Re: Jack/Dahlia: quicklog at the gym
[That was, after all, what it came down to, wasn't it? The sludgy origin of your roots, and what you'd seen, absorbed on the way between impressionable childhood and adulthood. Jack was caught in his own miasma. Too old to bend all the way, too old to yield. He was what he was, fixed and entrenched and while christ alone knew he had sympathy for darkly-bruised beginnings, he had none of the pliancy to fill in the gaps Dahlia needed closed before she'd make steps forward.
But Dahlia came at him full-force, snap and anger and thick challenge heavy on the air. Jack stood within it because backing down, backing off wasn't the bloody answer. There was a knee-jerk reaction that curled in his gut, the immediate unthinking instinctual response to someone angry enough to try dominating him into agreement. Jack cared: deeply enough he didn't lean into instinct, but just then, with Dahlia snapping in his direction like nothing else mattered.]
I'm sorry your feelings are hurt. But no, I won't apologize again for what I said when I was twenty. I don't think it matters. It's not something I would say at thirty-seven. I said a lot when I was twenty. Everyone, bar none, is an asshole at twenty years old. I'm not going to apologize now. I'm past it.
[She jabbed, and Jack shook his head.] I'd rather not waste months of a friendship on this, but no. I'm sorry you're hurt. I'm sorry you're holding onto it. Let it go, Dahlia, and get over it. Or I'm going to walk away because this I didn't sign up for. I'm too old.