[debut]

[floozyfacade]

I know it sounds cliché and all, and I swear I don't mean it in some weird Sapphic way - I mean, I love Rhi even now and we've been close, but not, you know, that close - but I'm pretty sure that, when I look up and see her staring back at me, my heart stops. Like, actually stops, and the blood in my veins just goes cold. Not literally, I mean,

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[pointzerothree]

There's something calming about the beach. Eduardo still isn't sure how he feels about this whole island thing, aside from the fact that it remains incredibly confusing, but the beach, he likes, inasmuch as he likes anything about it. Maybe it's just familiar, with as much of his life as he's spent living near one, or because it makes him the closest to clear-headed that he ever gets these days. (It isn't very, not really

[floozyfacade]

Olive's never been a jumpy girl, anxious or easily frightened, but the sound of someone approaching, someone distinctly male and unfamiliar makes her flinch even as she fights to stop crying so she can answer. "Fine," she says, knowing it's entirely unconvincing. It's hard to pull off fine when she sounds like that, the way her voice lifts and cracks, and she's suddenly grateful that there isn't much light over here to make obvious her red eyes and blotchy skin. Crying in front of people I know is bad enough, but a stranger? God, I sound like someone's trying to strangle me to death. Talk about your perfect first impression.

"Awesome," she adds, almost choking when she tries to take a breath and not sob at the same time, and winds up shaking her head vehemently instead as the tears start again. She has no idea where she is or who this guy is, and he sounds nice, but the combination of all this and what just happened is as far from alright as it gets, somewhere much closer to terrifying.

[pointzerothree]

It isn't really any of his business, not knowing her or having the first idea what might have prompted this, but despite being well aware of that fact, Eduardo doesn't have it in him to just leave her. She can't be either fine or awesome, his question seeming, in retrospect, like a stupid one, and until he can at least be assured of the first, going anywhere doesn't seem to be an option. There's nowhere else he needs to be, anyway, and he thinks it might be the first time that he's actually been grateful for the lack of obligations around here. If it means he just sits while she cries, he's alright with that.

"Shh," he murmurs, "just try to breathe, okay? Everything's going to be alright." He can't really promise as much, but he's at a loss for what else he can do or say. Were she not a stranger, he would reach for her, try to offer some sort of comfort, but it wouldn't be his place, so he just shifts the orange from one hand to the other for a few seconds before picking up a hair tie a few inches off. He'll just have to ignore the

[floozyfacade]

Olive nods, though trying to breathe first means holding her breath, lips pressed together and - after a moment's hesitation until she finds she doesn't have much choice - eyes shut tight. She's unsteady, inhaling shakily, as she runs through a litany of reasons she's alright and stumbling over them repeatedly. Anson isn't here, wherever this is, that's all she really has. It takes her a solid minute at least to pull herself together enough that she can speak, first dusting her hands against her dress and then reaching up to wipe her eyes, that hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach from too much crying

[floozyfacade]

It's not until she's laid out in bed with the sheets tucked high over her that Olive really feels just how exhausted she is. The bed isn't exactly the most comfortable she's ever slept in, but she still manages to drift into a kind of half-sleep, too drowsy to keep her eyes open, jolting awake again occasionally. She's all too aware that this isn't her home, and the state of the bed doesn't matter so much as its not being hers any more than the shirt she's wearing is. In spite of this and the guilt she can't help over taking his bed and the niggling fear at the back of her mind that says she shouldn't be sleeping in a stranger's house anyway, that has to remind her he's a stranger, she drifts in and out of sleep for a while without knowing how long

[pointzerothree]

It feels a little like being back at school again, which is both comfortable in its familiarity and unsettling in that he knows he isn't. Either way, though, Eduardo does sleep, though it takes a little while to get there, less because the desk is uncomfortable and more because he keeps worrying about Olive. While it may or may not be necessary - she pulled herself together well enough, or at least seemed to - there's a sense of responsibility now that he can't shake, that he doesn't think he'd want to. It would almost remind him of the early days he was friends with Mark, except he doesn't think Olive could be more unlike Mark Zuckerberg if she tried. The point is, though, that she's got no one else, and there's little he wouldn't do for the people who matter, sleeping on his desk included

[floozyfacade]

The way the bed sinks under his weight makes Olive tense, though she's awake enough to know it's just Eduardo. She doesn't turn toward him, though, heat sharp on her neck, though she is, for the most part, too worked up to worry about the embarrassment of being caught behaving like this. "It's not," she says, half-choking on the words. Now, wound up and homesick already, she wants him to leave, wants to tell him to go away, because she doesn't know him and he has no place in this, because he's just some stranger who found her and there's nothing he can do to make what he's just said true. It's too cruel, though, and he's been too good, and even in the midst of a fit of self-pity, Olive can recognize that, can't bring herself to be hurtful towards him, not willfully. She just wishes she could get this over with alone, sick to her stomach with what she's lost. "Don't lie, it's not alright."

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo cringes, less because it's hard to hear than because he knows she's right. He can try all he likes to believe otherwise, to convince her otherwise, but at the end of the day, the whole situation is too fucked. Maybe circumstantially, on its own, the island isn't the worst place anyone could be, but that doesn't negate the fact that they were all pulled from their homes against their will, and there's no way in which that's alright. "No," he agrees finally, reluctantly, but nothing short of earnest. "No, it sucks, and it's completely screwed up, but..." But there's no positive spin to put on it. Exhaling slowly, he glances away for just a moment, before fixing his gaze on her again, where she's all curled up and turned away from him. "What can I do?"