The Spaces Between
Characters: Adam and Becka Setting: Becka’s room, early evening
Adam paced in front of Becka’s door for a long moment before finally knocking on it. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting to see her, he did, at least kind of want to see her, but it was her questions from before, her face and how crushed she looked rattling around that had him anxious he wasn’t quite enough for her. When he added what Autumn pointed out that he needed to bring up, sooner rather than later, well that just made things harder.
So he paced until he found the guts, or there was a break in his anxiousness, to knock on the door. Maybe she wouldn’t be home and this could...wait a little longer.
After returning to her room, Becka left the bottle of alcohol retrieved from Ryan's room on her desk and went to shower. Once done and dressed, she sat down at her computer to check her messages and see if any new posts had gone up. There really wasn't much to see, and it didn't take long for her to decide to switch on a movie. A part of her wanted to watch He's Just Not That Into You, even if she had seen it before, but she had a feeling that would make her thoughts start swirling again. She really didn't want that, not when she'd been doing so good not stressing herself out about everything today.
It took some time browsing through the selection to finally settle on what to watch. There was nothing to dislike about Easy A, and so she turned it on, got comfortable on her couch, and started combing through her hair. The knock on the door a little bit later surprised her, and she jumped a bit before chuckling under her breath. As she got up, she set her comb on her desk and opened the door, having no clue who to expect on the other side.
Even though she hadn't expected anyone specific to be on the other side, she really hadn't expected Adam, and her stomach did a little flip-flop at the sight of him. Offering him an almost hesitant smile, she said, "Hi. I..." Taking in his almost anxious expression, she cut herself off, licked her lips and finally spoke again. "I didn't know when you were coming by. Do you want to come in?" she offered.
Adam found a small smile for her, despite his nerves at a high level. Her reaction had him frowning slightly though, not sure what to make of what she stumbled over in her greeting. “Yeah, that was...that was what I was thinking.” He waited for her to give him space to walk in, letting her decide. “If you’re busy I can come back later.”
Becka’s smile warmed a bit when he returned a small smile, and she tried not to let his following frown discourage her. She was trying to get back to thinking positively after everything spiraled so spectacularly yesterday, and so she was going to focus on that. “I’m not busy,” she assured him, stepping back and opening the door a little wider so that he could come in. Closing the door behind him, she went over to her computer to pause the movie, not wanting it to distract them. “How are you?” she asked even if she could tell that he didn’t seem all that great. She really didn’t feel like she had her footing when it came to him, so she was just going to let him take the lead in this.
He let himself in the room, looking at her computer before pulling the chair away from the desk to sit in it. “I don’t know if I saw this movie,” he said, looking at the screen. “Which is a bummer because she’s hot.” Must have come out around when he got arrested. “Better today,” he said answering her question, knowing he’d have to go into just why today was infinitely better than the day before.
When Adam took the desk chair, Becka went over to her couch and sat down, pulling her legs under her. She let out a little laugh at his assessment of Emma Stone, nodding slightly. “Yeah, Emma Stone is really pretty,” she agreed. “It’s Easy A, came out a couple years ago. It’s a really funny movie, you should watch it sometime.” Even if just for the ‘hot’ girl. Better was, well, better, she supposed at his answer, smiling softly at him. “That’s good. So yesterday was pretty bad, huh?” He’d said it was a bad day, and she couldn’t deny she was curious about what had happened since he’d told her it wasn’t really her fault (even if she didn’t completely believe that).
“Yeah I bet it came out right before...well yeah.” Adam shrugged a little, sinking into his chair more. “I’ll have to look into it.” At her question he pulled his eyes from the screen to look at her, turning in the chair more to face her. “Yeah, yeah yesterday was really bad.” He let his elbows drop on his knees while he thought, trying to determine how it was going to explain it. “It’s not going to be the only bad day I have Becks. Probably one of many. There might be more bad than good.”
Becka’s eyes flickered away at that, feeling a little bad for having made him think about it even if a part of her had to wonder if some part of him wasn’t always acutely aware of how much time had gone by since his arrest. She frowned when he confirmed that it was really bad but stayed quiet, wondering if more would follow. At what did follow, she bit her lip and considered his words, looking down at her lap briefly before looking back up to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry - my... waking you up yesterday probably didn’t help things,” she said softly, still feeling a little guilty in spite of having been told that she shouldn’t about that.
Adam shook his head a little, watching her even if she wasn’t looking at him. “No. That was fine. I feel like all I did was let you down left and right with that, but no. That wasn’t it. It wasn’t you Becka. It’s me. What’s wrong with me, what’s happened to me.” He looked at his hands, then ran them over his head, trying to figure out where the day had really started the downward spiral. “I was jumpy yesterday, standoffish. And then why...that got brought to light. And then it was there in my head and I freaked out when Mazie even tried to touch me or mention anything that brought it up in my mind again. And it just got worse.” And he’d wound up crying in Wren’s room. Looking back at the day, piece by piece, he was sure that everything about him said stay far away.
There were a lot of things that she wanted to say to that, and she even parted her lips to disagree that it wasn’t her, but he kept talking, and so she closed her mouth and listened, taking in what he was saying and trying to piece things together. She knew he was jumpy, she’d witnessed that first hand, but she was a tiny bit relieved that it wasn’t just with her. “Not really getting sleep probably didn’t help with the jumpiness,” she pointed out gently. “Did you manage to get some sleep last night?” she asked, focusing on a rather simple question rather than all the others running through her mind just then.
For a moment he wondered if she missed the important points, asking the question that he thought seemed almost not necessary. “Yeah actually. Wren let me sleep in her room. Helped with things. Made it through most of a night.” And he hadn’t been worried about the nightmares, because Wren knew. She had her own issues with sleep. She wouldn’t judge.
Becka smiled slightly at his initial answer, though it dimmed as he continued to speak, hating the way her stomach twisted at the mention of him sleeping in Wren’s room. “Oh,” she said softly, glancing down. “That’s good.” She could be glad, at least, that he’d managed to sleep almost a whole night. But with that out of the way, Becka realized that nothing else she wanted to ask was quite so simple or easily answered, and she bit the inside corner of her lip as she glanced back up at him. “Do you... want to talk about why?” she offered, really not sure where he was expecting this conversation to go, but he had brought it all up so it seemed to be the thing to focus on.
“Yeah, even for sleeping on the floor,” Adam said, answering the question she hadn’t asked. He might not have thought of it if it weren’t for Kyle’s teasing about the matter, but that plus the way her face looked, he guessed maybe she was worried. He’d be worried he supposed.
Biting his lip, Adam shook his head. “No. But I need to. You deserve to know.” As much as he didn’t want to talk about it or deal with how she was going to see him after the fact he needed to tell her. If she was willing to listen. If not...well maybe he’d just put some space between them until he had a better handle on himself.
Sleeping on the floor was a good sign, she supposed, and she tried not to let that little bit of relief she felt to show through. Becka let it go, though, focusing on the far more complicated topic. She smiled very slightly in encouragement, just a small upturning of the corners of her lips when he said she deserved to know. She had a feeling that she really didn’t want to know, that whatever it was was clearly bad, and what could be worse than what she already knew about his past? “Okay. So, what happened?” she asked gently, encouraging him to tell her while trying not to seem pushy about it.
Adam didn’t want to do this, but he couldn’t not do it. He let out his breath in a woosh and tried to figure out where to start. “Prison happened. I was...a target. I’m slimmer, smaller, easy to get hands on. I got beat more than once. More times than worth counting,” he started, fine with talking about the physical attacks, the beatings. He’d healed from those well enough. The rest though, that had him hesitating, not able to go on for a moment.
When Adam started, Becka just stayed silent, watching him and listening. She wasn’t really surprised by the answer, though she did hate that he’d been targeted. When he hesitated, she wondered what more there was, because his body language was practically screaming that that wasn’t everything. Her instinct was to reach out to him, to offer him support and encouragement through touch of some kind, but she fought back the urge, bringing her hands to her lap and picking at her nails to keep them busy. “I think that’s not all that uncommon, unfortunately,” she said softly, frowning. It was an awful, sad truth, but he wasn’t the first one she’d heard about being beat in prison. “What else?” she prompted gently, though she worried about pushing him when it was clearly very difficult for him to talk about.
He looked at his hands, letting out a long breath. This would ruin everything. She wasn’t going to look at him the same way again. She was bound to take this to a level, go somewhere else with it and things would be different, but the thing was...He couldn’t not tell her. Autumn was right about that. She needed to know if only to understand the bad days, why things were different. “More. I was...” He swallowed hard finding a wry, dark smile. “The jokes and rumors about what goes on in prison are true. Too fucking true.” Wincing he ran his hands over his hair, slow at first then faster. “Assaulted. That’s what they wrote on the report.”
Becka hated seeing how difficult this was for him, but she also believed that this was important, and so she knew that they would just have to get through it. “Oh?” she said at the mention of the jokes and rumors, and then he winced and got a little more specific. Her eyes widened just a little as she realized just what he was saying, a flood of thoughts and feelings going through her and making it hard to focus on any one thing. She blew out a breath and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Oh,” she repeated. God, things made a lot more sense now, she realized as she thought back on some of the things that had happened. Looking back at him, she tried to catch his gaze, feeling a bit at a loss of what to say now. This wasn’t the job; this was the guy that she was trying to have some kind of relationship with, and so she was sure that she shouldn’t approach it in the way she might have before. And hadn’t he said something not very positive once about her being a nurse? She thought he had. “Another thing, I think, that happens way more than people want to believe.” He wasn’t the first to imply that it had happened to him, and she had a feeling he wouldn’t be the last. “I’m sorry that you went through that, though. No one should have to.” And on top of everything else that he was carrying around? She was kind of surprised he managed to keep it together as much as he did.
Adam nodded a little, not sure he agreed with her assessment. People knew it happened. The guards hadn’t seemed all that surprised. More at his freak out than anything else. “Yeah I’m sorry too,” he said, not sure what else to say and wound up swallowing a little more. “So there’s...that.”
With the initial onslaught of thoughts leveling out a little bit now, Becka tried to focus in on what she could say. This was a really heavy thing, and she just couldn’t help but wish she’d known sooner. Maybe... Maybe then she wouldn’t have made such an ass of herself in the way she’d approached some things with him. “It... explains a lot, for how you’ve been with me, I mean,” she began. Giving herself a moment, she tried to figure out the best way to word what was on her mind without coming across accusatory, which was the last thing she wanted. “I’m really glad you told me. I... I’ve been trying to figure out what was wrong, why you seemed to give me so many mixed signals, and I’d half convinced myself that you just weren’t really interested,” she admitted. At least it seemed that with him telling her about it he was starting to deal with it. Wasn’t that the first step? Admit there’s a problem? “What can I do to help?” she asked, really hoping that he wouldn’t be upset that she wanted to help.
“I’m sure it explains a lot for how I’m with everyone,” Adam said softly, looking at his hands and not her. That hurt, that she just assumed he wasn’t interested. He was, at least enough to try something, but everything about him had pushed her away. “You could have asked.” He might not have told her, but then at least he would have known. Shaking his head at her questioned he forced himself to look at her. “No. Be patient. Maybe...think about what you really want. But no, there’s nothing you can do otherwise.” He had others for that. Carmel wanted to talk about things, and then there was whatever he’d signed up for with Autumn. He didn’t need Becka to help. He didn’t want her to help.
Becka’s brows rose a bit when he said she could have asked. “Adam, I tried,” she told him gently. “I just didn’t do a very good job of it. And then... After the way things went yesterday, I thought it was best to just give you some space.” Which she’d been sure he wanted, especially when he’d messaged her last night about not getting together again until maybe today. “I can be patient, but I... I didn’t mean how to help you deal with it. I just meant... How can I help when we’re together? I mean... Do you feel like you need time to work through things? Would it be easier on you if we were just friends? There’s been a lot to deal with, a lot of stresses even in just the past few days, and I really don’t want to make things even more difficult for you. Relationships should be happy, positive things.” And if it was just stressing him out or making things harder on him? Then it wouldn’t do either of them any good.
Did she try? It hadn’t felt like that at all, but maybe he’d missed it. She had said she didn’t do a good job. “Space yesterday was good. I would have been... the opposite of what you said you wanted.” He looked at his hands, biting at his lip. “I know I need time to work through things, but I know how you said you felt. I am working through things with Autumn.”
She wished that he would stop looking away even if she did understand to a point why he might do that. Her head tilted slightly at the mention of Autumn. “Autumn?” She hadn’t realized that Adam knew Autumn, though it wasn’t hard to figure out that she and Mazie were close, and Adam seemed pretty close to Mazie as well, so it wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility. “What did I say about how I felt?” she asked, wondering what his perception of it was. She knew that she hadn’t communicated things well at all yesterday, and so if he was misunderstanding things, she really wanted a chance to clear them up.
“Um yeah. Mazie...told her. And she said she’d help with the touching issues.” He still was figuring out what that meant but it was a start. “It’s something she’s done..before.” Which probably was explanation enough. “You said you hadn’t wanted...you’ve not really been interested in someone before. I know how important that is.”
Becka’s lips formed a little ‘o’ at the explanation. If Autumn really had helped people through these issues before, then she was definitely glad that she could hopefully help Adam, though she wasn’t really sure how she would do that. When he answered her question, her brows furrowed a bit, and then she sighed, shaking her head. “Adam, I never took the time to be really interested in someone before, and just because I am interested in you doesn’t mean you should jump into something you’re not comfortable with. It’s not and shouldn’t be all about what I may or may not want.” And that had been her whole point in asking him what he wanted yesterday, because she’d been mostly convinced that he’d just been going along with what she wanted, and his answer had just kind of told her that she’d been at least partially right in that thought.
Adam frowned himself. “I never said that I wasn’t I just...when I freaked out with you. I knew what else was coming. That was one thing, that wasn’t even getting into this. It’s going to happen again. I already wasn’t good at being with someone and I’m sure this just makes it worse.” He shook his head, not sure what else to do with himself. “I wanted you to have what you wanted.”
Staying quiet for a moment, Becka tried to think things through so that she was communicating in a way that they might have a better understanding of where they were each coming from in this, because she could recognize that miscommunication was a big issue here. “You mean the night I stayed in your room?” she clarified, wanting to make sure they were both on the same page with that at least.
He looked up at her, nodding a little. “That’s what that was, which I’m sure you guessed.”
“I...” Becka blinked at that, still not really sure they were on the same page. “I thought it was just too much, my looking like...” And maybe that was what he meant, but now she was wondering if there had been more going on that night.
Adam nodded. “I have a lot of baggage.” He was seeing that now. And he had nothing but the baggage. There was very little behind it. “Maybe you were right...”
Becka didn’t really think there was any question of that, but she didn’t think it made him less worth having the chance to be with someone. “Right about what?” she asked, not wanting to assume anything in particular.
“About space. Time. Whatever.” It was hard to say and he obviously was struggling with it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, not when she was so nice, so easy to be around, but he didn’t feel right giving her just part of himself, or her being on edge waiting for his next freak out.
“Oh,” Becka replied, knowing that she really hadn’t expected that, and hating the disappointment she felt at it. What she wanted mattered far less than what he needed. “If that’s what you need, the time and space to try to deal with things, I understand, Adam.” She wasn’t upset about it; it just was what it was.
Adam was quiet, looking at his shoes for a long moment. His mind was racing, hating that she sounded less than thrilled, that she was being understanding. He worried she didn’t understanding, that he wasn’t saying the right things and he should just suffer forward if that was what she wanted. “It’s not just that I need it. I could probably work around it, but...you shouldn’t have to put up with that.”
Becka smiled softly, almost sadly at him, shaking her head slightly. “Adam, it’s up to me what I will and won’t put up with, but... It’s been hard even just in this conversation to stay put and not reach out to you physically. I don’t want to make things harder for you, and I know how I am. I’m a touchy-feely kind of person, and the last thing I want is for you to feel guilty for having a normal-to-your-circumstances reaction to what would be in my mind a simple gesture of affection.” She felt like it was important for him to understand that, that it wasn’t about her putting up with him.
“I know you are. And I know I’m not. I flinched yesterday with Wren, now she won’t touch me first. I all but lashed out at Mazie. It’s not...it’s not going to get fixed overnight. I don’t want you to think you’re helping and then me just react and you beat yourself up about it.” Because he had a feeling she would. “Even if you did now I can’t say I wouldn’t react badly. Maybe not terribly, but enough to put you off from doing it again.”
“With everything you’re dealing with? Of course it’s not going to get fixed overnight. And if you’re beating yourself up for your own reactions, it’s not going to help things, either. But knowing that your reactions aren’t really about me? It helps circumvent the whole beating myself up thing.” Becka really did think that knowing the cause of something made things easier to deal with. “So taking that out of the equation - where do you want to go from here?” she asked, wondering if he even knew. It was possible that he didn’t have any more of an answer than he’d had yesterday.
Adam hated that she’d even considered that his reactions were about her and he’d thought he’d been good, hiding most of his poor reactions except that one night. That made his insides hurt more, feeling terrible for even getting into this when he was so damaged. “I think I need time,” he said slowly. “I’m still...figuring me out. And I’d rather give myself a chance to get better before what we have gets worse.” He hated saying it. He really did, but Autumn had been right. He might very well need some him-time, just to see if he could get things sorted out right. Maybe after a few days it wouldn’t be the right thing, but for right now, it was probably the best choice. If only to see what happened.
Becka nodded slowly at his answer, not able to stop the thought that he was making the right decision even if she was a little disappointed that whatever they had was done, for now at least. Who knew what the future would bring? But she was pretty sure that he had a long road ahead of him, so she wasn’t going to hold out for things changing, at least not anytime soon. “I think figuring yourself out is a really good way to go,” she told him gently, encouragingly.
“Yeah there’s a lot of nothing there,” Adam said, half laughing but it didn’t sound humorous. “Seems I didn’t have much of a sense of self before prison, then I didn’t need one.” And he had a long way to go to figure out the rest. Glancing back up at her, he looked pained for a moment. “Are you mad?”
Frowning at that, Becka gave him a gently disapproving look. “There’s plenty there,” she disagreed. “You just haven’t figured out what it is yet.” She had a feeling there was a whole lot of Adam he hadn’t discovered yet. At the question, she smiled softly and shook her head. “No, I’m not mad. Why would I be mad?” This wasn’t anything to be mad about; if anything she was relieved that at least now she understood what was going on.
“I guess that’s it. Or I’m just making it up as I go.” Again he made the same half laughing noise if only for his sanity. Shrugging his shoulders a little he kept his eyes on her. “I know you wanted this to work.” She’d seemed that way yesterday at least.
Becka kind of hated that half, humorless laugh, and she fought back a cringe as he did it again. She licked her lips at his answer, thinking about how to respond to that. “It’s not that I don’t want it to work now, I just... It wasn’t working, Adam. It’s been one thing after another and just this really stressful rollercoaster of emotions that neither of us needs on top of everything else we’re dealing with. I still like you, I still want to get to know you and everything, and so maybe we take some time and space and when we’re feeling a little less raw from everything, we can see about hanging out just as friends?” she suggested.
He felt like he’d missed the boat with things not working. He hadn’t seen that at all, but maybe that was part of where he went wrong. He did get the rollercoaster part, that he supposed made sense. “Yeah I think that works. You know, just to see how things go.” Without much else to do he got up, unsure of where to put his hands and wound up shoving them into his pockets. “I’ll let you get back to your movie.”
Becka nodded slowly when he agreed to her suggestion, figuring that it was the only thing that really made sense for them to do now. When he got up, she waited a few moments before standing as well, nodding again at what he said. Her instinct was to offer for him to stay and watch the movie with her, but that would hardly be taking time and space, so she bit back the urge. “Okay. And Adam? If there’s anything you need or want? My door’s always open,” she told him, though she didn’t really expect him to take her up on that.
He made his way to the door when she nodded, stopping with a hand on the handle when she spoke. “I know it is. Same for you. If you need anything. Doesn’t matter when,” he added, stressing the last part. He hadn’t been upset with her about waking him up, just that he hadn’t been able to answer her questions. “Be careful,” he added before opening the door and waving once before shutting it behind him.
Becka smiled just a little at him at that, glad to have had the offer returned to her, though she wasn’t sure she would take him up on it, either. At least not before things leveled out some and they could see where things would go for them. “I will,” she promised, returning the small wave. As he closed the door, she crossed to it, pressing one hand and her forehead against it as she let out a breath and hoped that he would be able to figure things out, if only for himself.