The moment he turned his head, Freya felt something inside her abruptly relax. A tension which normally crept in slowly in the time between seeing him, so slowly that it was easy to mistake for something else. Mere minutes separated them this time, hardly anything at all, yet there was no mistaking the feeling that left her or the one that replaced it.
She felt his absence more keenly than she did before. Maybe because, even when he wasn’t there, she still felt him in the back of her mind, an inveterate shadow that she could pull forth with a will that matched his own. He was always there, yet he wasn’t, and those were the times that were the most difficult to bear. When she was alone but didn’t have to be.
And more than that: his presence was a comfort to her. Which wasn’t new, exactly, but the speed of this change – bit by bit from winter to summer or suddenly the first night she fell asleep holding his hand – didn’t matter. That it had happened at all, that mattered. She welcomed the reprieve from years of loneliness and months of keeping him at a distance, because it did make things easier, day to day, moment to moment. It just also made everything more complicated.
A lot more complicated.
Like this. Freya knew inviting him to go along with her was only delaying the inevitable, another non-goodbye and the turn of his back. She knew it was another step in a direction that took her further away from the safety of her own walls. But that was the thing – with Kyle, within the confines of their dyad, she did feel safe.
But she was also curious. What was he like outside of their training and the nights they didn’t talk about? She might not find out, if he declined, but there was no harm in asking.
“I... did.” Freya confirmed his observation unnecessarily, looking down as she lowered her arm to grasp the strap of her bag across her chest. It was rather an obvious change, but somehow it still surprised her that he remarked on it. “They’re related, actually. The clothes and the question.”
Looking back up at him, she took a deep breath and nodded down the street. “I was planning on stopping at a secondhand bookstore on my way back home. It’s not far from here, only a few blocks.” Though her face remained carefully without expectation, her hand gripped the strap a little tighter. “Want to come with me?”