You shouldn’t be, was on the tip of Silas tongue. Even through everything, a big part of him, especially now, felt like he didn’t deserve the patience that Rae was giving him. Hell, he wouldn’t blame her for not being there, it was selfish what he’d done. “K,” he replied instead, working up a smile to return hers with.
“Nope,” he confirmed. “Not memories I want to remember, at least.” Sentimentality was something Rae brought out in him; he’d never been much of a sentimental person when it came to places before he’d met her. He swallowed thickly at her admission that she’d come up to the roof because it reminded her of him. “Guess that’s a good thing, right?” He thought he knew the answer, even though things hadn’t been great for the last week.
He shook his head. “Don’t want to blame anyone but myself,” he muttered under his breath, incapable of stopping the words from spilling out, but shaking them off as quickly as they’d been said. “You’re right, I don’t wanna talk about blame anymore.”
He laughed despite the swell of guilt that was bubbling back up. He knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he felt like there was a lot of blame for him to carry for their situation. “Don’t think I signed up for a conjoined twin, babe,” he joked right back. “But if that’s what it takes to make you believe that I’m not doing any of this shit because I want to, you got a deal.” How could he do anything but agree?
There wasn’t any guarantees on how long it would take him to reach that point though, so he bit back all the phrases that sprang to mind like, ‘it won’t be that long, babe’ or ‘before you know it we’ll be back together’ because he couldn’t guarantee either, and it made something angry boil in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t settle her worry, and couldn’t give her what he wanted to desperately to give her.
“I know you don’t,” he sighed. “But,” he cut himself off before he said something that would just make the whole damn conversation worse. It was her fucking birthday; he could at least give her that. “God babe, don’t fucking cry on me please, it’s just gonna make me feel like all I’m missing now is the fucking black hat,” he choked out, brushing his fingers through her hair. “Just, forget I said anything. Please.” It wasn’t fair to ask her to do something for him on her birthday, but he was only human, and apparently had his limits.
It didn’t take long to break his own mental agreement with himself not to make things worse. One more fuck up to add to the growing list.
“Guess so,” he agreed simply and without hesitation, leaning into the press of her lips just a little. He’d missed simple contact like that.
It had been a couple of years, and still he could rattle off where his last apartment had been. “Up in Bushwick. The rent was cheap and the place was clean,” he replied. “Couldn’t afford to be down in DUMBO or Park Slope.” Not a lot of people he knew could have. “So unless your coworkers lived that far north, I doubt you would have been near me. Had some of the best restaurants though.” As a guy who had lived off of take out from time to time that had been important. “I know,” he responded. “But it won’t kill me to agree to it, hell, it might even be fun.” He shifted on the bench, slouching a little. “’Sides, you love it, so I better learn to.”