OTA

[akatawitch]

There wasn’t really a word for Sunny’s mood. It’s wasn’t deep enough for sadness, it wasn’t gray enough for numb. The paper shredder in her belly wouldn’t even properly start up. If anybody asked her, she’d just call it… crying. That was her mood. Crying. Every once in a while, she’d be going about her day and then suddenly she wouldn’t be able to see clearly and her face would be wet. It wasn’t even proper sobbing or anything, her eyes just leaked. Maybe that was the right word--leaking. She didn’t much want to think about what the effect was.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected this. Not like Faizel hadn’t told her before about how hard it was to… people, basically. Not like he'd disappeared from her life completely with no way to reach him. There had been a goodbye, and it had been amiable, and she had been able to do it with a smile. She’d even been smart enough to ignore her id’s urging to ask for one last kiss, just because she knew if he’d flinched again she wouldn’t have been able to take it.

It wasn’t like she’d never have feelings for someone again or anything. She wasn’t even twenty-three yet.

But it was like... like she was trying to start her ignition and couldn’t get the engine to turn over. She could do stuff, she wasn’t paralyzed, but she was waiting for the day to actually start and it never quite seemed to do it.

Later in the afternoon she spent a rather aimless hour spent in a bookstore trying to find something that appealed. She tried. She picked things up and read cover blurbs and first pages, but nothing seemed to grab her.

And then she was leaking again, and the shop girl was looking at her funny. She knew this was the time to quip, but there was that cold engine leaving her not without words but without any fire to wield them properly. So she just left. Her vision meant that she bumped into someone she should have seen coming, and this required no particular feelings, so when she smiled and apologized, it was almost normal.

“Sorry,” she said, like her eyes weren’t leaking. “I didn’t mean it.”

Comments

[show_me_something]

"Nonsense, dear." Victoria pulled a linen handkerchief from her bag and offered it to Sunny as though it were perfectly natural. "You've nothing to apologize for. There's a cafe up the street; come join me for a cup."

[akatawitch]

"Oh..." Sunny blinked and accepted the handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes. It didn't seem to do anything, though, and the slow, cold roll of tears continued. "Um. All right."

[dr_spencer_reid]

"It's alright," Spencer assured her. He wasn't much for shaking hands, but his issues with germs and hand to hand contact didn't stop him from gently steadying her. "Are you alright?"

[akatawitch]

"I guess not," Sunny said after a moment's pause, but it was an answer by default. She knew she didn't feel good, but she also knew she'd felt far worse. In that case, she supposed she wasn't all right.

[dr_spencer_reid]

There was a small cafe to the right, and Spencer hesitated a beat before gesturing at a table outside.

"Do you want to sit for a minute? You know, every year we learn more about the potential health benefits of tea. The research into the beneficial effects of regular tea drinking and how it might help protect against carcinoma of the skin comes to mind first, but-"

Spencer paused a beat, cutting himself off and getting back on topic.

"...But it's also considered very comforting."

[akatawitch]

Trying to follow what he was saying made Sunny focus on something, though she almost wished she hadn't tried. It was a very fast flood of words and more than half of it wasn't relevant. Her own brain seemed to be moving so slowly, like the persistent trickle of tears. "Sitting down might be a good idea, yeah."

[dr_spencer_reid]

Spencer nodded, gesturing at the table and pushing his hair back. "Um, I'll go in and get the tea. What kind do you prefer? Black, green, herbal..."

He trailed off, doing his best not to rattle off a list of every tea he knew.

[akatawitch]

"Black," Sunny said as she moved toward the table and sat down. What the hell was herbal tea anyway? It was not tea. "Thank you. You're very kind."

[dr_spencer_reid]

"It's nothing," Spencer assured her, dipping into the shop.

He returned a while later with black tea for her and coffee for himself. "I wasn't sure how you took it," he added as he dumped packets of sugar, honey and sealed tubs of cream onto the table.

[akatawitch]

By the time he'd come back, Sunny had gotten the tears back under control--or at least they'd stopped after she'd wiped them away several times. She even managed a little smile of gratitude.

She never put cream in her tea, but she did take some of the sugar packets. "I'm not usually so pathetic," she said, faintly wry.

[dr_spencer_reid]

Spencer, on the other hand, added plenty of sugar and cream to his coffee. ...Though mostly sugar.

"There's nothing pathetic about expressing emotional pain. In all seriousness, it's a sign of a well-adjusted person," Spencer replied practically. "Do you want to talk about it? ...Or, you know, not talk about it?" he offered.

[akatawitch]

"Someone I really liked left London recently. We broke up months ago, but..." she shrugged.

"I'm Sunny, by the way," she said with a little self-deprecating quirk of a smile.

[dr_spencer_reid]

"Spencer," he replied, offering a small and sympathetic smile. "That seems like a totally reasonable thing to shed tears over, Sunny," he assured her.

Spencer didn't know much about relationships, but he'd had more than his share of heartache.

[akatawitch]

"I thought I was done grieving, I guess," Sunny muttered, stirring sugar into her tea. "I could have loved him, under other circumstances, but that was really not meant to be. We made much more sense as friends." If anything, the two of them had found themselves practically living Middlemarch, mostly Casaubon and Dorothea with sprinkles of Lydgate and Rosamund. They at least had the sense not to get in any deeper.

[dr_spencer_reid]

"Do you think you're upset because they're gone, or because that chapter of your life is closing?" Spencer asked. "Sometimes the idea of knowing you need to move on hurts much more than letting go or saying goodbye."

[akatawitch]

Sunny sipped her tea as she considered that question. She took her time with it, not concerning herself with things like awkwardly long pauses. "Both, I guess. I keep crying because of the latter, but I'm upset about both. He's still a very dear friend."

[dr_spencer_reid]

"Well, for whatever it's worth coming from a stranger, I'm sorry," Spencer said gently.

[akatawitch]

"More than you might think," Sunny assured him. "You have no legal or social obligation to care at all about my well-being. The kindness of strangers is important to me."

[dr_spencer_reid]

Spencer nodded a little, looking thoughtful, then leaning back in his seat. "Maybe you should get away for a while. Just a weekend, sometimes separating yourself from a place that reminds you of something or someone can help."

[akatawitch]

That got a quirk of a smile out of Sunny. "What a coincidence. I'll be going to Nigeria pretty soon." A bit longer than a weekend, but all the same.

[dr_spencer_reid]

"Is that where your family is from? I assumed American, but do you have relatives there?" Spencer asked curiously.

[akatawitch]

Sunny smiled and switched to a thick Nigerian accent effortlessly. "I was raised there. Most of my family is there." She sipped her tea and switched back. "But I was born in New York, and I have family stateside also. Dual citizenship is awesome."

[dr_spencer_reid]

Spencer smiled warmly at that, not her accent or her words, but the fact that she had smiled.

"You seem like you're really looking forward to going back for a while. How long has it been since you were last home?"

[akatawitch]

"It's been a minute," Sunny mused. "I haven't been home since last summer. University and whatnot." And the whole time she'd been in school, there had been a balancing act between how often she wanted to go home, how often her parents could afford it, and how often her father couldn't make excuses. It was cheaper for her than her brothers in the states, sure, but that hadn't changed anything as far as Ezekiel Nwazue was concerned. He couldn't have her coming more often than his beloved boys.

[dr_spencer_reid]

"I'm sure you'll come back feeling renewed and refreshed," Spencer said, sounding confident on her behalf. His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket just enough to see who it was.

"Sorry, I have to take this," he said, excusing himself from the table to take his call.