not here.

[handelaar]

CAO » 002 » 026
NED

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voice;

[sweetmotherofgod]

That's the point! That's the whole - stop shouting at me!

[She... shouts. It's panic, not anger, but it's happening.]

[handelaar]

[He's basically started shouting before she tells him to stop shouting.]

IT'S A STUPID POINT!

[sweetmotherofgod]

I'm not stupid!

[handelaar]

Didn't say that!

[sweetmotherofgod]

No! You never fucking say -

you know what, it doesn't matter. If they're moving everyone down I can't stay. So I moved. It's done.

[handelaar]

Why can't you stay!?

[It's a shout - but not quite yelling again yet.]

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Thick silence. She doesn't understand how he can not get it, but she can't quite figure out how to explain. When she speaks again, she's quiet.]

I just can't. I can't be there and watch it fill up with strangers and pretend that everything's okay.

[handelaar]

[That doesn't explain anything, and he huffs a sound into the comms without thinking before lighting a cigarette. (Also without thinking. Not your room, Ned.)]

So you're just. Leaving.

[sweetmotherofgod]

[But not hers anymore, either. Smoke away.]

Not just. You make it sound like it was easy. It's not, it's just -

[handelaar]

BULLSHIT! WASN'T THAT FUCKING HARD. YOU'RE ALREADY GONE.

[sweetmotherofgod]

NO! I can't keep pretending I'm fine because you're -

[handelaar]

STOP PRETENDING YOU'RE CANCER-SUCKING FINE!

[sweetmotherofgod]

That's what I'm doing.

[handelaar]

What?!

[sweetmotherofgod]

If you're just going to shout over me -

[I can't explain. Or: There's no point trying. Or: All you're doing is making me wish I hadn't told you where I'd gone. She doesn't say any of it, mostly expecting he'll just start again.]

[handelaar]

[Now this might be an unexpected move. There's silence, for one beat, two, and then he starts up all over again.]

Are you telling me. Or -

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Well, she was trying to tell him to shut the fuck up. But he's not screaming at her, so...]

I'm telling you. I feel like a freak and it's killing me. I am not okay.

[handelaar]

Heather.

[suddenly all he wants is to be close to her and is too choked up to say it.]

[sweetmotherofgod]

When it was just us I thought it'd be okay. If I just - tried hard enough. But it's not, and the thought of being like this in front of other people too -

[handelaar]

Wasn't okay.

[Said to her, said to him. He's not sure who it's addressed to.]

[sweetmotherofgod]

No.

I want it to be. But you can't fix something by shoving the same broken parts back in and hoping.

[handelaar]

Can't fix it by leaving, either.

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Oh. Oh.]

Not leaving. Moving. I just changed floor, I'm not leaving you.

[handelaar]

[Annnd Reasonable Netherlands has checked out again.]

That's the same thing!!!

[sweetmotherofgod]

...

How.