Got some words for you Who: Kyle and Mazie When: Late morning Where: Kyle's room
Mazie was on a mission. She’d had something to talk to him about since yesterday and she hadn’t been able to get there because of the camera issues. But today was a no-holds-barred kind of day. She trudged to Kyle’s room and walked in through the open door, arms crossed as she did. “Kyle...What are you thinking?”
Kyle blinked, turning to look at the woman. He had been painting, his door left open to let the breeze come in. He was feeling very slightly better and more at peace with himself today. He had no clue at all why Mazie wanted to talk to him, but he figured that, from the tone of her message to him, her opening declaration had nothing to do with art critique at all. “I.... Don’t know?” he suggested, slowly as he stood there, paintbrush held in his right hand, frozen halfway to the canvas. He paused for a moment, then put it down, wiping his hands off on the rag he always had nearby. “What am I thinking about what?” he challenged, arching an eyebrow as he looked at her. He straightened, unconsciously. She had made him feel like she thought he had done something wrong, and he refused to let her intimidate him that way.
"With Adam? What are you thinking?" She repeated, taking a couple steps closer to him. It didn't even cross her mind that this was technically the first time they'd really met outside of journal-land; she was much too focused on Kyle and his toying with Adam. She noticed the change in him, the straightening of his back, but it didn't stop her from charging forward with her words. "He got some courage up to tell you he liked you and you just…shooed it away? What the hell?"
Kyle opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly lost for words with the way she put it like that. “Oh. Right. About that,” he said, after a moment or two, sagging slightly before realising what he was doing and straightening up again. “It’s complicated,” he averred, lifting his chin up a little. “And it’s not like I just ‘shooed it away’ - is that how he put it?” he asked her.
"No that is not how he put it and don't start thinking that anything I'm saying is what he's saying. What I'm saying is that my friend likes you, he told you, and you are toying with him. And 'It's complicated' is a stupid fucking reason to toy with someone. Do you like him or not?" Mazie asked, feeling no need to beat around the bush about this. "Because I think you do, or you should."
“I’m not toying with him!” Kyle protested, wide-eyed for a moment before he realised what she was saying. Then his eyes narrowed, his hackles up as he crossed his arms in a mirror of Mazie’s stance. “If none of this is what Adam actually thinks, then where the hell do you get off jumping to conclusions about him and me, and how either of us feel. It’s none of your damn business,” he snipped.
"It is my damn business if my friend is a part in this!" Mazie watched Kyle for a moment, eyes narrowing. "You didn't answer me. Do you like him or not? Do you know how much it sucks to tell someone you like them and they tell you that they just wanna be friends or some bullshit?"
“So, it would be better to lie to them instead? Go along with a relationship, because that’s what they want. Even if it’s not what you want? Just because something was said?” Kyle posed. “Adam knows how I feel about him. Just like he knows that I want to just remain friends. Just like he agreed that that was, actually probably for the best right now,” Kyle told her, his face morphing into a calmly expressionless mask as he came down from his bitchy high horse.
Mazie just continued to glare at Kyle, feeling her blood boil a little more. "No it would not be better to lie to him!" She watched him for a moment longer, glare falling into stun. "So you're telling me you really don't like him? How could you not? What the fuck does 'probably for now mean? Because if you don't like him, you don't like him! Why the hell are you stringing him along?"
“I’m not stringing him along!” Kyle shot back at her. “I’m trying to keep my best friend! Because you can be damn sure if we got into anything more than that right now it’d be a fucking failure of catastrophic proportions! I’d hurt him. He’d certainly hurt me, and we’d kill everything we actually have right now. I’m not going to risk him and something that I know isn’t going to work!”
"Why do you automatically think it won't work? And if you don't like him that way, how would he hurt you more than you hurt him?!" Glaring again, Mazie felt her arms break from over her chest and throw up in the air with no real purpose other than to emphasize how pissed she was about this whole conversation.
“I do like him. I’m attracted to him. He knows this. He’s a great guy. He’s sweet and funny and good looking. And he’s been through hell. And so have I. He’s screwed up inside. And so am I. We’ve both got issues that we need to work through. And maybe if I felt less. Maybe if he was just another guy. Maybe then I’d be willing to give it a shot. Even though I know that I’m not in that place where I can commit to anyone. Even though I know that, just me, I’m going to be poison at the end of the day. But not him. That would be toying with him and I won’t do that,” Kyle told her, his words falling out over each other, hotly.
Kyle's words shut Mazie right up. He liked Adam and he'd just admitted it to her and that somehow seemed to make all the rest of the words make sense. "And just because you are both troubled, you don't even want to try?" Mazie might be seeing things through rose-colored glasses now, since she and Autumn had basically made up, but the idea that Kyle liked Adam and Adam liked Kyle and they were both fighting it seemed really stupid to her.
“Right now, no,” Kyle confirmed to her, bluntly. “I can’t lose him. And I will. I... Maybe... If we wait... If things - we - each of us - deals with our shit better... Maybe then...” he fumbled, clearly trying to get out how he felt about possible futures but failing. Hope was a terrible thing. He’d spent so long without it, feeling like there was no future. Being here, with everything, he had started to learn to hope again, yet it still felt so alien at times. He was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Mazie just watched him, truly not understanding this. They both liked each other! What the hell was going through their minds? Sighing, she shook her head. "Why are you both fighting this in hopes that maybe something will work later instead of trying to make things work together? Neither of you are poison and it's just…why do you even think of yourself that way?"
Kyle breathed in slowly, his face once again entirely blank. He didn’t know her well enough to tell her the truth. Not like he had told Adam. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her, quietly.
Shaking her head a little bit, Mazie ran her hand through her hair. "You boys are frustrating! Tiptoeing all around the way you both feel for each other, acting like everything is hopeless when you both like each other!" Giving a frustrated exhalation, she shook her head again. "Just don't…let yourself get too caught up in this feeling of 'I can't, I can't…' because you both can."
“Stop it,” Kyle told her, his voice still quiet. “Just, stop it. I get it. You want us to be together. But, you can’t tell me what I should want. What I should do. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to make decisions for me,” he continued, his voice growing in volume slightly and a lot more in steely determination. “I’ll talk to Adam about this. I’ll discuss us with him, but I won’t discuss this with you. You have no right in interfere here. None at all. I won’t let you.” Kyle was done with other people calling the shots in his life. He was making a stand. The same stand he had been making since he arrived here. He would control his own destiny, no matter what the cost.
Mazie watched, seeing Kyle change and shift and lift his voice at her. And after a moment of digesting what he'd said, she just crossed her arms over her chest again. "You can get pissed off all you want. You can retreat into yourself and tell me to shut up and never mention this again if you want, but just know that there are people looking out for Adam. And he seems to want to look out for you, no matter what happens, so…I guess by default it means I'll be keeping my eyes on you too." She said, starting toward the door.
"Fine. Watch all you want. But don't think you can try and change anything. Life isn't a damn fairy-tale. You don't get a happy ending, Just because you want one. People aren't puppets to dance to your tune," he called after her.
"Don't think I'm gonna stop trying!" She called back at him before turning and starting her way back to her room. For now there wasn't much more she could do right now, other than go back to her room and try to think of ways to make the fairytale happen.