The Grill had just closed for the night, Jen was pretending to work on the website while probably actually chatting online, and Trucker's logbooks had been swapped for a sudoku puzzle.
It was a strange thing when Priestly was the one actually working.
Trucker glanced up at the ringing phone and gave Priestly a nod. Priestly saluted and, when he saw who was calling, ducked into the back room to take it.
"So, if you hadn't seen your sorta-girlfriend for two and a half years, and you didn't want her to hug you, you wouldn't really have to say 'we broke up', would you?"
Because she just had to hear someone else say it. Had to.
"He didn't say it at all, just acted like he had no idea why I was glad he was alive, and flinched away from me." Dinah sat down on one of the brick walls running around the park, and put her head in her hands. "I just, and he's so angry, Priestly, I kept saying the wrong thing and he just kept getting more disgusted and I yelled at him and he wants to go back into a war zone and it's like he forgot me, almost."
And as understanding as she was of why that was? It still really, really hurt.
"That . . . sucks on more levels than I can count."
Someday, Priestly would realize that he had a good person to talk to Dinah about how war could fuck with someone's brain and ways to get past the trauma in the next room, but for the time being, he had no idea.
". . . Do you want me to yell at him when I see him?"
"No. God, no." Jak would yell back and get even angrier, and he still probably wouldn't get why she was upset. Priestly didn't need to get in the middle of that. "I just had to tell somebody, I feel like maybe I'm the crazy person here, because I don't get why he's being like this. I thought he'd be happy to be back, at least. But he's not. He's really not."
"Yeah. Severe change of venue, hunh?" Dinah tilted her head, waving away a cloud of smoke that sent sparkles across her vision. "Did your mom ease up on the hair thing yet?"
"Cool. Are you going to be back in Fandom on Saturday?" New kids, Priestly, Tony, plans with Jill-who'd-be-Jack; why couldn't it be the weekend already? Why did she have to distract herself from all this bewildering change in the Big Apple?
"Awesome. I think some of us are going into Times Square tomorrow night, for the big ball dropping." Dinah took a breath, and shook her head. "And running around with people tomorrow. Seeing everything." Ignoring anything else.
"That's good! It can, uh. Be good to be surrounded by people." Priestly felt a little bad for pulling the conversation back again. "Or if you don't wanna do that, I could probably find you a couch to crash on around here."
Dinah got up to pace a little, restlessly, then sighed. "Yeah, no. I'll... deal. For now. I may call you freaking out tomorrow, but. I don't want to run away from this, you know?" Well, she kind of did. But she had her pride. Even if she didn't have a boyfriend any more.
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But she could only not thinkg about things so much. So, time to call someone to talk to for a reality check.
*ring*
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It was a strange thing when Priestly was the one actually working.
Trucker glanced up at the ringing phone and gave Priestly a nod. Priestly saluted and, when he saw who was calling, ducked into the back room to take it.
"Heyhey, 'sup pretty lady?"
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Because she just had to hear someone else say it. Had to.
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And as understanding as she was of why that was? It still really, really hurt.
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Someday, Priestly would realize that he had a good person to talk to Dinah about how war could fuck with someone's brain and ways to get past the trauma in the next room, but for the time being, he had no idea.
". . . Do you want me to yell at him when I see him?"
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Priestly wasn't always the best at reassuring words, but he could do distraction like nobody's business.
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Owwwwww.
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