You've gone done it this time, De Matteo (Felipe). on Labyrinth Gardens

Mara Morales

July 23, 2020 7:42 AM

You've gone done it this time, De Matteo (Felipe). by Mara Morales

Truthfully, Mara had surprised herself with her reaction to Jessica’s revelation over midterm. If asked how she would feel about such a thing, she would have expected herself to freak out in some way, if not exactly the way Jessica apparently had. Or maybe even to have done so the way Jessica had. Jessica’s freak outs weren’t things Mara typically did, but then, finding out that someone outside the circle knew about who she was – also a thing she didn’t typically do. It was a novel problem, without clear precedents in her life. She would have had only so much data with which to form a hypothesis.

Even with all that taken into consideration, though, she was surprised by her actual reaction now that it had happened. At first, as far as she could tell, she had felt nothing. Once the initial shock had worn off, though, she still hadn’t felt fear, which seemed like the most logical response. Instead, the more she thought about it, the more she had just gotten pissed off.

Anger could, of course, sometimes be a reaction to fear, but Mara was pretty sure that wasn’t what was going on here. That was the kind of anger she saw often in Jessica, and sometimes also in her mother and in Mrs. H. It was irrational, unreasoning, spasmodic. What she felt, by contrast, had built up steadily as she thought the issue through and realized how screwed up it really was.

The De Matteos liked to have histrionics about her family, she had gathered. Talking about how Dad didn’t value her or Jessica was ashamed to be related to her, as though they knew anything about how they all were in private, or why they behaved the ways they did in public. Acting like they knew anything at all, and like they were so perfect – well, Leonor didn’t usually act too much like she was perfect, but that didn’t mean that in their last conversation, she hadn’t drawn on the old holier-than-thou. Felipe, though, appeared to want the world to start a shrine to him and pray for miracles while he was still alive, which was some bull mess even before she considered how he had apparently treated her behind her back.

It was bad enough the way he had treated her to her front, admittedly. She wasn’t going to forget that ”your…Jessica” line any time soon, if ever, or the open rudeness when they’d very first met. Behind her back, though, apparently she was just…an object. A thing that made him feel things about Jessica, like Jessica had dyed her hair some super-unflattering color or gone out in blue lipstick and he had found it a turnoff. Something he could complain about to some random other person without a thought for the thing itself, because an ugly dye job wasn’t a person who had its own life and its own problems and its own reputation to worry about….

By the time she got back to Sonora, she was almost able to understand why Leonor would lower herself to associating with a racist, if that racist happened to be one of Felipe’s least favorite people. Not quite, of course, because there was no understanding that stuff, but almost.

By the time she returned to Sonora, she had a very clear idea of how she felt about the situation. She did not, however, really know what to do with those emotions. She could hardly just walk up to him and start shouting in the middle of Cascade Hall, after all, even in Spanish. That would draw attention to the problem. And she was not, after all, blessed with an abundance of opportunities for cornering him alone. So she could only keep letting them simmer until such an opportunity arose, or at least one to hex him in the back when she had a good chance of not getting caught.

The first situation arose first. She was outside in the comparative, artificial cold of a Sonora January afternoon, jogging around a route of the Labyrinth Gardens she knew well, when she perceived a shape up ahead of her and pulled to a stop, sending gravel spraying back from her feet, before she even realized it was Felipe.

“Oh,” she said blankly. “You.” The second word held a definite note of animosity. She switched rapidly to Spanish. “What’s the matter – nobody around for you to gossip about everyone else’s business with?” she asked, narrowly suppressing the temptation to add a few more words to clearly indicate that this behavior meant he suffered from a lack of masculinity as well as a lack of character.

"Jezi told me what you did," she added, just in case he didn't follow. "Seriously - what made you think you had the right to talk about my business?"

16 Mara Morales You've gone done it this time, De Matteo (Felipe). 1472 1 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 23, 2020 1:01 PM

That doesn't surprise me. by Felipe De Matteo

The Gardens. For all that Felipe loved Los Jardines de Plata, he had been finding more and more that he missed the Labyrinth Gardens when he wasn't at Sonora. Perhaps that was good, especially seeing as he would be needing to move on from Los Jardines de Plata after graduation anyway. Would Zara mind living somewhere with an extensive estate full of beautiful plants and wild things? She was a beautiful, wild thing, if not a plant, so he hoped she wouldn't mind. If she wanted to stay with him at all, of course. He'd caught sight of a plant he didn't have a word for as he'd been walking, but it had pulled up and ducked under one of the hedges before he could see it. Not entirely unused to fairly sentient plants at this point, Felipe followed it and was kneeling when someone approached. Mara looked every bit as happy to see him as he was to see himself in the mirror, and he pushed himself to his feet, brushing his hands off, as she spoke.

At first, surprise and confusion mingled with the fading sense of curiosity as he heard her out. Since this was January, he had been preparing himself some already for conversations he didn't want to have and it didn't take terribly long for his mind to get him where he needed to go for this one. Scorn was not unfamiliar to him and he waited until she was done speaking to try to say anything back.

"I'm sorry," he finally replied, speaking softly in Spanish. He grimaced in sincere pain at the idea of having caused trouble for Mara. "You're right. It was not intended as gossip," he added, not sure how much Jessica actually did tell her. He wondered what Zara would think of him apologizing. He wasn't strictly sorry that he'd told her, but he was sorry for it having caused problems for either of the sisters. Mara, however, was not in the wrong in any way. While he could acknowledge that some of his worse behavior was due in part to Jessica's, and that they fueled each other in often terrible ways, Mara had had nothing to do with that. She was the subject of collateral damage and that wasn't fair. To her, he could apologise the most sincerely. "I was upset, but I didn't ever intend to cause problems for you. It was thoughtless of me not to consider your feelings, even in going to a friend for support myself. I was upset with Jessica and it became your problem, and that's not fair. I'm so sorry, Mara."

22 Felipe De Matteo That doesn't surprise me. 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

July 23, 2020 3:06 PM

Hey, it's a sign of intelligent life. by Mara Morales

Mara had made no real attempt to predict how Felipe might respond to her, not least because she knew very little about him at firsthand. He seemed to have done an even better job of avoiding her over the past year than he had her sister – aided, no doubt, by Mara still being in the Beginner classes, but also by the fact that it had been hard to imagine what they could possibly have to say to each other. At least, that was, until now.

“You were upset with Jessica,” she repeated flatly, crossing her arms. “So you use me like a chessman to hurt her by telling someone who hates her about me – and then you and your sister have the nerve to open your mouths and say that my family doesn’t care properly for me?!”

She had started out her second sentence in the same controlled tone as her first, but that didn’t last long. Her voice had started to rise before she’d even reached the part about Zara, and by the end, she was shouting. Hard spots of red appeared on her cheeks as she clenched her hands into fists.

“ ---- -- ----!” she swore at him. “It’s my business. Mine! Not yours, and sure not any business of someone pathetic enough to let you put a hand up her shirt! My mamá, - my dad, and my sisters. You don't get to judge me, and you don't get to judge them, and you don't get to judge Mrs. H., and you don't get to open the door for anyone else who wants to. It's not your business. You’re sorry? You think I care? What does that matter? That doesn’t change anything! You want me to care, learn some memory charms and make her forget it. Other than that, you can take your fake apology and shove it. You wanted to talk about your feelings like some kind of chick? You didn’t have to bring my name into it!”

She could feel water in her eyes from sheer rage. She had been wrong, she realized. She had not known exactly how she felt about this. She had known she was angry. She had not known she was this angry.

"Up to me, I'd use every hex I've learned on you right here and right now," she fumed as she regained some composure. "But Jezi still acts like she thinks she can patch things up with you - not sure why she wants to," she added in English, with a scornful curl of her lip, "but she thinks it. So - you hurt her again, your --- is mine," she warned him. "You hear? And stay out of my business. Don't you dare say anything else about my family. Don't you even dare. You've got no right."

16 Mara Morales Hey, it's a sign of intelligent life. 1472 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 23, 2020 3:42 PM

Me?? by Felipe De Matteo

CW - self-destructive/self-harming thoughts

Felipe was all set to take his berating until Mara mentioned Leonor and he withdrew immediately into something more like sincere fear. Whether he was afraid of Leonor or for Leonor was hard to say, but he certainly didn't have high expectations for her and whatever she'd said to Mara was proof enough of that. The younger sister was usually the calmer of the two from what Felipe had seen and he wished he could say the same of himself and Leonor. He remember when they all met and Leonor and Mara had gotten on. How he wished he could go back and undo his feelings then or bottle them up better so none of this would have happened.

He wasn't about to interrupt her, though, especially as she was turning red and shouting at him now. He turned scarlet himself, albeit for a very different reason, when she both isolated Zara and suggested he'd put his hands up her shirt. Which he-- well that wasn't the point. For a moment, he forgot that not everyone at school spoke Spanish and he felt himself shrink under the idea of public scrutiny. As it turned out, both Mara and Jessica were prone to combustion. Where Jessica would implode, Mara would explode, and it came with insults, emasculation, and a heavy dose of authenticity that made the whole thing hurt worse. He almost wished she would hex him instead, although he hated to imagine the sort of power she could get behind one of those either.

The only things that came to mind for a moment were explanations which, he knew, sounded like excuses, so he bit those back. There were also some clarifying questions, as he did think that Mara's family treated her poorly, and Jessica too, but hadn't been so full of vitriol in saying so as to deserve that sort of outburst. Granted, everyone should be allowed to have an outburst when they needed. Perhaps not at someone but he'd made himself an easy target. The problem was that she didn't want has apology and she knew he couldn't fix it, so he wasn't really sure what she did want from him. Just to use him as a pin cushion for her stabbing pleasure?

"You can hex me, you know," he said finally, giving into a more self-destructive part of himself. If someone else hurt him, he'd never have to worry about punishing himself for anything. If all the world gave him exactly what he deserved, he'd never be so consumed with these feelings of unresolved guilt, right? "I've earned that." It was true, not least in part because he had come to the conclusion that resolving things with Jessica meant closure, not resumption. "I wouldn't tell on you. You should get to make yourself feel better and you don't usually get to." He looked around, arms up. "There's no one around, Mara." Anger surged through his stomach when he realised that his eyes were threatening to water. He was not going to cry in front of someone who had just called him a chick, but he couldn't quite keep himself under control either. His jaw locked and his hands shook and his voice was louder than he meant for it to be. "Do your worst." It couldn't be as bad as how he talked to himself. Nothing she'd said was new to him, so why not? "It would help, right? Do it then!" Put him in the Hospital Wing for a bit and see if that helped anything. Maybe he'd wake up with a brain transplant. He almost thought to pull his wand on her to force her to act, because he was pretty sure she wouldn't otherwise. Because she had an out now and she could be the better person and she could say she'd won. And she had won. Because he'd go another day feeling exactly the same as he always did, looking for life in an empty maze.

22 Felipe De Matteo Me?? 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

July 23, 2020 6:07 PM

You made an accurate prediction, so yeah. by Mara Morales

”You can hex me, you know. I’ve earned that.”

For a moment, Mara just stared at Felipe, so startled by him meekly offering himself up as target practice that she was shocked out of feeling much of anything again. Then, though, her lip curled again.

“And let you use me against my own family - again?” she asked, more or less rhetorically. “Nice try, but you’ll have to do better.”

That, after all, was a (kind of, if you squinted really hard while standing on one leg under moonlight on a Tuesday) somewhat logical thing for him to propose. She hexed him – he was the injured party, so he got sympathy from the general public, plus he had an excuse to further talk bad about her family. It might even drive his little girlfriend to start talking about what was not her business. He ruined their lives and yet could claim to have done nothing himself, making it all everyone else’s fault. How convenient for him.

She made to walk away, giving up her jog as a bad job after all this, when he apparently decided to take her comment about trying harder next time as a challenge and resumed trying to persuade her to hurt him. There was nobody around…she should get to make herself feel better? He sounded more like a creep trying to creep on her than someone who wanted to fight, and it made her intensely uncomfortable, enough that she actually did touch the handle of her wand, not quite thinking what she was doing. She actually gripped the handle – odd thing, carved in spirals which seemed to follow the natural streaks of golden-brown which ran the length of the mostly creamy-white lodgepole pine wood; it was not necessarily easy to get a good grip on without just gripping it in her fist with heavy use of her palm more than her fingers, which could make the more delicate wand movements tricky to master – though, when he shifted to what sounded like taunting her, flushing again and taking a step back toward him before she caught sight of his face and stopped again.

“Dios mío,” she muttered, appalled and confused. “You’re as screwed in the head as my sister is. No wonder she wants you back. What is even wrong with you?” she demanded.

Her tone was still hardly friendly, but it had definitely shifted. There was a rough sort of concern there, and while it was not least for herself (she had seen Jessica break down often enough that it was almost something she took in stride, but there was no reason why this dude shouldn’t come out swinging instead of trying to pull his own hair out or that kind of thing), there was a degree of simple concern as well, more on a simple human level than one involving the specific humans involved, despite what she assumed was mutual contempt, hers for someone who had betrayed a confidence, his, she assumed, for no better reason than she’d been born out of wedlock. It was, it seemed, possible to adamantly dislike someone and still not really want to see them, well, reduced to this.

16 Mara Morales You made an accurate prediction, so yeah. 1472 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 23, 2020 7:32 PM

Oh. That's new. by Felipe De Matteo

For a moment, it really looked like Mara was going to hex him. A disgusting flutter of hope and relief in Felipe's chest made him a whole lot angrier with himself and he almost closed his eyes, happy to finally be getting his due. It didn't come though and he was glad he had not closed his eyes. What did a guy have to do around here to get skinned? Punching Jeremy in the face had been closest but that hadn't even gone that badly for him in the end. Geez.

Mara spoke again and . . . Well that was rude. Sure, there was clearly stuff going on with both himself and with Jessica, but 'screwed in the head' was harsh. He frowned, but decided against telling her off for it. He couldn't say it wasn't true, in his case anyway.

"Years of indoctrination into a savior complex," he grumbled back at her in response to her question. Then shrugged before it sounded like a real answer. "Or so I've been told."

There was a moment's silence between them and Felipe ran his hand through his hair, resisting the urge to pull it out in clumps and look for grey. A thought came back to him though and he looked up at Mara with curiosity. "I don't have any problem with you at all, by the way," he told her, confused on that bit. "What did Leonor say that made you upset?"

22 Felipe De Matteo Oh. That's new. 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

July 23, 2020 8:31 PM

Every day's a chance to screw up less. by Mara Morales

Mara half-raised her eyebrows when Felipe actually had an answer for what was, in fact, even wrong with him. It wasn’t a great answer, but it was an answer.

“Huh,” she said when he added the disclaimer about someone else telling him that. “I guess at least you have a theory. You can, I don’t know, get therapy starting from that.”

She didn’t really know anything else to say. Dude was clearly far, far more screwed up in the head than she had initially assumed, and in her family, that wasn’t something one reacted to at all. Jessica didn’t like it when they acknowledged that her nervous fits had happened, and she certainly didn’t like it when they reacted to her episodes while they were in progress. They left her to her own devices, and nobody talked about it, ever, except for her first Christmas home from Sonora – she’d had two episodes so bad that Dad had caught on, which had forced them to fill him in on why they weren’t as alarmed as he was by the sight of it. After that, though, they had resumed the code of silence surrounding the whole thing, pretending that it never had happened before and that it never would happen again.

Telling Jessica to seek therapy wasn’t something Mara thought she could ever do, even if she thought it was a good idea. Jessica’s issues were one of their family secrets, something to be hidden away. She could do nothing to help her sister, which in a way, made it feel wrong to even offer advice to someone else. But she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She scowled, though, relieved by the return to a more comfortable emotion, when he asked what Leonor had said that upset her. “I asked her what she was doing, running around with – “ she did not pick an especially polite term – “like Jeremy Mordue, and she tried to weasel out of answering by calling my dad a racist for…some reason. I don’t even know. I mean, you’ve never met my mother, but – “ she gestured vaguely at her own head. “So, it was completely stupid, but it made me mad anyway, especially when I was already mad because we’re supposed to be friends and here she is running around with someone who calls people half-breeds and keeps his nose so high in the air that he’s gonna drown if he ever goes walking in the rain,” she concluded.

Mara shook her head. “I just wish I knew where you two got this idea that Dad and Jessica think less of me and Mamá than they do of Mrs. H., or whatever it is you specifically think,” she said. “Or why, if you want to know how it is, why not just ask me, instead of assuming all this stuff. I can talk for myself, you've probably gathered. I'm not just some - I don't even know. Some thing that just - anyway. And even if you were both right about how my family is, that wouldn't make it okay to go telling people my private business when you've only ever said about two - and really rude, by the way - words to me, or to date a dirtbag like Mordue, you know?"

16 Mara Morales Every day's a chance to screw up less. 1472 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 23, 2020 8:48 PM

Hey, you're pretty positive. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe wrinkled his nose. "I've been told that, too," he said, remembering the nurse's suggestions when he'd had to go. He had not, of course, taken her up on that. Therapy was the sort of thing that parents were supposed to hear about, he expected, and that was a big nope for him. "I'm famous for my communication skills, so therapy should go just great for me," he added, cocking an eyebrow. It could be a joke or it could be serious, because it was both. Perhaps that was his niche brand of humor.

When Mara said she confronted Leonor about Jeremy, and then called Jeremy a . . . well, everyday was a chance to learn a new word . . . Felipe couldn't help smirking a little. It was a terrible situation, but he did sort of love to imagine Mara comforting Leonor about anything because anyone who confronted Leonor about anything had to be a brave soul. The expression faded into a scowl fairly quickly though, as he knew that the reason people had to be brave was because Leonor could be terrible, and it sounded like she had been terrible to Mara. Good way to treat your friends.

Although Felipe wasn't about to speak ill of his family, he couldn't help agreeing with Mara on this point, either. His reputation on that front likely preceded him, considering he'd punched the guy in the nose for a racist comment. Well, he'd punched the guy in the nose for a really crass, nasty comment, but it started with a racist comment. "I don't understand why she's with him either," he said finally. "I worry about her. I wouldn't guess that he has a lot of respect for women or much interest in Leonor." He had a hard time imagining that Leonor was just smitten with the guy, but that was all he could think of. The problem was that Jeremy was more cunning than that and almost definitely had approached Leonor in the first place just to get at Felipe. Leonor probably didn't even recognize it in him and he hated to think what would happen when she did.

He nodded glumly, knowing she was right about him being rude to her. "I am sorry about that," he said weakly, hoping she knew he meant it, for all the little help it did. He considered her conundrum for a moment, wanting to be able to give an answer that was true and got at the core of it. "I can't wrap my head around a father publicly disregarding his own child," he began. "What happens at home is different, sure. And maybe that's not a matter of race? But it sounds like, from what I've heard, your dad just . . . pretends like you aren't his? Because Jessica is the face of things and you can't be. That seems . . . sort of terrible." He paused again, not satisfied with that explanation.

There was something that especially bothered him and he couldn't tell what it was. He had a guess at what it might be for Leonor though. "You're the only one at school that looks anything like my sister," he said softly. "At home, there aren't any white people and nobody speaks English but us. I think she feels small here, and she doesn't like to think that Jessica gets the world and you don't, just because you look like her. She has a hard enough time with me being ahead of her in the world, and I'm not even anymore. That being said . . . Leonor has never really connected with the Muggles in Ciudad de Matteo. I don't know if that's because she has any problem with them, or if it just removes her enough from it that she doesn't care so much about how awful Jeremy is.

I am sorry for not asking you, though. You're right; I should've. Or I should've just left it alone." He rubbed his face and then ran his hand through his hair again. He was going to have greasy palms until he finally went bald from this. "I've never thought you're a thing. You're much too ferocious. If anything, you're a lot more human than the rest of us, I think."

22 Felipe De Matteo Hey, you're pretty positive. 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

July 24, 2020 11:51 AM

I try, in my own way. by Mara Morales

Mara wasn’t entirely sure if Felipe was making a joke when he commented on his famous communication skills. As far as she could tell, he either opened his mouth when he should keep it closed, or kept it closed when he should have spoken, and in either case made things worse….

“If it works like it does on TV, you might improve them even more, so, bonus points?” she said, mostly as a statement, though it rose to something closer to a question on the last two words.

She shook her head and considered things for a moment, almost wishing she hadn’t mentioned anything about Leonor, when he said he didn’t know what Leonor was up to. “She told me she thinks he’s useful, somehow,” she said. “Other than just annoying you, I mean. Other than that, though, I didn’t understand what she was even going on about. She said she’s…not thinking about marrying him, but maybe also marrying him, because he can get her something she wants, and she’s in control…She did say that she’d call him out if he decided to be racist in front of her. Which I’m…not sure if that makes it better or worse,” she admitted. “Because I told her what Jessica told me about what he said last year, so what? Is she calling me and Jezi liars? She didn’t make a lot of sense. I’m trying not to hold it against her. As long as she doesn’t insult my dad again.”

Mara watched him warily as he also ventured onto the topic of her father, but ended up merely shrugging at his comments. “I’m not going to argue with that,” she said. “It sucks, we all hate it, but what are you gonna do? A bunch of old white dudes hated Mormons or something and made it illegal to have two wives, so we do the best we can.” She paused, bit her lip, and grudgingly added, “And I know it’s not that simple,” she added, a touch irritably. “It’s different because we’re different. Dad and Mrs. H. aren’t normal people, they’re really public people. If we were just…yahoos in the middle of nowhere, sure, Dad could be like ‘I got this kid with Ros and these kids with Mel and go jump in the creek if you don’t like it’ – but we’re not. And there’s good things that go with not being like that, but…” she shrugged again. “No such thing as a free lunch. You win some, you lose some. You’re not wrong, but it could be worse, you know?” She eyed him thoughtfully. “It’s none of my business, and you can tell me to go jump in the creek if I’m wrong, but that might be your problem, or one of them, anyway,” she said. “Seeing things in black and white. It’s good or it’s terrible. You’re the savior or you need saving. Maybe it’s – what’s the word you use? Altruist? Maybe it’s like that for altruists, but I don’t see the world like that.”

She shook her head again, though, when he swung back to another extreme – this time proclaiming her more human than most people. He really did need to work on that. Mara knew her understanding of politics was necessarily limited, but the one message she’d picked up pretty clearly was that extremism in any direction tended to be bad, or at least to go bad pretty quickly.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she objected. “Human-ness…it’s not really a thing you have more or less. Or at least, I think it works better to look at it like that. But that’s beside the point. Yeah, you and Leonor should have just asked me stuff, because it’s not like that – like what you just said. That Jessica was supposed to get the world and that I wasn’t. Dad’s got me a trust fund set up too, and stocks, and stuff. He made sure I got into a really good elementary school before I came here. Who do you think gave me the money to start my makeover business last year, or helped me get all the papers together to show to Row to prove the products were safe? He taught us both about business. He’s always said – I can do something else if I want, he’ll help me out, but I could even go into Arvale if I wanted to – I can’t be in the catalogue like Jessica, but who wants to waste time doing all those photo shoots anyway?” She crossed her arms and huffed a sigh. “Look, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me want to hit things sometimes that I’m not in that stupid catalogue with Dad and Jezi. The most trouble I ever got in in school before was because I got mad because some kid was making fun of me, saying I must be a scholarship kid or something, and it made me mad that I couldn’t just tell her exactly who my dad was and see the look on her stupid face. But that’s just…it’s like when Lola gets mad because Mamá won’t buy fifteen cartons of ice cream. It doesn’t mean Mamá can't afford ice cream, or that she's going to give me and Jezi a lot of ice cream and Lola no ice cream, it just means Mamá isn’t going to buy fifteen cartons of ice cream, yeah?”

16 Mara Morales I try, in my own way. 1472 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 24, 2020 8:40 PM

It's not a bad way. by Felipe De Matteo

CW - same depression-based CWs as previously

Felipe knew what a TV was because he had seen them at Zara's, but he wasn't exactly sure what they had to do with therapy or how therapy worked on TV. However, that was the least important part of what she said.

Leonor was trying to annoy him? On purpose? She was using Jeremy? She was using Jeremy. The idea of her marrying him made Felipe feel sick to his stomach and he felt the color drain from his face at the thought. There had been a big part of him that had always known he was a disappointment to his family, but he really tried to believe it wasn't true. He wanted to believe it wasn't true. He had to believe it wasn't true. But his own sister was going out of her way to hurt him, and he didn't know her to be anything worse than irritating and snarky. She'd never been outright harmful to him that he knew of. Of course, now that he'd hit Jeremy with a bludger . . . what was he to do? Except accept that the part of his brain he'd hoped was lying had actually been telling the truth: he was a disappointment, a failure, and the bane of his own sister's existence.

He felt woozy but tried to keep himself together as the conversation focused on Mara's dad. It was a tragic subject and he owed her his full attention there. He watched her face when she said she didn't see the world like that and that is could be one of his problems. Here was a chance to be better. To do better. Like a thirsty man finding water, he did his best to drink in what she was saying and let it change him in some meaningful way.

"Leonor has always said that I'm not very human," he said quietly when she finished talked about ice cream, which sort of confused him but not too much. He sort of understood. Probably. It hurt to say out loud what he'd always feared Leonor was right about. "You're passionate and lively and thoughtful. That's what being human is, I think." He bit the inside of his lip, trying not to say anything extreme or black and white. He didn't want to be that way if that was what was wrong with him. What a dream it would be not to have anything wrong with him.

He was trying to pay attention. He really really was trying to pay attention. He was supposed to be caring about other people and not be such a selfish, thickheaded ogre all the time. But Leonor was running through his head, going on with someone she didn't even like because suffering was worth it if she could make him suffer too. And Mara was running through his head, letting him know that the problem with him was that he was doing this thing wrong, the one thing he thought he should be doing better. What did he have if he didn't have who he was? If who he was was the problem?

He thought again of the little plant under the shrub. It would be so nice to be like that little plant, and just disappear. It would be easy. Like stepping off a cliff, he remembered thinking before. Just one step and everything would stop hurting. But now was not the moment to think about that because he had a show to put on. The sinking feeling in his stomach would have to wait for him to find any good way to actually go about sinking, because Mara was waiting for him to say something. To do something or be something? He couldn't remember. Probably another flaw.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, putting a hand on his stomach. "I am not feeling too well. Could you say that again? You asked me a question?" Oh to sink. To disappear. There was a poem Jessica shared with him once, about dying flowers. Felipe felt like a dying flower. The weight of their own glory draws them down. "I'm sorry," Felipe stammered, not sure where he was going to go except that it was far away from himself. "I am not feeling well," he explained as he drew himself up as best he could. "I'd like to continue this conversation another time, but I think I need to go now. Please excuse me." But they must pass away as swiftly // As all the sweetest things we meet.

OOC - Lovely poem excerpts from Jessica Hayles' author's brain, found here and their use here approved by her author as well.

22 Felipe De Matteo It's not a bad way. 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

July 24, 2020 9:14 PM

...I...have my doubts now. by Mara Morales

Mara stared at Felipe as he sort of vaguely defended his assertions on the notions of humanity, but this time, she was not staring at him out of confusion or indignation. It was something rather more like horror.

“And I think if she said that, then that’s completely – completely messed up,” she said, outraged. “Forget you and Jezi – what’s wrong with her?”

Her tone was a mix of things, now – anger, bewilderment, hurt, fear, and topped off with more anger. She had long since stopped moving vigorously, and did not resume doing so, but her heart rate began to accelerate again nevertheless, pounding hard enough for her to feel it beneath her sweatshirt. She felt vaguely as though she were being threatened, pushed into a corner, faced with an undesirable choice: did she try to get ‘round the thing backing her into a corner, almost certainly instigating a fight right then, or did she hit the wall and then lash out in full fury, with nothing to lose? Neither was really ideal. Both were actually bad strategies, according to the books she’d read, for anyone to use even against their enemies. She had, on Dad’s recommendation, read the Art of War over the summer for the first time, and while she had barely understood half of it, one passage came back to her with abrupt clarity: If there is no help for it, they will fight hard.

It was an interesting, paradoxical piece of advice, she thought. Very interesting indeed. Never push the enemy into a situation from which there was no escape – but do so to your own followers, because no-one fought like someone with nothing to lose, and one wanted the most ferocious soldiers on the field to be one’s own. Though, of course, it was always best to not fight – but at a certain point, what else was there to do?

With equal suddenness, though, she realized that she wasn’t the only person sort of…off-balance, all of a sudden. In fact, she thought she was doing notably better than the other guy. That was supposed to be a good thing…She opened her mouth to repeat her comment about Leonor being the one with serious issues if she regularly went around telling someone they weren’t human enough when it was obvious the person in question was sort of…delicate, but before she could do that, he suddenly asked to be excused.

“Wait,” she said, walking to intercept him, but dropping her hand short of actually grabbing his arm. Her eyebrows were very close together. “Dude. Are you okay?” She reflected, in a flash, on how this conversation had begun – with her shrieking at him – and added, lest it seem like she was mocking him or something, “Seriously, dude. Are you okay? Do you – I don’t know – need to go see Skies, or Row, or the medic or someone?” Uneasily, she reflected on his seeming enthusiasm for being assaulted physically earlier, and sudden deafness… “Being human’s just biology,” she said. “Like, your parents both humans? Congratulations, you’re in the club. Todos lo hacen de manera diferente después de eso. Olvídate de Leonor si ella dice lo contrario," she added bluntly.

OOC: Mara’s last sentences are “Everyone does it differently after that. Forget about Leonor if she says differently" in English.

16 Mara Morales ...I...have my doubts now. 1472 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 27, 2020 2:10 PM

It's not you, it's me. by Felipe De Matteo

It was tempting to blame Leonor. Oh, how Felipe would love to believe it was all her fault. But he knew himself well enough to know that that wasn't true, because he was certainly earning the frustration he caused. She was only doing this because he'd earned it. He deserved it. But what was he supposed to do now that he knew that? Maybe if he acted happy for Leonor and Jeremy, she would no longer see the need to pursue that angle? But that seemed unlikely. Maybe if he went to Nathaniel? But that seemed as likely to get him punched in the eye as anything. Although if that were the case, maybe he should give it a try. Nothing to lose at least.

Mara tried to reach for him. He saw her try to reach for him, but she didn't connect. Why didn't anything ever seem to connect?

"That's a low bar," he replied, thinking of the biology of humans. "But I think I would have made a better plant," he added lightly hoping to make a joke. To find a way out of this conversation. "I'm okay. I just need to lay down. I . . . ate some bad pineapple," he told her, remembering what happened before. Because this had all happened before. Because he was still the same Felipe as he'd ever been and nothing, it seemed was going to change that. "Thank you for talking with me," he added before disappearing away from her. He only barely managed to avoid breaking into a sprint, mostly because, tempted as he was, he wasn't sure he could sustain it. He wanted to run away, but he wasn't sure if he could run. How poetic indeed.

22 Felipe De Matteo It's not you, it's me. 1434 0 5