SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

“Well, I wouldn’t say that you’re getting in the way of anything, you know. Talking’s been pretty enjoyable.” Thomas replied, contemplating the matter to himself for a moment.

Was he just putting off addressing the fact that he was overtired and missing classwork?

Probably, yes.

Then, as Beryl continued, Thomas noticed her begin to shift out of her seat. Oh.

She clearly wants to go, just let her. Isn’t anyway around that. She already was polite enough to you, letting you chat her up, or whatever.

“Well, I hope you do figure it out. And if you’ve gotta head out, I hope you have the good rest of the day.” He spoke up before delivering a mock salute to the girl.

"Nothing to figure out," Beryl smiled evenly. "Leaving things unclear leads to moments like this."

He'd given her permission to go. She hadn't asked in the first place, but she of course appreciated his assent. Something unsaid sometimes still deserved a response, an answer. Though... Beryl supposed she'd never been the best.

At responding.




Her palm suddenly shot out, hitting the table as it whined back, muffled, slightly shaken. Her relaxed stature suddenly caved in a bit, hunched forward and down as strands of her hair whipped the table and her eyes vanished behind her suddenly all over the place bangs. She faced the table's vast expanse. Her vision swam.

This was familiar, anyways. She liked her dreams, usually, and welcomed them heartily into the home of her thoughts. But in this instance, as in most instances like it that she preferred to not think too much about, she preferred they not be so insistent, so close to spilling out into the entirety of her thoughts.

Beryl slacked, dangerously. A few more weak muscles and she'd be a puddle over the table and floor.

Thomas was a bit confused by Beryl’s statement, but the words seemed like they made an emotional sort of sense and she seemed content with them. No point in questioning that, he presumed.

However, just as he seemed to be seeing her off, Beryl seemed to slip or something, lurching forward and quickly placing her hand on the table. Thomas nearly jumped in surprise.

She didn’t say a word, barely made a sound.

“Everything okay…?” Thomas asked slowly, leaning out of his chair and reaching forward to place a hand gently on her shoulder.

Oh shit. Oh shit! What the hell is happening? Is she okay?

His hand trembled slightly, not sure that what he was doing was the right way of handling this. But how could he know what to do?

Time passed and she still said nothing, there was somebody else there, she was used to this by now, she still hated it so much.

She was okay. She was okay. She was taking back control of her thoughts.

She didn't know who from. But, as the heaviness slowly dripped out, as her IV depleted, she could at least go back to that usual state of mind where 'who' didn't matter so much. Who was herself, and who was everybody else anyways. Reality returned to her, and it was more colorful for it. In that other state she'd always felt a sort of existential nausea, a bottomless pit in her stomach that she vanished down.

"I'm..." Beryl forced her posture straighter.

"Okay. But I've got to go."

And go she did. She stayed for a moment, offered a fluttering wave, then she proved surprisingly quick at disappearing into the ether. That was who she was, all else that she could or could not be aside.

((Beryl continued in meme thread title))

And like that, without much explanation, Beryl was gone.

Thomas didn’t try to call after her or follow her out. The girl was clearly doing well and some pushy near-stranger demanding answers was just going to make things worse. Probably.

With little else to do, he slumped back into his chair and stared off into nowhere in particular. A couple of eyes had wandered over to him after the strange moment with Beryl, but now they seemed content to return to their own business and draw their own conclusions.

He did hope that she was doing alright and that there wasn’t some sort of medical issue or, like, trouble at home or something like that.

Shit, should you talk to someone?

No, those were pretty wild assumptions and there was no way for him to do anything based off of them.

Just let it go, Thomas.

~~~

He couldn’t let it go, and it only took until the time he reached home for Thomas to convince himself that whatever had happened to Beryl was rooted in something that he had done.

Going over the moment again and again in his head, he was convinced that there had to be something he’d missed. He’d said something unconscionably rude without realizing it, or she’d put out some clear signal that he’d completely missed.

What was clear then was that any attempt to talk to her would not help at all. He’d be a bother or just remind her of a horrible part of her day.

Thomas didn’t want that. He didn’t want her to talk with him because she felt bad about the library. He didn’t want to be the thing that made her think of some shitty public outburst or whatever.

In the end, he didn’t text. He didn't call. Within a few days, he’d lost Beryl’s number entirely.

((Thomas Buckley continued in Room 711: Always be Closing))