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The woman slumped in the chair was only half expecting the reactions that she got. Sure, she expected Henri to be comforting and to ask her why she hadn’t eluded to any of this sooner but on no level did she see Gawain’s anger or Henri’s half a threat coming. They both got so upset so fast that, despite Twyla’s tear stained face and her best intentions, she began to laugh. It was a husky, mucus-from-crying-filled laugh and it took over her entire frame. She shook in the chair and clutched her stomach to rock with her eyes closed. It wasn’t supposed to be funny at all, but for some reason it really was. The laughter lasted for a few moments, and it was well needed apparently. She felt a lot better once her giggles tapered off and she slowly sat back up.

“I’m sorry.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye that was more from laughing than crying. “I don’t know where that came from.” The woman looked sheepishly between her friend and her ex boyfriend. “I’m sorry that you guys had to see that.” Twyla made eye contact with Gawain for a moment as she said this--it was worse that he saw her episode than Henri seeing it. “Things have just been piling up--” Turning to Henri. “I didn’t want to tell anyone about the whole Kurt thing because I was embarrassed. He and I had been having issues for...a while.” Try a few years. “Thanks for the concern, but I’ve dealt with it...sorta.” A pat for both the man and the woman. A slight blush.

A sigh. She was going to come totally clean. “He didn’t have it all that great with me, honestly.” A pause and a gulp to suppress the emotion bubbling up in her through again. “We...wanted different things, you know? I was just too stubborn to admit that he didn’t want to get married or have kids. I was scared to admit that I’d made mistakes in judgment. I wasn’t ready for all that when I met him...and everything.” Her eyes found the floor and her blush increased. “But I didn’t want to see that he was never going to grow with me. It’s my own fault, at least partly, maybe mostly.” Her blush had crawled down her neck. “So he’s getting married and some friends back in Cali are finally going to be adopting a baby...that’s about it.” A nervous and shaking smile wiggled onto her face.

Twyla Ashby was on the verge of the breakdown she’d avoided having since the fateful night she got home early from work. She decidedly didn’t like being this close to the edge and feeling so thin. Matters were made worse by the fact that if she did indeed brake down it would be very public and possibly messy. This was not good. Mayday! Mayday! We’re going down!

Gawain sat on one side of her, making the tide of tears swell up again, Henri soon followed. When the other woman took her hand the dam almost broke but the woman managed to blink back the flood. She was about to b.s. her way though an answer to the man’s question when all four of the children came tearing through the hall, running like mad and looking like they were having the best time they could possibly have.

The conversation took a dangerous turn after that and Twyla’s lip began to quiver violently when Henri started talking about children. You’re fine,you can handle this. Just get to your room and-- “And when you have kids, I know you’ll be a great mom....I want you to know we’re here for you and that you’re like a sister to me.” That was it, either she exploded or she released the flood gates. Needless to say there was a lot of water.

About a minute was spent quietly sobbing before the brunette could get her act together enough to form coherent words. “He’s getting married.” Was all she could say at first and then after some wiping of her face with her sleeve, Twyla found herself continuing. “Kurt, he cheated on me--he’s marrying the woman he was sleeping with.” Her voice was strangely clear, all the things she’d been avoiding saying came out like a certain kind of vomit from a certain movie that she still had the urge to watch now and again. “I left him and he’s the one that’s happy--he’s the one getting everything I ever wanted...and everyone,” Her tears started to dry as her voice gained momentum. She looked at Henri and then Gawain on the other side. “Everyone has families and all this life and I...” She blushed, suddenly feeling self conscious about her confession (she blamed her ex’s presence). “All I’ve got is ten years worth of regret and wasted time.” Her free hand balled up some of the material of her dress into a fist.

Twyla realized she’d recognized the name as soon as her friend gave her some background information. She shivered at the thought of him being around that summer but she was unprepared for the full and most recent story. The blond felt the other girl’s arm tense up when she was recalling the memories. Obviously this was a tough subject, Twyla understood why, but that was why she believed that Emerald needed to share these things with her friends--that’s what they were there for, to listen.

Brown eyes grew a touch wider when Em mentioned that he’d found her when she was visiting her parents. They grew even larger when the wolf girl gave some of the more gruesome details of her story. Twyla had to look away, she couldn’t bear to watch Emerald’s face--the body language and the emotion heavy in the air were enough for her to take without getting all squeamish. She blinked slowly, trying to get the images from her mind.

Finally, her friend’s story was finished.

The blond fought off the heavy shiver that was creeping up her neck. A deep breath was taken instead, she needed to be strong enough to comfort Em. But there was still one thing, one glaring detail, that the wolf girl left out...Who else had to deal with ‘him’?

Twyla let that thought simmer for a moment on the back burner. “Oh, Em...I...that’s....” A sigh. “My words can’t make it right--I’m just sorry that you’ve gone through such terrible things.”

A pause and a very quiet moment. Then, she just jumped right in with what was bothering her. “That..that wasn’t the full story--who...who else, erm, met with Bloodfang, this summer I mean?” Her stomach turned, imagining things.

They were quiet for a moment and then there was some throat clearing and Gawain said that the ‘show’ was over. This got a small giggle out of the bashful young woman. The boy took her hand and peered down at her face, she looked at him and let herself smile as the blush began to recede.

It came back a moment later with a vengeance.

...you’d see it anyway!? Twyla’s entire body flushed an intense red--not only because of what her boyfriend said, but because she’d instantly been thinking along the same lines before he admitted that it didn’t sound quite right. She was embarrassed about where her mind went and as soon as she stopped to think about it, the blush deepened into something that was all the colors of the dark woods behind her. The girl’s heart was pounding and her palms began to sweat a bit--she pulled her own from his to clutch both of her hands nervously in front of her. Quickly, she averted her eyes (not that he could probably see that, considering her powers and the fact that his were already averted) and looked down at the boards of the tree house, willing herself to sink into them.

In a quiet voice Twyla replied after a few seconds. “Um, not really, no--er, sex and...” She was going to say that you could interpret it in a way that didn’t involve things like sex at all since they hung out a decent amount after hours and all that. Instead she got things jumbled, said the s-e-x word, and wanted crawl into a hole and hibernate until she was old enough to handle these things in polite conversation.

There was a whole gambit of emotions that ran through the woman’s body in the next few minutes she had alone. At first, Twyla sat in the chair and stared down at her phone as she ground her teeth and shook a bit. She was so angry--it rocked through her. How could he do something like this to her? To her? After all the crap that she’d done for him for how long? Oh, seven years, no big deal, who cares about what she wanted so long as he had his fancy job and pompous car and his girls on the side--well, she’d found out about the girls when it was too late, but still. He was doing this to her? Really?

And then Twyla took a breath and realized she was being selfish, this was selfish anger and it wasn’t really justified--no matter how livid she was.

The problem with being angry was that it always made Twyla Ashby cry. She blinked slowly once, twice, three times. And then she was blinking rapidly to hold back the gobs of water that were threatening to fall from her eyes. Why didn’t she mean anything to him? It was obvious now that she didn’t--you didn’t get engaged to the bimbo less than a year after the break up, that wasn’t right. Kurt understood that, or at least he had before they ever started dating--he refused to ask her out for over a year after she first moved to California because he thought it would be uncool considering what she’d left behind, and here he was, getting married...

One tear flashed down her face and landed on her phone face. Twyla quickly wiped it off and then jumped when she heard someone enter the room. Looking up, it was Gawain. He told her what the kids had done with a smirk, then he caught the mood in her corner of the world because he asked her if everything was all right. She blinked away the tears still lingering in her lashes and hoped there was no mascara on her face. With a blush she started to stutter “Oh, I’m f..f..--” Then Henri walked in and looked uncomfortable and tried to make an escape. “N..n..no! Henri, it’s f..f..fine, it’s n..n..not what you think!” She was a blubbering idiot. This was really embarrassing. Way to go team.

They were silent for a few very long moments. Twyla didn’t say anything, just let the wolf girl wade through her words and try to make sense of them on her own terms. And then there was no argument--nothing, just a change in Em’s facials and an admittance that the blond sitting next to her might have had a point.

Finally. It seemed like now something had sunk into Emerald’s brain that proved to her that she wasn’t alone and that Twyla and other people had her back. It’s what friends did. To the blond young woman it was obvious, but apparently the red head didn’t see things quite the same way. Still, Twyla was very glad for the progress her words seemed to have made--now she just had to see them in action.

Twyla watched with worry as Emerald tried to get herself up, it was obvious that in her condition it wasn’t so easy. How the hell did she even manage to get out here? The mutant wondered as she bit her lip and watched for a moment longer. Before the wolf girl could finish asking for help her friend had already moved to maneuver the other girl up by holding her midsection and, careful of the bandages, gently help her stand enough to walk so she was leaning on Twyla. “Easy, here we go.”

“Bloodfang?” The girl didn’t like the sound of that name. Before she got an answer Em blanched and basically admitted that it was something to be worried about--elaborated even, saying that someone had already been in the way of it because of her that summer. Twyla stopped their slow pace to the infirmary dead in it’s tracks. “Em, what are you talking about?” Her voice was low, concerned, and strong. A gnawing sense of dread clawed through her stomach. She didn’t like where this was going, not one bit.