[Chandler Winslow]

Dropping her eyes to the floor, Chandler pressed her lips into a hard line. This was exactly the thing she'd been wanting to avoid. Not only the topic in itself, but the feelings that came with it. It made her feel equally pissed as it made her feel like shit.

She heard the words and they made sense. She wondered if that was how she'd been feeling all along? Was all these negativity simply an excuse to keep herself from realizing that she was done, once and for all? No. That didn't feel quite right. Even through the anger and the hurt, Chandler knew she wasn't done.

She could even feel the way that such a simple touch caused her entire body to tremble.

"That's not it." She said quietly. "I do want to be around you, Callie. Don't you get it? That's the problem." She looked up, despite the way her voice trembled. "I don't want to be wanting to be around you, but I do." She shook her head, annoyance flaring like a bad aftertaste. Not towards the blonde, but annoyance towards herself: She was mad at herself for being so weak.

"And I fucking hate it."

[Calliope Gallo]

Waiting in silence for the inevitable fall of this encounter was like its own kind of torture. Callie paid brief mind to the way her fall had rattled her phone body. Everything felt fine, now. At least she had one less thing to worry about. But denial of her own accusation had her turning back to look at her again. This, she had to see.

It wasn't what she expected to hear, but it didn't hurt any less. She may as well have been nothing to her at this point. On some level, it had to be better than nothing.

"I'm sorry." She offered, genuinely. She didn't like to be that person to anyone. Despite what she'd been told, she still closed the distance between them, but she made no move to reach out.

"I don't know hot to fix that." She continued, frowning at the thought that she couldn't help, "What do you want me to do?"

[Chandler Winslow]

Callie had been right, at least to a degree. It needed to be said. Or rather, Chandler felt better saying it. Whether that was because she, for once, actually admitted to having actual feelings or because she was mad and felt like lashing out, didn't really matter at this point.

She tensed as the blonde drew closer, but she didn't flee. Even when every fiber in her body told her to.

"Oh, I don't know." Her voice dropped along with her gaze. She couldn't move ahead and she couldn't very well be stuck in the past. It didn't work, but neither had running away. She felt stuck.

"Sometimes... Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I'd never met you, but then, I also realize that's just something I tell myself to, you know, feel better. But it wouldn't be." She shook her head. "Easier, I mean." When all came to all, what she'd experienced with Callie had been real. Maybe that was what had hurt the most.

[Calliope Gallo]

She might have lost her gaze, but at least Callie knew she had her attention. At least she knew the conversation they both needed was something that was being aired to some degree. Still, she'd hoped for some guidance within reason. She got nothing, and that was okay. It wasn't Chandler's job to tell her what to do in this situation. Or was it?

"You spent the better part of a week without me, knowing I was hanging around." Callie pointed out, like that information could help her somehow. She'd managed to all-but avoid her for at least some period of time.

"We can't be friends." Callie pointed out. It was a harsh statement, but her tone didn't frame it that way. It was gentle. Reassuring, but a potentially bad fact all the same, "We can't just be friends because I'm a bad liar and that's not how I feel about you."

[Chandler Winslow]

Was it really that simple? They couldn't be friends - which only left the two options. Either Chandler needed to get her shit together and get the fuck out or she needed to get her shit together and grow the fuck up. Neither of which proved to be very easy choices to the power mimic.

Energy left her body and she dropped to the floor. Rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, she sighed. She wasn't supposed to be making a choice. Not this choice. She was supposed to take whatever came her way and not have to deal with all this emotional bullshit.

It had never been her forte. It never would be.

"Yeeeaaah." She said, dragging the word out. "We're fucked."

[Calliope Gallo]

That sentiment only told Callie that they were in agreement about the friends frontier. At least they were on the same page about something; that had to be positive. Leave it to Callie to constantly look for the good in the worst situation.

"For me, it's like... I don't want to make you miserable. But I feel like me just existing makes you nothing but miserable." She explained, opting to sit on the floor opposite her. At least it would provide some proof that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Tilting her head to the side, she tried to get a glimpse of her face as her voice dropped; "Am I really that unforgivable?" She asked, immediately going inward at the thought. She only had herself to blame for that.

[Chandler Winslow]

"No." She wasn't. Not really. It was less Chandler being pissed and feeling unforgiving, and more her not being able to really understand how she was feeling. She supposed it was unfair to put all the blame on the blonde's shoulders; What she'd done hadn't really been so terrible. It wasn't as if the two had been dating. Not really. It wasn't Chandler Callie had cheated on.

Maybe it was less her feelings being hurt, and more her pride. She didn't know. She'd never allowed herself to really understand the way she was feeling.

"You're not." She added then, fingers plucking off invisible lint from her sweater.

[Calliope Gallo]

That quick denial was honestly good for Callie. If Chandler needed to consider that, it might have been a different story. A little weight was lifted off her shoulders, but there was nothing much beyond it.

She didn't hold that against her. It was a hard conversation to have. Just giving genuine answers was more than Callie expected. She was pulling her weight just fine.

Pursing her lips, she tried her absolute best not to ask her anymore questions. The one that burned at her mind was a scary thought for herself. About herself. She didn't like the way it felt. Hands clasped together at her lap, her eyes trailing down to her thumbs as they crossed each other.

"Is it that I'm untrustworthy to you?" She asked finally, trying her best to find the solution to this situation; "Like, you think that if I could do that so easily to him, I'll just do the same thing to you?"

[Chandler Winslow]

Perhaps if she'd been better at expressing herself, she would never have found herself in this mess to begin with. But what was the point in thinking about that? There wasn't anything Chandler could do, or think, that'd change the past.

She lifted her head, dark brown eyes focusing on her face. Callie had always been better at putting words on feelings. Even now, it was as if Callie could see right through her and speak the words Chandler wasn't able to.

"Would you?" She wasn't sure if it was something she wanted the answer to. Chewing on her bottom lip, she pulled her gaze away.

[Calliope Gallo]

Though she received no answer about trust, Callie figured that the question posed to her expressed the point perfectly. She didn't seem sure about any of it. After all this time, if this was what truly caught her, it wasn't the easiest thing to explain her way out of.

"No." She declared. And at the very least, she genuinely sounded like she believed that. "You can't sell yourself so short." She pointed out; "The only reason that everything happened in the first place is because you're you." Shaking her head instinctively, Callie couldn't help the small laugh that escaped her mouth. "That's not me blaming you. That's me saying that you're completely different from anyone else, y'know? Cheating's not a thing I did because I wanted to. It's a thing I did because I wanted you."

Despite her nerves, she reached out towards her anyway. Callie gently pressed her hand against one so intent on fiddling with her sweater.

[Chandler Winslow]

Chandler found a sense of comfort in her words. While her natural instinct told her not to believe it, she knew better. Callie didn't lie. She spoke the truth, always, even if it was only her version of it. Callie believed her own words and that was all that mattered.

Lacing her fingers with the hand so easily offered, Chandler fell silent. She wondered if it could really be that easy. If that was all she'd needed to hear. She felt content, sure, but was that enough?

"Okay." She said, eyes lifting. "I believe you."

A smile. A smile reserved for only her.

[Calliope Gallo]

Silence fell after she spoke and Callie couldn't think of a single way to break it. There was a bright kind of positivity in the hand that willing to hold her own. Despite whatever kind of progress this was, she still didn't think she'd get anything like that.

Her bright eyes searched the smile given to her, and how it worked in tandem with such a sweet, endearing sentiment. "Awesome." She replied. It was the only word she could think of in the moment, and somehow, it felt perfect. It didn't answer much, but it still made her feel better.

And though she drove the conversation, she knew none of the power here was on her shoulders. It was daunting, too. "So what are you thinking now?" She asked, because any further thought felt like reaching in the dark.

[Chandler Winslow]

It was a step in the right direction, and while Chandler might not have felt sure about it all, it was progress. She supposed it was silly of her to harness such anger towards the blonde. Sadly, it wasn't as easy to get rid of as she would have wanted.

She thought about it for a moment, her mind seeming muddled still, but perhaps the mud had cleared. If only just a little.

"Let's go on a date." They'd seemingly skipped all the traditional steps before, so maybe going through the motions was the better step. They couldn't very well fall back to where they'd been. It didn't seem right.

[Calliope Gallo]

A date? She must have looked nervous at that. "You're asking me out?" She asked initially, purely from the shock of it all. It must have seemed strange, but she couldn't help the knee jerk reaction. She quickly hoped that wouldn't be taken in a negative way. Given where they started today, she was surprised to be wanted in any kind of way.

"Yeah, sure, okay." Callie finally answered, squeezing her hand in reassurance. "I don't think we've ever done that before."

[Chandler Winslow]

"I am, yeah." She felt no shame in it, and really, she couldn't blame the blonde for her reaction. It was hardly a thing either of them had expected when coming here.

It felt like a safe in between, too.

A smile formed on the brunette's lips. "Yeah, but that's sort of the point." Maybe they would be less likely to fall back into bad habits. Maybe not.

She looked at the hand still holding onto her own. The hand she'd once claimed to know as well as her own. She felt the familiar pull of the even more familiar power. "Saturday, 7PM. That cute little place by the park, yeah?"