[ The last email goes unanswered. He reads it, he smiles a little, but he offers nothing as a reply. She shouldn't find it weird; he sometimes takes days or even weeks to get back to her, so it's no different this time. At least to her, it isn't. To him, those three days that follow are more complicated than all the months he spent hopping around from place to place, never settling down.
He spends hours in the room he rented in the outskirts of the city, when he goes out his feet always end up taking him to her work. He sees her once— his heart all but leaps from his chest, and the urge to rush to her and the instinct to turn around and run war inside him, and he ends up doing nothing at all.
He doesn't think he can do it. But her gravity is still tugging at his heart, and his feet follow, drag behind, defeated in a battle of wills that, in the end, was no battle at all. The moment he stepped into the city where Betty is, he knew it was a lost battle, trying to keep his distance.
It's a little later in the day, close to dinner time. A nice neighbor opens the front door of the building for him, and he steps inside, makes his way to her door. He stands there for a good while, backpack slung over a shoulder, his hair a long curly mess, his beard short but there nonetheless (he should've shaved, at the very least; anyway), worn jeans and a plaid shirt underneath a warm coat. There's still that urge to flee, to just leave and leave her to keep living her life, but his hand works of its own accord, reaching for the doorbell and ringing; the sound echoing loudly in his head.
Maybe she's not home, the thought crosses his mind. For the flicker of a second he thinks that might just be for the best, until he realizes that if she's not home, if he leaves now, he probably won't come back. He won't try again. ]
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He spends hours in the room he rented in the outskirts of the city, when he goes out his feet always end up taking him to her work. He sees her once— his heart all but leaps from his chest, and the urge to rush to her and the instinct to turn around and run war inside him, and he ends up doing nothing at all.
He doesn't think he can do it. But her gravity is still tugging at his heart, and his feet follow, drag behind, defeated in a battle of wills that, in the end, was no battle at all. The moment he stepped into the city where Betty is, he knew it was a lost battle, trying to keep his distance.
It's a little later in the day, close to dinner time. A nice neighbor opens the front door of the building for him, and he steps inside, makes his way to her door. He stands there for a good while, backpack slung over a shoulder, his hair a long curly mess, his beard short but there nonetheless (he should've shaved, at the very least; anyway), worn jeans and a plaid shirt underneath a warm coat. There's still that urge to flee, to just leave and leave her to keep living her life, but his hand works of its own accord, reaching for the doorbell and ringing; the sound echoing loudly in his head.
Maybe she's not home, the thought crosses his mind. For the flicker of a second he thinks that might just be for the best, until he realizes that if she's not home, if he leaves now, he probably won't come back. He won't try again. ]