He wouldn't look at her. Well, no. He was looking at her, but just enough so that she wouldn't think... oh god, she'd known that this was going to happen, but having it happen? Having everything come crashing down right now? With everything else that had gone wrong over the past couple of days? It was just... it was too much. She cast her eyes down to the floor, refusing to look at his refusal to look at her, and closed her eyes again. I should have just waited. I should have just... Should have just what? Rae breathed in deeply and braced herself for some kind of outburst. Something. Anything.
But the silence was worse than any kind of outburst he could give. Rae didn't deal well with not being spoken to. It was a complex she had, and she realized that sometimes it was a little bit silly, but when someone wasn't speaking to her, when they were standing there in a situation that called for some kind of talking...
And when he finally did speak, and all that came out were curses... it felt like her worries were being realized. I've ruined everything, she thought. I've pushed him away. “I know...” she spoke softly, trying to keep her voice level.
As he went on, the sinking feeling deepened. He spoke in fragments; obviously flustered fragments, and the worst part was that Rae couldn't even blame him for his anger. At the same time, though... all she wanted was for someone to ask her if she was okay. She'd been face to face with two men who'd wanted nothing more than to... well, she didn't want to think of what they wanted. And no one, not even her cousins, seemed to care about the toll it had taken on her, even beyond physically.
That was what was worst about this whole thing.
“You don't think I know that?” she asked, finally opening her eyes and looking at him. She felt the heat of tears welling up behind her eyes, but she didn't want to cry right now. She knew she'd earned every bit of ire he was throwing her way right now. “I know what they wanted to do,” she told him. “Killing us was the least of it.”
Breathing what she thought would be a steadying breath, she waited for him to continue, but when he didn't, she felt the anger creeping a little bit higher. “Why in the hell is it that everyone sees fit to point out the fact that I could have died—a fact that I already know, thank you everyone—but no one asks me if I'm okay? I'm not okay, okay?” she snapped. “But no one cares about that. There were a pair of men who wanted to... it wasn't just killing they wanted from us. But we survived,” she added.
“And it's not even like... it's not even like we went out there looking for them!” she added, unaware that by this point, the tears she'd been trying to control had started coming out. “We were on the opposite side of town. We were... we weren't even near where we thought they were!” she shouted. “I'm not stupid!”
He wasn't saying anything now. “Wh-why... why aren't you yelling at me?” she asked. She'd prefer that to the quiet. “Yell at me. Or something. Just... just say something. Please...”