Emberwood Remember when you said you loved me?

Her smile fell short of its intended mark. Rather than being playful, it felt reptilian; cold-blooded. Not because of her tone of voice or the expression on her face, but because for the third time in less than a minute, she had offered him a way out. He studied her for a moment, evaluating her as well as he could. He thought he knew her well enough to be able to judge what her true desires were- but at the moment, he felt himself grasping at loose ends. 

He knew her to be remorseless, and it was one of the things about her that bothered him. At times like this, he felt himself thinking she was apathetic, unapologetic for her mistakes. And while he knew she did, in fact, suffer when those mistakes occurred, she always seemed to come out of every situation a bit tougher. Her emotional scar tissue seemed to be stronger than the flesh it replaced. And for Bronco, who carried his experiences forward like dry kindling simply waiting to be struck into a flame again, it was unnerving. 

He’d learned that it was best to be calm, but direct. Not his forté, of course, as he tended to be more avoidant than anything, especially recently. But this…He felt there was subtext that needed to be ironed out. 

”Fedd…You’ve offered three times now for us to break up, if I want to. It’s…Really hard for me to know what you want, an’ it’s really hard for be to believe that you wanna be with be if you keep tryin’ to tell me it’s OK with you if we break up.” He said. ”I know you want more…Touch, from be. And I’ve not saying I can’t or I won’t. I just…And I dow it’s beed hard for you to not have that, and I’m sorry.” While he’d never offered her a suitable explanation, it still seemed less painful for him to hide his reasons, and suffer the consequences of her not understating why he needed space, than to tell her. He sighed.

”It doesn’t have to be perfect. But if it doesn’t absolutely break your heart to suggest we split, then…I dunno.”