Caroline Forbes is full of light (miss_mystic) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-02-01 15:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, caroline forbes, lie ren |
Who: Caroline and Ren
What: Ren helps Caroline feel better
When: January 23
Where: A park
Rating/Warning: Low
Status: Complete
Caroline was a mess. She had never been so hurt before. Even when her mom died. Of course that had been beyond horrible, but she had Tyler. He made it better. Now she didn’t even have him. Not only that but he was the one causing all her pain.
Even after their break up, after she made it perfectly clear if he walked out the door there would be no coming back, part of her held out hope he would change his mind. But after his father’s funeral, after he couldn’t even look at her? There was no hope. Tyler was out of her life. Forever.
It had been a few days since the funeral. Caroline wasn’t doing much better but she knew she needed to make an effort. Try and get back to her happy help. Fake it till you make it.
First step was getting back in touch with her friends. Of course she had been in contact with Marguerite and Elena since the break up. But that was about it. As social as she usually was she hadn’t felt like talking to anyone else. Now though, she wanted to be around someone who didn’t know much about her break up. So she called Ren and asked if he was up for some martial arts. Exercise was supposed to be good for a broken heart. Right?
It seemed as though it had been a long time since the last time Ren had seen Caroline, which he knew was partly his fault. Of course, Caroline had been busy, but Ren, who prefered quiet and solitude, was also at fault for not getting in touch when he could have.
He regretted it now. Caroline was obviously going through something hard, and he wanted to be there for her. When she’d asked if he was willing to do some martial arts with her, he had, of course, agreed, even before he’d known that she was hurting, but when he saw her he immediately knew that she had been looking for more than just a quick workout. “First, it’s a good idea to centre yourself,” he explained, and started to lead her through some breathing exercises.
Caroline nodded and followed along with the breathing. However instead of centering herself her mind ended up wandering. And of course that meant it went back to Tyler. The images of him walking away from her not once, but twice filled her mind. Before she knew it the tears were falling.
Ren had his eyes closed as he concentrated on breathing, and didn’t notice that Caroline was crying until he heard a muffled sob. He opened his eyes and looked at her with a small, concerned frown. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he talk to her, or continue on like nothing was amiss? Then, he walked over to her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Caroline apologized when she felt Ren’s touch. She wiped her tears away doing her best to not let anymore fall. “Sorry,” she repeated. “I just…” her voice trailed off. It wasn’t exactly like this was something she wanted to talk about, but Ren deserved to know why she was suddenly upset. “Tyler broke up with me.”
Ren gave Caroline’s shoulder another gentle squeeze. “You have nothing to apologize for,” and then “I’m sorry to hear that.” Knowing what to say had never been one of his strong suits, especially not in situations like this one, but he felt as though he needed to do more. “Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Caroline replied through her tears. Well she sort of knew. But it wasn’t exactly like she could explain the sire bond to Ren. Besides that seemed to just be an excuse. Especially when Tyler followed up with how he could live without her. “You’ll have to ask him. If he’ll talk to you.” Considering he wasn’t speaking to her at all, but somehow she had a feeling it was just her.
Ren frowned. He wasn’t going to ask Tyler; he and Tyler were hardly friends, and it wasn’t really his place to start questioning his decisions, even if it did make him angry how he had made Caroline feel.
He wasn’t sure what else to do. Caroline was hurting, and it was only after a moment that he realized, maybe, he could help out a little. He closed his eyes, and, if anyone was looking on, it would seem as though the colour of both Caroline and Ren had dimmed a little, and along with it, any negative feelings either one of them had. It was temporary, but maybe it would help Caroline be able to see everything a little more clearly.
“It’s his loss,” he said.
For some reason Caroline did feel a little better. It was weird but in a good way. She was beginning to feel like her heart was always going to ache. Like she was going to have a lump in her throat everytime she thought about Tyler… which was pretty much all the time. “Yeah,” she agreed with a small smile. “You’re right. It is his loss.”
“Just remember that,” Ren said. “And that sometimes, we’re given these experiences so that we can grow as people. It was an important chapter of your life, but sometimes those chapters need to end so that our stories can continue.”
“When did you get so wise?” Caroline asked with a small smile. It was a bit odd getting dating advice from someone younger than her. Especially since she had no idea is Ren even dated. Wow, how self centered was she that she was always talking about Tyler and had no idea what was going on in Ren’s own life. “You have a lot of experience with chapters ending?”
Ren gave her a soft smile. He hardly considered himself ‘wise’ but it wasn’t the first time that someone had told him as much. “Not quite chapters like yours.” Nora had always been in his life, and he suspected that she always would be. At least, she hoped she would be. “But yes, I’ve had my fair share of chapters ending.”
He hoped, at least, that Caroline’s mind had been somewhat taken off of Tyler, and he removed his hand from her shoulder, the colour seemingly coming back to both of them.
“Well,” Caroline said with a small smile. “If you ever want to talk about your chapters I’ll listen.” She wasn’t going to force him to open up right now. Especially when this was supposed to be about martial arts.
Ren smiled, relieved that the worst of it had seemed to pass. “Someday, maybe,” he said. It was still difficult to talk about his parents, and the life he and Nora had led after that, but Caroline was becoming a good friend so maybe, someday.
“Do you think you’re ready to continue?” If Caroline still needed some time, of course, Ren was happy to let her take it.
“Yeah,” Caroline said with a small nod and even giving another smile. “Let’s get back to it.”