Coop felt his heart sink, his eyes shifted to look anywhere but at her. “We’re good together, Gen.” He bit his lower lip then, he wanted to explode and rant about how she was made for him. How she was his soul mate, couldn’t she feel it too? Couldn’t she feel that heat? He knew that ranting at her about it would do him no good, it hadn’t stopped her from moving out and it wouldn’t stop her from rejecting him now.
He wasn’t sure when he’d become a glutton for punishment, but he knew it had happened at some point in the past couple of weeks. He couldn’t bring himself to run away from the situation just yet. He wanted to fix it, “I’m sorry, I promised to not do something stupid and I did. It just felt so right dancing with you tonight.” He shook his head, finally lifting his eyes to look at her. He was hoping she wasn’t too mad. “I won’t try it again, I won’t be the reason you lose a friend. I won’t make it weird to me around me.” At least.. Well, he’d try. Maybe he had to move slower, much slower. The trip had been a bad idea, Em had been right. He’d let her know tomorrow, she could gloat to Wishes.
“I’m going to go.” Cooper took a step back, his hands slipping into his pockets to search for his wand. He took the opportunity to look down and away from her. He was feeling guilty that her heart had broke too, he didn’t understand it like he should have and he knew it. He was already planning to ask Em or Hyperion for advice with that one.
At his response, Gen dropped her hands from him and wrapped them around her middle. "We were," she countered softly, both agreeing and not. "For a lot of it." But maybe he still didn't understand how bad things were at points, how his anger and jealousy issues had soured things. It didn't feel right to dredge that all out now, though.
There was that twisting in her chest again, the reminder of how natural it felt to be in his arms, the knowledge that she wouldn't have that with him again. Oh, it was clear he'd have her back if she wanted it, but she was moving on and going back didn't feel right anyway. Even if she still loved him, which she wasn't willing to admit to, it wasn't enough to fix the problems they'd had. And she couldn't live in fear of him lashing out and getting in a fight and getting himself killed because he couldn't remember that fighting wasn't allowed with his career-ending head injury.
"All right," she said when he took a step back and said he was leaving. What else could he say? She cared about him, but she wasn't going to lead him on that they could be together again. It wouldn't do either of them any good for her to lose her head. And she was definitely pretending that she wasn't on the verge of tears.
Hearing her use the past tense just twisted that knife deeper. Em had been right, he had made of himself once again. He turned quickly then, lifting one hand up to wipe under his eye as he felt those familiar tears. He wasn't going to do this again, not in front of her again. He apparated then back to his hotel room and away from that street corner, where angry tears slipped from his eyes as he put his fist through the wall. He was suddenly so grateful no one had come with him to France, at least she had been the only witness this time.