Kealey didn’t know who Gemma was, but at least it seemed like Andrew had some support to help him through whatever was going on with the shooting. In fact…he seemed to be taking it all rather well. Much better than Kealey figured she’d have taken it if she’d done something like that.

Andrew pointed out that you never really got over something like killing a person, and Kealey nodded her head slowly. The truth was, she didn’t really have an opinion on the matter…she’d never killed anyone. The closest she’d come to even damaging someone was in the woods the time Jacen had taken her camping. She’d hit the bad guy in the head with the frying pan. He’d been okay by the time the police had taken him away. Kealey hadn’t felt bad about that, not at all. It seemed like it was the same case here…someone had been trying to hurt Jorge…and Andrew had acted.

And now he was ready to move on to a different subject…unless she wanted to stay on the subject of killing. Kealey shook her head, they could move on….Andrew was uncomfortable and she was supposed to be helping, after all.

”You should apply that attitude to the other things you’re running from. You run from girls…but you seem to be standing up and taking all of this with a stiff upper lip.” she said, then shook her head a little, ”But no…we don’t have to talk any more about this.”

Yet again Andrew shrugged when Kealey suggested that he face down everything the way he did the shooting.

"Somehow facing possible death or personal punishment etc. is ten times easier than facing people problems. I'd rather worry about dying than worry about upsetting a friend or lover."

At least when you were dead you were just dead. Sure it hurt those who cared about you but generally you weren't in much of a position to stop it. Hurting those you cared about however was something that took a while to fix if you could fix it at all. All in all, Andrew would rather chance death than that.

"So Verdy. I think I've handled this one. Well as best as I can anyway. Verdy is one of the residents here. I sorta made friends with her shortly after coming. Except I accidentally hit on her one night when I was really really tired. I'd been staying up for days at a time because of nightmares due to the shooting. Exhaustion made me a little...well not myself really.'

'I don't remember precisely what happened but she said that I called her hot and tried to kiss her. Kinda made for awkwardness for a little bit but I sorted that out and nothing seems to have changed since then so I think I managed that one."

And think was the operative word there because Andrew just wasn't sure about anything when it came to Verdy.

"Somehow facing possible death or personal punishment etc. is ten times easier than facing people problems. I'd rather worry about dying than worry about upsetting a friend or lover."

Kealey blinked, then frowned. ”Andrew…does that really make sense to you?” she said, confusion evident in her voice, ”That’s how you build relationships with people, learning how to get through conflicts. How can you even have close friends and and…more…without knowing how to deal with conflict with them?”

Kealey listened to Andrew’s description of the problem with Verdy…who was apparently a female Mansion Resident, and nodded her head, still a little baffled at how this was a bigger problem than killing someone. Apparently he’d been exhausted, said some things he…didn’t want to? Didn’t mean?

Boy, Andrew was confusing. He thought he’d worked it all out though, they were friends again? Nothing was happening? Kealey nodded some more…she was nodding a lot, ”That kiss didn’t work either?” she asked, still trying to wrap her head around the whole situation. ”And…you don’t actually like her? It was all insomnia talking?” Kealey knew that strange things could happen when someone was exhausted, like cake baking and random naps in strange places…but romantic confessions?

”I’m confused.” she said, scratching the back of her head a little, ”You have two girls…and you’re all torn up inside about it?” Kealey didn’t want to laugh. Andrew had made it obvious that this situation was life and death to him…but all of this was so hard for her to wrap her mind around. Hopefully he’d shed some more light on the subject.

Kealey was confused it seemed. Very confused. Andrew on the other hand had no idea how to fix that because explaining wasn't proving that easy. She seemed to think that being more comfortable with fighting than with handling people. He couldn't really imagine the reverse. People were confusing and so easy to hurt. Fighting was generally pretty simple since it was usually just eliminate your opponent in some fashion. He decided not to comment on that. Instead he'd try to clear up Kealey's confusion regarding what happened with Verdy.

"We didn't actually kiss I think. I think I passed out before we kissed. Apparently I did try to kiss her though."

Oh boy. Kealey just didn't get it.

"It's not that I don't like her. I just don't want a girlfriend right now."

And then she brought up that he supposedly had two girls and he was torn up about it. Andrew frowned at that.

"Is it so unbelievable that I don't like anything that remotely resembles two timing? Putting aside the issue that I'm not entirely sure I want to date either of them."

Whoops. Misunderstanding. Kealey blinked for a moment, trying to wrap her head around it. Andrew actually thought she was advising him to be a two-timer.

”No no no…” she said, just slightly incredulous. ”That would be a horrible thing to do.” she added empathically.

”I was merely asking if that was the case…with two unknown female factors…in different states of status.” That probably didn’t make any more sense than it had before…but maybe it did. Kealey hoped so…she hated misunderstandings.

She also wasn’t being very much help. She frowned.

”I’m sorry…” she said on a sigh, ”I wanted to help…but all I seem to be doing is upsetting you more. You probably wish you’d never laid eyes on me today.”

Oh ok. If he'd taken a second to think about it it would have been pretty obvious that she wasn't saying that at all. Kealey tried to reason it all out but ended up just saying that in essence she was screwing up and that Andrew probably wished he'd not seen her at all today. He gave yet another shrug to this notion.

"I don't mind. You're one of my friends and you deserve an explanation. If that makes me uncomfortable then so be it."

Which was almost completely contradictory to his reactions to Verdy and Kate. Maybe because it there was the possibility something more intimate with them? After all, Kealey was cute and a nice person but Andrew had never thought for a moment that he'd had any shot with her. She'd introduced herself as off the market in the very first sentence she'd ever said to him. Not to mention he wouldn't exactly like to face an angry Shin. That seemed like it would be very painful.

"But yes, I really don't like leaving two girls hanging like that."

Back on topic. Unless of course Kealey was uncomfortable enough that she wanted to go back to her library duties. He wasn't exactly the empath here so he couldn't tell for certain one way or the other without asking.

He was uncomfortable with the topic of conversation, but now that they’d cleared up their misunderstanding…Andrew didn’t mind the talk. His motivation for wanting to talk about it bugged Kealey though. He wanted to talk because he felt like he owed her an explanation.

”I don’t feel like you owe me anything….” she said carefully, trying not to drag them back into the ‘I don’t understand your life philosophy’ phase of conversation they’d just left. ”I wanted you to talk about it because sometimes talking about things makes you feel better.”

It was true, talking had helped lots of things. Hopefully it could help Andrew too.

He hated to leave the two girls hanging. Kealey’s eyebrows rose and she had to chew over a response just a little bit before answering, but when she did, she smiled, ”It is the burden of being a handsome, nice guy, who cooks amazingly well, Andrew. If you don’t like leaving them hanging…you’re going to have to talk to them.”

Picking and choosing his topics again Andrew preferred to talk about Kealey saying that for one he was a handsome, nice guy, that was good at cooking. That was something of an awkward statement coming from Kealey but he'd accept it. Of course she said that if he didn't like leaving things like that he'd need to talk to them. And that was probably true. It didn't make it any less difficult though. It would be awkward and painful and he'd just rather avoid it if possible.

"And that's the hard part." Andrew blinked a couple of times before adding, " I meant the talking. Though being handsome, nice, and good at baking isn't easy either."

Andrew smirked a little as he said the last sentence. He knew better than to contradict Kealey's statement. She seemed to dislike it when he did that over certain things. Mostly when he put himself down. Why that would bother her he didn't know but he wasn't going to ask. They'd get into another snarly maze of questions while trying to figure each other out.

"I'm pretty sure I'm cool with Verdy. The only problem being Kate and I just don't want to deal with that now. Maybe after a little while when I can get the courage to do so I will but not just now."