Page 76 of Alone With You in the Ether

Well, who says she even knows herself? If she’d known she would eventually get caught, wouldn’t she simply not have done it?

He thinks that’s an excellent question.

Well, she’s glad he thinks so.

He means she should answer the question, or try to.

She thinks he’s commandeered secret time.

He has, but he’s fine with it.

She wants him to kiss her. (She places his hand between her thighs.)

He’s not letting her get away with that.

Well fine, maybe she’ll just leave then, she has her own apartment, she hardly needs to sleep here, and besides, maybe he’s being nosy.

Maybe he is but she started it, and she can leave any time if she wants to, so long as she comes back.

Fine, but only because he said that last bit. She’s tired of people telling her she’s free to leave, she hates it.

He doesn’t want her to leave at all but there’s a whole thing in the rulebook about letting people have agency. ‘If it’s meant to be’ and all that.

She thinks that’s bullshit, can’t people just hold on?

He agrees.

Okay fine, she doesn’t really know why exactly, but she thinks part of it was about taking hold of a sinking ship and steering it somewhere, anywhere. Even the prospect of a crash was better than floating aimlessly.

Why was her ship sinking?

She was just being needlessly metaphorical, it’s a habit of hers.

He notes it, asks again: Why was her ship sinking?

Her ship? It’s always sinking, she hates it, it’s either sinking or it’s exploding, either way it never seems to be going anywhere.

He doesn’t think that’s true.

Well, he doesn’t really know her that well, does he? He’s only had x amount of conversations with her and fucked her y times.

No no, he wants to be very clear: that’s not how math works.

God, he’s doing this now?

He’s very interested in accuracy, he sits up to graph it for her: x is how long you know a person, y is how well. Maybe he has only known her for x, but look at all this exponential growth in y. Look how steep this curve is, does she see what he means?

Yes, grudgingly she sees it. What’s his point?

He doesn’t have a point, he just wanted to tell her.

She thinks he’s incredibly weird.

He knows. Is she okay with it?

Okay with it? Fuck, he has no idea.

He reminds her they haven’t talked about how she’s doing, what with her pills and all that.

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