Callum Nightingale. (polyglotism) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-02-17 16:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, callum nightingale, libby ross |
WHO: Callum and Libby
WHAT: Complaining about their Valentine Dance Days
WHEN: Saturday, 16th February
WHERE: IVI Cafeteria
WARNINGS: None
STATUS: Complete
Libby wasn't one to skip breakfast, but after the texts from Ivan had come through, she'd seriously contemplated going hungry and picking up a muesli bar from the store later to avoid running into him. Until her stomach rumbled loudly for the third time in half an hour, propelling her towards making her way downstairs, carefully scanning the hallways and common room to ensure the lack of his presence in each. "Mt Hutt," she greeted with a little surprise as she joined the queue behind him. "Good night?" "Libby," he replied, calling her by her real name for once, not in the mood to bother with any of the many nicknames he'd given her. "The dance was fun," he answered. It had been even if his post-dance night had been ruined he'd really enjoyed the actual dance. Despite the strange glares from some girls and the speech about not hurting Moa from another, which had clearly been given to the wrong half of that couple. "Yours?" If she was surprised before, she was even more so now. What happened to Hope, or Cat Lady or Genie? "It was," she paused thoughtfully. "Fun mostly, not so brilliant ending, though." "Definitely could have ended better," Callum agreed. Going from about to have sex to being told that Moa didn't even like him was far from his ideal ending to the night. "But what's Valentine's day without some heartbreak, right?" He added, trying to keep his tone light. She glanced across at him warily as they moved forward in the line. "Heartbreak?" Was he talking about his own? Because there was no way he could have known about her phone-call or the email. She hadn't told him about those. She didn't even know how long he'd even been dating the latest girl, but it seemed like just a day or two. Heartbreak? Really now. "What was so bad about your night?" He asked instead of answering, not one to really enjoy talking about himself unless it was something cool like his travel stories. She had said she didn't think dating here made sense so clearly her night hadn't ended in heartbreak, what else could have possibly ruined her night? "Ugh. I stupidly decided kissing Ivan was a good idea. Which might have been fine if he didn't then text me this morning," she replied, noting his deflection. He wasn't getting away that easily if he was going to look mopey. "So, what happened with yours?" "Nice that he texted you," Callum replied, not sure what she had to complain about. Ivan was cool, kissing him didn't seem like a bad idea (for her. He wasn't interested in kissing Ivan himself) and if he was texting then maybe he liked her. Nothing wrong with that. The queue moved forward and Callum started serving himself some food, waiting for Libby when he was done so they could continue their conversation. "Nice?" She shook her head as she caught up to him, tray balanced with a plate of pancakes and a bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt. "More like awkward. I don't really want a repeat, or worse, anything more." He still hadn't told her what was up with him, but rather than pushing it further, she figured she would finish up with her complaining and then press him when he'd run out of ways to deflect. “Not interested in Ivan?” he asked, moving towards a table now that she had her food too. “Thought you were looking for casual hook up type things?” Though he was terrible at keeping things casual himself he understood that it worked for other people and it prevented the problem of having to break up. At least, it did when you realised it was just casual, which was another thing Callum wasn’t so good at. "Guess I realised I wasn't," she replied matter-of-factly. It was evident, wasn't it? Flirting with an idea, regretting it, realising it wasn't what you wanted in the end. "I mean, I hardly even know the guy." “Since when is hardly knowing someone a bad thing?” Callum asked. Moa had said it, Libby was saying it, he didn’t get it. He liked not knowing the person, it was usually when he started to get to know them that he realised he had nothing in common with them and wasn’t actually interested. Libby stared for a moment. He was being serious, wasn't he? He seriously didn't get it. But as much as she was trying to restrain her desire to spit out exactly what she was thinking, out it came regardless. "What planet do you even come from?" Callum shrugged, not caring that she didn’t really understand his point of view. “Still doesn’t sound that bad. Unless he was a terrible kisser.” "He's not. It's just. I haven't kissed anyone since my ex. And I really, really lo-- liked him," she explained, stabbing her fork into her stack of pancakes. "It's like it was just incomparable. It didn't make me feel better or whatever. It just was and it was," she fought for the right word to fill in the blank. Empty came to mind, but she didn't really want to vocalise it. Hollow. Meaningless. Trivial. Insincere. Pointless. Futile. Empty. "It meant nothing." Callum couldn’t actually relate to what Libby was saying, not being able to get over an ex not a feeling he experienced for more than a couple of days, his idea of love less intense and further from actual love than most people’s. “But you broke up months ago,” Callum pointed out, “You can’t just not kiss anyone ever again. You move on.” His advice to Libby, as useless as it might actually be, was helping him to feel better about his own break up. "I didn't say that, I just don't want it to mean nothing, you know?" But he didn't know, not really, since he hooked up with Laurel as soon as she arrived and then moved on to Moa, who was probably still in the middle of grieving the loss of her friend. Libby did not understand the man that sat across from her, he was a puzzle, he grated against her definition of logic. And yet, she continued to talk to him and reach out to him because he was one of the only ones around that sounded like home. Ironic for a guy who prioritised travelling somewhere new over actually going back for a visit to even see his parents. She sighed, and cut out another piece of pancake. "And we only broke up in December. It hasn't been that long. And-- Have you ever dated anyone for over a year?" “No,” Callum answered, the tone of his voice making it clear that was a ridiculous question. He barely had relationships that got passed the month stage, a whole year sounded like a lifetime to him. He couldn’t even commit to staying in one place for a year, how could he commit to another person for that long, no matter how much he thought he liked them? “But you break up, you move on, that’s life,” he explained. “And sure it hurts,” especially when it happens the day after Valentine’s day and ruins an otherwise really great dance, “and it sucks but it gets better,” he said, pausing to shovel some scrambled eggs into his mouth, “But if you don’t move on then you’re staying hurt and alone by choice.” Her fork paused mid-way to her mouth as she watched him. He was being serious. That was the strangest part. It was at this moment that Libby began to realise that Callum liked the idea of romance more than he actually enjoyed the true definition of being in love -- the part where you could hurt each other, where you saw the flaws, the knowing and being known and all the while remained, not in spite, but because. "You don't just move on to just anyone, though," she objected. "You can't just pick a random card out of the pile and go, yeah, that's it. I'm going to start liking them now. Like, this isn't a tv show. You don't get a meet cute and then bam, fireworks. That's not how life works." “It’s how my life works,” Callum countered. Because it was, he liked to live his life like it was the beginning of a romantic comedy but bailed before it got to the hard, complicated parts. He’d never thought to try dating in any other way, he liked the system he had. His relationships were similar to his life in general, different girls, different meet cutes, different break ups, all just more new experiences, the same as visiting a new place for the first time. "Great, so our lives work differently, then. So quit trying to give me advice about shit you know nothing about." “Fine,” Callum replied, taken aback by her reply. Not only was he older but he was certain he’d had more experience with love than her, it sounded like she’d only been in love once whereas he’d been in love countless times, he knew what he was talking about. But if she didn’t want his advice then he wasn’t one to force it. "So what the hell happened with you?" she tried again, biting back the defensive bitchiness that had come out a little too often of late. She was beginning to understand why people had wanted to leave for the holidays so badly. This place was getting to her, frustrating her, giving her cabin fever. There was too much drama, too many emotions and clashes and issues and not nearly enough space. "What's up with the whole 'heartbreak' thing? Moa didn't work out so well?" “Yeah, we broke up,” he answered, feeling a bit better about it now that he’d reminded himself that he could easily just move on. Still, he’d been broken up with by Moa Enquist and although he liked her and didn’t care what other people thought about her, he had noticed that she was far from well liked at this school. And she had broken up with him. “And then she cried a lot.” "Poor girl." Good lord, was there anything but relationship drama at this school? Soap operas weren't even this bad. "I hope she's okay." “She broke up with me,” Callum added, feeling like he was the one who deserved the sympathy in this situation. "But she cried," she replied. Maybe it was being on a team full of women that was igniting some kind of female solidarity. Maybe it was the fact that, despite not knowing Moa at all, she felt a little bad for her -- the girl was viewed as far out of Callum's league, had just suffered the loss of a close friend. Or maybe she still felt the left over effects from her irritated outburst moments before. But either way, she was having a hard time delivering the sympathy he thought he was entitled to. "And, you know, a lot of stuff's happened for her lately." “I know,” Callum replied. “Stuff happened and I was just a distraction from all of that and she didn’t like me at all.” He didn’t understand why Libby wasn’t offering him any sympathy, it’s wasn’t like he was saying Moa didn’t deserve to be upset just that he did also and that maybe she should have saved her crying for someone she hadn’t just broken up with. "And you're surprised?" “Yes,” Callum replied honestly. “She and Laurel both didn’t actually like me. That’s weird.” He didn’t expect every girl to like him and he had been rejected numerous times in the past but the 100% fail rate at IVI was not a good start to life there. "No shit," Libby replied, finishing off her pancakes and digging her second fork into a cube of watermelon. "Why do you think that is?" “Don’t know,” he answered. “I even gave Laurel flowers. Raphael took them all before I could give any to Moa but I would have if he hadn’t.” "No one likes someone because they give them flowers." She popped the piece of fruit in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, grateful she was thinking about someone else's problems instead of dwelling on her own for a morning. "Well, maybe not no one, but most people like people for other reasons, not because they give them stuff." “Why didn’t they like me then?” Libby shrugged. "That's not really something I can tell you. I'm not them, you'd have to ask them why it didn't work." That wasn’t going to happen. Talking to people after breaking up with them wasn’t something Callum did, though it was something that wasn’t completely unavoidable here. “Doesn’t matter that much,” he decided. "Okay, but when number three doesn't like you, I'm just going to remind you of that time I mentioned asking your ex what went wrong." Not that she was very good at taking her own advice, but at least she sounded like she was bright, wise and put together. “Number three will like me,” Callum said, deciding there was no point being insecure about it, that wasn’t him. “And I know what went wrong, she was using me for a distraction and Laurel and I had a misunderstanding about the status of our relationship.” "Okay." Libby continued to pick at her breakfast, alternating between watermelons and strawberries -- her two favourite fruits -- with a dollop of vanilla yoghurt on each piece. "Maybe you should clarify those things first. Stay away from grieving girls, etc." “Sounds restrictive,” Callum replied, even though it was probably good advice. “I don’t plan who I like. I just do.” "Neither." She sighed. This was getting old and talking about Callum's stupid love life was irritating her again. "Anyway, we should do another mute movie session. Maybe Sunday?" “Sure,” he replied, scraping the last bit of egg onto his fork. It wasn’t like he had a girlfriend to spend time with anymore. “My room again?” She nodded. "Yeah, I'll bring the movie again. You can get snacks." “Cool, sounds good,” he said, finishing off his last mouthful. “I’ll see you later, Hope.” |