2 May 2021, 14:58
Jack B., Flash, & Opeila
@Jack Burnett @Flash Holmwood
When Flash got up to leave, Opeila wasn't all that surprised that Jack tried to stop him. Whether that was because he wanted him and Opeila to spend a nice evening together like he claimed, or because he wanted to escape being alone with her... who could tell. Honestly, Opeila didn't care. This evening was ruined, one way or another and as it seemed to cause her friend nothing but pain to be here, she wasn't going to hold him back.
But Opeila had not expected Flash's extreme reaction. He always had himself under control, she had never seen him lose it. True feeling hidden behind a perfect wall that Opeila envied him for. The girl would need to grow a lot stronger to be able to be that way.
When he yelled, Opeila winced. Just let him go, Burnett... Flash was visibly fighting to keep himself under control. She swallowed. "Go. It's okay.", she told him, hoping that Jack wouldn't try to stop him again.
Opeila looked around to the other kids on the tower. The heated conversation as well as yelling had attracted attention of course and she slowly started to feel truly uncomfortable. The witnesses had not led to calmer conversations as she had hoped.
She decided not to tell Jack her thoughts of his claim that he knew a lot about friendship, surely that would have led to another accusation that she was looking down at him. But she found his words very one-sided. Did he truly find that the negative aspects outweighed the positive ones? Or was he simply only looking at bad sides? "If you say so.", she responded instead.
Jack said that Flash's and her friendship was non-existent. Opeila wanted to sigh. She slowly started to have a feeling that this would turn out to be a conflict of definitions. Maybe he was right. It was quite possible that there was no friendship, but Opeila didn't really care. There was something and if it didn't fit with Jack's definition of friendship, so be it. Then friend was in that case the term she used in lack of a better one. "What is your definition of friendship, Burnett?", she asked. She was truly curious- if he asked her the same question, she wouldn't be able to answer. In that department, he was definitely right; Opeila didn't know what friendship meant.
"There are two reasons why I didn't tell you and not him and none of them have anything to do with trust. Except for the trust I put in you not to break your favours.", she would answer, only if Flash left, otherwise she would stay silent, when Jack said that she would have gone two Flash if she trusted him. "One- I don't want him in danger. And that is something that is simply out of his control, no matter if I trust him or not." ... The mere risk of putting Flash in danger was one she simply wasn't willing to take. For Jack... well. She didn't want him killed. But he was putting himself in danger all the time anyway, wasn't he? She did remember the scars on his back. Jack seemed to always be playing with fire.
"And two- I am not blind. I know that there is something going on. For his own health, I don't want him to have my trouble on his mind additional to his own. You know that he would ask me to tell him everything if I only implied that something was wrong." A decision she was making for Flash. Whether Jack decided to judge her for that or not- she didn't care, not this time.
There was a third reason, that Opeila had tried to silence, that only supported Jack's argument and that Opeila wouldn't admit that it existed: Flash didn't talk to her. If something had been up in the past year, she had turned to Flash so often... he had never turned to her. Her defense of their friendship had been honest in the things she mentioned, but covered up one thing- Opeila wasn't sure if the trust wasn't only one-sided.
Opeila really sighed when Jack turned the question around and asked her why she sent letters. "Seriously? Because I didn't want to have to run through the whole freaking castle to find you. If you haven't noticed, this place is huge. Did you forget that I asked you in that letter to meet me in person? So again, why letters?" This was on him. Why is it so hard to communicate with you? She wanted to ask, why is everything always complicated when it comes to you?
That point was only proven by his explanation of his actions. "Fear or maybe rather strong unease when it comes to potions.", Opeila specified, "For reasons that you know. And yes, you're probably right, you didn't know. That takes one of the several points away that make me be not okay with this." She nodded.
"Really? You indicated that you did so strongly in your words and behavior and I had other things to do than analyze everything you did and said in detail. The letters hurt, J-... Burnett. After reading them once, I put them away. I was not in the state to make myself read them over and over." Opeila could only stop herself from changing to first names. Staying formal helped her to keep things together. At least most of the time.
"For my sake?!" Opeila was close to yelling at him and she took a deep breath to stay calm. Now he was just talking bullshit. "Don't make that about me. You can't tell me that this was about anything else than making it easy for you." For a few seconds she glared at him angrily, then her expression turned neutral again. "If you wanted to make this easier for me, you would have communicated. And I mean- Face to face. No hiding behind lies- and yes, it was a lie. Even if it wasn't spoken out loud, your whole behavior was a lie." She sighed again.
"Whatever you may think about me Burnett, I am not stupid. You should have just talked to me and I mean truly talk, not write. We could have found a different solution. I would have understood it if you truly took a potion, maybe you could have even got me to help you. Then that would have made it easier for you, truly a fresh start, but of course you wouldn't want that, I guess. You wouldn't be able to choose what you forget. But how was that helpful? How? How did you think I would react?" Opeila looked at him. Back then she had been desperate, unable to understand what he meant. But she was sure that if he had only taken the time to explain it to her... "I would have preferred that you trusted me just a little more. Only a little."
Her mention of Victor made Jack furious, something she hadn't expected at all. "Burne- Please, please, sit down.", she asked him, when once mores some of the conversations around her cut off. "Fine, I don't know what he wanted. I didn't know him as well as you did, I agree. That doesn't change anything about the fact that he tried to. He brought people from my own team to turn against and attack me in the fight club, fully aware what he did there."
And then Jack admitted that he cared and said that it was wrong. He took Vladimir as an example for that. It was always the shady ones, wasn't it? Jack also seemed to be surrounding himself with those, so it wasn't surprising that they were providing him with tons of negative examples. "You are not like Vladimir.", Opeila said clearly, looking at the redhead. "Whether you choose to or not, you care. You are scared to get people killed by caring, which is proof that you care already. And people also care about you."
"Personally I think it is the other way around. People who care are the ones who are ready to get killed for the ones they care about, no matter if they care back." The only question was if one was willing to give something back to the ones who cared or not.
6 May 2021, 22:36
Jack B., Flash, & Opeila
While Jack was sorry that Flash wouldn't stay and even sorrier that he was probably the reason he wanted to leave in the first place, the redhead was surprised at the other boy's outburst. Part of him was actually kind of glad of it because, upset as Flash was, the English boy had finally expressed his true feelings in a raw display of emotion instead of attempting to downplay or suppress them as he usually did. Even so, Jack knew it must have taken a great deal to push Flash to that point. He thought better of trying to ask him to stay again, simply allowing his dorm mate to depart without another word.
He kept his hazel eyes downcast at the table until Opeila asked him his definition of friendship. Then they flicked up at her. "I can't describe it so neatly in words, but the closest terms I can try to encompass the concept with are people who mutually care about and trust and rely on each other more than any other non-friend, such as an acquaintance or stranger." He wagged a finger at her. "That may sound simple, but it's not. For example, you might think you trust or care about Flash enough for you to call each other friends, but you don't. Not if you don't feel like you can tell him things that you tell me."
He looked at her skeptically when she told him that none of her reasons for not telling Flash her secret had to do with her trust in him. Then he scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Wrong. First of all, I'd say he's in just as much danger just by associating with you than he would be if he knew what you told me. Second of all, it isn't out of his control because if you trusted him, you'd trust him to be able to take the necessary precautions and to stay safe even if he learned what you think would put him in danger."
The Welsh boy cast her another incredulous look. "As for your second reason, that's the oldest and lamest excuse in the book. Real friends don't hide things from each other. Especially not if their friends really want to be there for them. They'd trust them to handle it. Otherwise, how do you think he'd feel if he found out you've been keeping things from him all this time? How would you feel if you found out he was keeping things from you because he knew you would worry?"
Jack wearily combed his fingers through his hair. He was starting to feel as though he were explaining the same things over and over again. Perhaps no matter how many times he tried, regardless of how many ways he attempted to make his point, she wouldn't understand him. "Don't you see? If neither of you trusts the other enough to communicate or rely on the other for anything, you may as well just be acquaintances who know practically nothing about each other's lives except what's on the surface. Even if only one of you did it, it still wouldn't count because it would only be one-sided. You both would have to trust each other the same amount for it to be considered a real friendship. Otherwise, you're just using petty excuses to keep one another at arm's length."
He blinked when she mentioned the letters and that she had asked to meet him in person with one of them. Ah...he had forgotten that. Huffing, he crossed his arms and looked away. "What would it have mattered if we met in person or talked more over letters? It would have gone the same way. I would have still acted the same the next time I saw you." he insisted.
His features hardened and his jaw clenched when she told him that the letters hurt. It wasn't like he could change that. But it wasn't like it didn't affect him, either. They'd hurt him, too. Still, as far as he was concerned, all that hurt had been necessary. He may not have acted with the intention of hurting Opeila, but if she ended up getting hurt as collateral damage, so be it.
"Oh, please," he shot back when she told him not to make it about her. "I can and am telling you that this was about making it easier for you, because if I had been trying to make it easier for me, I would have just ignored the letters and not bothered responding at all!" He threw up his arms in exasperation. "How would trying to communicate with you have made things any easier for either of us?! We're trying that now and it's still not seeming to do any good!" The redhead stabbed a finger in her direction. "And my behavior wasn't a lie! Lying is verbal and writing false statements is libel, but you can't lie with behavior or actions!"
The boy's eyes narrowed as he glared at her. "Talking to you would have done no better than writing letters. Just like it's not doing either of us any good now. We're not getting anywhere and we're not understanding each other. Trust makes little difference. You don't believe me even when I told you the truth about why I did what I did, so how can I get my point across? As far as helping me, I never asked for your help. And even if I did, you can't help me. No one can. It wouldn't have made any difference then and it makes no difference now!"
He crossed his arms irritably and sat back down as Opeila asked when she took back what she said about Victor. "He wasn't trying to kill anyone," Jack hissed. "Yes, he had people fight each other, but he didn't intend for anyone to die."
When the Slytherin girl told him he wasn't like Vladimir, he turned on her again. "How would you know?! You don't know me! We're both possessive! That's all we know how to be because we can't...we don't know how to..." Jack shook his head at the ground, unable to complete his sentence. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who does the caring; it's still dangerous. I don't want to care about anyone."
The second year boy pushed himself back up, ready to get going. They were arguing in circles and he was growing sicker and sicker of it. He had already ruined the night for Flash. What point was there in sticking around just to make things increasingly worse for Opeila?
Interacting with: @Flash Holmwood & @Opeila Winters
Wearing:Reducio
PC: Jack Burnett | iNPC: Ginyami Midorimori
9 Jul 2021, 23:55
Jack B., Flash, & Opeila
@Jack Burnett
The longer the discussion took the more exhausted Opeila got from it. She could see where this was going, where this had already gone: They would not get on one level. There would be no understanding, neither of them would yield, no matter if it was because of their beliefs or pride. Jack had already done what he somehow managed to do every time they talked- He had placed a few statements, a few words where they dug their claws into Opeila's insides and would stay to keep her awake at night. Everything she said now had the first goal not to let the facade crack in front of her classmate.
She already regretted that she had engaged in this discussion at all.
Opeila looked at Jack when he tried to put his definition of friendship into words and again she had to fight the childish desire to press her palms on her ears so she wouldn't have to hear it. Jack's words made sense, that was the worst of it. In many of their past conversations Opeila had trouble understanding Jack's meaning, often he was throwing with words and phrases that the child needed a bit to comprehend, but the meaning of his words now were crystal clear to Opeila. Did she agree? She wasn't sure. Maybe.
"So... All or nothing, is it? Anything less than all is no friendship? Trusting a person with some things is not enough? I guess that explains why you don't make friends. At least partly." The thought of trusting someone with everything felt scary to Opeila. Jack's definition made her think. So someone with general trust issues was incapable of having friends? Was that what her housemate was truly thinking? There were things she trusted Jack more with than Flash, the painful truth. Not many, but some.
That Flash was hiding things from her was nothing new to Opeila. She had known that for weeks and if he didn't want to tell her... It wouldn't stop her from caring for him. Liking him the way he was and supporting him if he finally was ready to share things with her, just like she was certain he would do the same. The second year didn't say those things out loud- she was sure Jack would look down on her for those thoughts, they sounded like she had taken him straight up out of a fairytale.
It seemed that Jack really had not thought of her request to meet him in person anymore, but he caught himself rather quickly, asking what difference it would have made if they met in person- it would have still gone the same way. "Communication is different in person. I won't believe that you don't know that." Jack of all people had to know that. The redhead was too intelligent to not know.
Both of the second years got more heated in their discussion, as Jack told her that if he had wanted to only make it easier for himself he wouldn't have responded to her letters at all. Good point.
When he said that communication wouldn't have made it easier for either of them, as it was not doing it now either, Opeila couldn't hold herself back anymore. "Of course it doesn't, the damage has been done now, Jack! There is nothing to ease anymore." Ruka was right. There was nothing to fix. He had been right all along.
She winced slightly when Jack stabbed a finger in her direction, defending himself. He said that his behavior was no lie, behavior couldn't lie. Possibly the first clear disagreement of the evening. A clear line where their opinions parted, different from pretty much everything else the two had discussed tonight. Opeila lowered her shoulders and exhaled. Gave up. The phrase 'if you think so' was on the tip of her tongue, but she had the feeling that it would again come across as a sign of disregard of his thoughts instead of the attempt to cool both of them down that it was meant to be.
The more Jack talked, the harder it was for Opeila not to allow herself to go back to that little hiding place inside her head, the little black hole she had been in all of last summer, to protect herself from the pain that reality had caused her. Jack was right. She couldn't help him, he hadn't asked her to, she couldn't even help herself. That was who she was, wasn't? The useless, clingy little girl that didn't even know how to help herself. And the only thing she did was causing more pain in the process. She was stopping Jack from letting go of it all by holding on to it herself.
A cold hand seemed to close around her heart as her thoughts spiraled on and on, in darker and darker depths. Maybe Jack would notice that Opeila would suddenly have trouble breathing, maybe not... All the girl could do now was nodding and shaking her head, otherwise she would burst. She felt it.
Opeila nodded when he talked about Victor, nodded when he said that he didn't intend for anyone to die. Victor had caused harm, that was no question, but she actually believed Jack. The older Slytherin had been but a boy little older than them. Opeila couldn't imagine that he really wanted to bring death to any of his peers.
Jack again raised his voice when Opeila said that he was not like Vladimir. The fact that he defended himself as strongly as he did should have been a sign to the Slytherin that she had hit a sore spot, and maybe it was, but she could not bring herself to argue back, all that Jack got was a barely audible "Okay..."
His next words pushed her even more. Caring was dangerous. He didn't want to care.
Opeila didn't hold him back when he stood up. It was enough. The little second year clasped her mug with both hands and looked at the rest of the hot chocolate that was cold by now. Jack was right, caring was dangerous, Opeila had learned that. And that was where the redhead was stronger than his classmate. He did not want to care, while Opeila held on to caring, to her friendship with everything she had. If she ever lost everyone she cared about... her life would be hollow, empty. Alone. And she knew she would collapse like a cardhouse in a light breeze.
End of the Thread.