thought of Kitty. "Sort of, anyways. It's still a little different because Kitty's older than me, you know?" She really wished Maria was here.

"Yeah, Sometimes you need to talk to your peers," Corbie agreed. Liz's problem was not so different from Corbie's own. Who could be a peer here? Who would accept that? Corbie wasn't much older than this girl, but they weren't in the same place in their lives. Xavin? River? Moana? Again, similar in age, but they still felt different.

And suddenly it made a hell of a lot more sense why of all people, Liz had run to Peter.

"Which ain't easy to do when there's all of four dozen people here."

Edited 2018-05-15 23:33 (UTC)

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