égalité

She sure didn't feel human, but she gives the other girl a smile despite this. Tillie knows that Acacia means what she says. But even still there is a gnawing suspicion that the other girl is disappointed in her.

She lifts her hands up to her sides, shrugging in a dramatic, exasperated way. “No! I mean yes. I mean- Oh, I don't know. It's just so embarrassing. I need you to tell me that everything is okay and no one will remember how foolish I looked." The pressure of her self-consciousness was compounding in on itself. She knows that it might actually make her burst. She feels the seems ripping apart, the cracks forming in her rib cage. The headache doesn't help. But then, maybe relinquishing her thoughts will finally alleviate some of this compression on her skull. And, luckily, she knows in her heart that the best person to profess this to is sitting right in front of her.

A sigh. "And I don’t know if I can .. I don’t know if - because I did something kind of - “ She rubs at her temples out of frustration. Oh this was truly helpless. She was so exhausted by the difficulty that she and Emmett had created for themselves. Mostly she was fed up with looking like a confused, flustered mess in front of everyone she knows.

Somehow, a sense of resolve finds its way to her. Her spine straightens. She clears her throat. “Okay - And resist the urge to judge me please - I kissed Emmett. Or, rather, I guess he kissed me first.“ Part of her feels like she will collapse under the weight of this confession, but a larger part of her does feel better to have said it out loud.

As much as it felt like it was the female population of this school on the desperate hunt for a husband, at the same time, there was a handful of men that seemed to be on the hunt for Acacia's time and attention. And as flattering as it was, off-handed and misplaced comments ran rampant amongst those few and it took all of her being to let them slide – for whatever idea of peace that was meant to be kept and placated. Especially considering a lot of said men where her classmates and possible group project partners. It's why Acacia often sought refuge with her French group. With most of them younger, the pressure of post-academic life wasn't pressing on to them as much as her and she sought the respite often. Even if it came with the flair for the dramatics and drunken antics.

She sat there, taking sips of her drink, listening to everything Tillie was saying and somehow catching so much more in between the lines than she expected for this early in the morning. The last thing Acacia wanted to do was infer more of the situation at hand but at the same time, it all felt so dramatic. "I mean this in the gentlest of ways possible because I adore you," Acacia started, making sure she was going to find the right words to respond with. "Kissing Emmett is a bad thing because...? Or rather him kissing you? Was it consensual? Did you want him to kiss you and did you want to kiss him? There's nothing wrong with wanting or am I missing so much more to this whole thing."

Emmett knows he's been laying in bed all day - the light in the room changes slowly but surely, yet he stays the same. On his back, staring up at the ceiling. Emmett has maybe gotten up a handful of times for water or to go to the bathroom, but he really hasn't eaten much and can't stand to be awake for very long. It's foolish how desolate he had become after his argument with Tillie, but it's not just Tillie is it? It's him, too. It's the curly-headed, soft-spoken heartbreak of the past just as much. A newfound understanding of their situation eating Emmett alive - he realizes now how Sasha must have felt - how he must have made him feel. Emmett has not been able to get up from underneath the weight of it all. He glances towards the window - sunset. He sighs, rolling over to face the wall so he doesn't have to contend with how late it's getting.

What Emmett wouldn't give for Acacia to be by his side right now - her face flashes through his brain vividly - soft, confident, reassuring. Something about her energy was so incredibly stabilizing for him. She felt like family to him, in some strange way. The older sibling he never had to coach him through life. Tears well up in his eyes again - god, he's been so lost for so long with no guidance. His eyes drift shut and his subconscious wanders, almost involuntarily so, conjuring up images he feels he has no control over. Bright, brief flashes of someone walking the hallway. Rounding a corner and then another. Approaching a door, raising a hand to knock. Emmett's eyes fly open. "Acacia." he says quietly, nearly in disbelief. Seconds later, there's a knock at his bedroom door. He scrambles off the bed, rushing to the door to see if he had been right all along - and there she was. Emmett pauses for a moment in shock. How did she know to come here? Had she felt him thinking about her? Emmett is well aware of the tears on his face, but he is immediately enamored by what just happened. "How did you...." he swallows hard. "I mean, did you......?" Emmett shakes his head, realizing he probably looks absolutely ridiculous right now. "I'm - I'm so happy to see you right now." his voice cracks with tears - he can't hold it together any longer seeing her face now.

The blonde took one second to take in the state of his room, trying to ignore the nagging logic that was trying to take over her brain. Why did she beeline it over to his room, when she had no reason to be here? One minute she was walking down one of the many corridors of this labyrinth of a school. She dipped into a recess behind a pillar to avoid a group of other girls walking down. Then she started to feel tears down her face, tears that weren’t there, then just this overwhelming need to come see Emmett. She was stepping out of the alcove when it she heard her name from behind, as if he was standing right behind her, but when Acacia spun around, no one was there. It was just a wall. Next she knew, she was at his room door. All of which didn’t matter because Emmett was very clearly not himself and she was here to do whatever she could to help.

“What happened and who do I have to bury alive?” 

The warm bitter smell of coffee feels like a blessing for a fleeting moment, but her stomach lurches at the mention of more alcohol. She gently pushes the mug back toward Acacia and crosses her arms. "I think having some hair of the dog might kill me. I have to hold onto what dignity I have left by not barfing around you, you know." She means that. The only armor she currently dons are the pair of sunglasses balancing on her nose, and they are not nearly enough to hide how much shame she feels.

Tillie lifts her head to the wind in an attempt to feel the breeze better on her face. She isn't looking at Acacia when she speaks again. "Would you lie to me if I asked if I was a complete embarrassment?" She winces instinctively as she braces for the answer. She doesn't know what good it will do to know, but she figures not knowing is worse. And, surely the rest of the night couldn't have been more horrifying than what she'd done with Emmett.

Acacia glanced between the two cups and picked up the one that was offered back to her, cradling the heated ceramic in her hands. “Sweetheart, we’re all human. Whatever you do will not make me see you less than you are.” Again, as gingerly as possible, Acacia reached over to help push back the sunglasses on the girl’s face. “I didn’t look at you any different last night when you showed up completely sloshed versus right now.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” she asked, raising one eyebrow just a smidge. “I mean, I can do whatever you need me to do to make you feel better. However, I don’t think me saying that would make you feel better. What happened last night?”

Finally, he let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding before barely glancing over to her. "Ana," he started. "Ana was... Well, she wasn't like anyone I knew before. You know, growing up around here, it's not like I always got the chance to see people who look like me. It was refreshing in a way." He waited a moment more before turning the page in his book again. "It was an honor to get the chance to love someone like her," Dae said. He hoped that would be enough for her, but he had a nagging feeling that someone as hardheaded as Acacia wouldn't let that slide.

His head was so buried in the book that Acacia knew he was not reading a single word so she kept her eyes down, if it meant that he would talk about Ana more. Her own blank page of her notebook was her focus, if it make him more comfortable to talk, but her ears were taking it all in. Not that he was giving her much. "She should be special if she got to be loved by you, but it wasn't just being two isolated people that brought you two together right? I mean, it helped but there was more. You are drawn to a lot of people, but for you to stay, what was it about her?" Acacia didn't want to think about it to much when it came in relation to her. What made Acacia a good enough person for Dae to stick around her. It couldn't be that she was one of the handful that actually got his name right or the fact that they had a dating history. She knew why she gravitated towards him, but admitting those thoughts and feelings were opening the path back to why she's regretted ever proposing they break up in the first place.

To appear seemingly casual about it all, Acacia did have her notebooks out to reference her notes from class, even if there was not a note taken for the paper she should be writing. “Ana,” Acacia stated, not going to beat around the bush. She glanced up from her paper, trying to catch his reaction. “Tell me about her.”