Halfway She hesitated. "I want to understand you. I believe you are a good man, but you treat me with both kindness and cruelty. It vexes me. I asked you before: 'What am I to make of this?' Does this man mislike me? He told me never to speak to him again. Then he sends me a letter and a puppy. Is he fond of me? I grow quickly weary of the back and forth. Endlessly trying to parse together what is going through your head. It is becoming a distraction. One that I cannot afford to have. So." She said, the weariness in her eyes beginning to sparkle into bright blue flame. ~Alyssa Kingsley
It was audible how Nemean sighed. It wasn't the first one either but a series of them as Alyssa had spoken. The chair had creaked as he leaned to the left and then to the right. As she continued her words however, his motions became fewer and his innate desire to refute and to highlight grew dimmer and dimmer. Until finally, he felt spent. Running towards an imagined finish-line only to have it pulled back every time it came into sight.
His right hand rose from its perch on the armrest and ran along the line of his yaw. His eyes pensive until his fingers brushed the tip his chin and made the motion of tossing some imaginary thing from them. ''I'm a distraction.'' The words came soft and matter of factly. With rising eyebrows an expression of exasperation and surprise melted into disbelief. His head shook slightly as his hand landed on the armrest with a clap. That was the moment he looked Alyssa in the eye.
Eyelids sheltering unstinting orbs. The otherwise deflated posture filled itself with an odd determination. ''You are very beautiful, but I won't continue.'' His hand all but swirled ''Whatever this is.'' Getting up from the chair hurt him. He didn't try to hide it either as his left arm protested. The injured limb had throbbed all the way through the conversation. As his emotions rose so to did the beating of his heard and the consequent pulsing of his veins.Without much decorum or care Nemean pushed the chair away and liberated a pathway leading towards the door.
Halfway there he stopped and turned. ''Great affection is what I felt. Unreasonably so. I tried to find out if I was justified in feeling it. Imagined, I realize now, that there were signs from you. That you might've felt the same way.'' His posture lost some of its vim and fire, eyes cast downwards towards the floor. ''I see now that I was mistaken.'' Reconstructing his will to move, he began to turn towards the exist again.
Determined to leave and pull this door closed, for a final time.
