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The blonde pushed away from her and Jada quickly sat up, smoothing her hands over her slacks and shirt nervously, smoothing a nearly invisible wrinkle. Her face was as hot as his, her breath faint. "I wouldn't call it stupid, but you are correct in one thing." Her hair was a little messy, and she smoothed it. Her lips felt bruised, but there was no way she was checking that. "You don't have the right." Jada wasn't anyone's right. "I distinctly count myself as a privilege." The girl had a terrible sense of humor. When Marlo moved for the kitchen, Jada stood up, following him. "I'd love to stay for dinner." she peeked around the room, admiring the bright and shiny stainless steel appliances. His kitchen was so sleek and modern.

Could she let him run her through the wringer again? After how candid he had been, just how he had opened himself up to her, could she bring herself to tell him no? He's opened himself to a vulnerability that she knew he hated.

Everyone I ever loved abandoned me! What he felt for her wasn't love, she didn't think. What she felt for him was... complicated. Still, he'd opened up to her, and if she walked away from him now, after hearing his confession... Unwanted.... so much better... It's left me with nothing. If she left now, would he see it as some silent validation that he was right, and...

It was too much. Or she was reading too much into it. It weighed on her.

He was giving her the puppy dog eyes. "Let you start over?" she repeated it slowly, considering as she hopped up onto a clean spot of counter. Could she do that? What would it hurt? It could tell them both that friendship was for the best. Or it could break one of their hearts. So much could go wrong.

"Hi." She said, stretching out her hand. "I'm Jada Chamberlyn. Do you want to be my friend?" Friend. A good, cautious word. Testing, gingerly.

Jada raised an eyebrow at the blonde. "I already spoil you, Xanis. It's just been going unappreciated." she was running the gambit of emotion today. She wanted to stay his friend. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to make him suffer, hurt for hurt. "I thought I was wasting my time."

She scowled back at him, keeping her butt planted on his counter. "I won't knock anything over. I'm not that clumsy." She kicked out at him lightly when he leaned against the counter. From when I left. Marlo certainly didn't believe on making it easy on a girl, did he? He had left, and he hadn't been clear as to why. He had said he couldn't, and he'd run, and the year since had been a struggle to keep his friendship. She didn't need his love, hadn't ever tried to talk to him about that night. Now, that night was just a wall. Jada had spent the better part of the last year carefully and deliberately looking at the younger Xanis brother as a nonentity on the romance scale. It was frustrating. Not at all romantic, even as he wormed his way back onto the grid with his sneaky... man tactics.

She watched the blonde pull out the lobster, almost glad she had decided to stay for dinner after all. It was a sin to waste lobster. "I'll take some liquid fortification." she agreed to his question about the wine. "I love lobster, and that smells absolutely fantastic." But then, he already knew that.

How much of this was the truth, and how much of this was a hallucination? What of it was Marlo simply not wanting her to find happiness? Was it personal against Brandon, or did he really regret what had happened between them in the past? It had been like a bad breakup, without the dating that led to the breakup. Jada was soft, but not necessarily stupid, and being a senshi was making her a tad cynical, she knew. Still, Xanis was playing on her closet romantic like a professional. He knew so many of her weaknesses, and a good portion of them had been played to perfection. Too perfectly, it almost seemed unreal to her.

Date. The word was paralyzing, and Jada breathed out slowly as her friend carried the plate of food to the table. It looked gorgeous. Those were some of her favorite flowers, and brand new candles. She stared at him, watching him move, thinking about what he'd said to her tonight. Marlo definitely got points for being honest--

But she needed wine.

Oh god, she sounded like her mother. Worse, like HIS mother.

Maybe she shouldn't stay for dinner after all. Could she really date him? She wanted to be his friend, but could she really bring herself to dare to be more after what he'd done to her before? He'd left once, and she'd picked up the pieces of her pride alone.

Jada could feel her hands shaking, and took a moment to breathe. She needed to still them before she went anywhere near that table, before she could consider what he was saying. She was going to throw up, she knew it, her nerves twisting, stomach full of butterflies. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to run screaming down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door. Wanted to say yes, and wanted to laugh in his face or cry.

The sound of a piano was like a shot, quick and painless, numbing. She didn't recognize the composer, but she'd heard the song before. Classical. Slow, but not mind-numbingly slow. She closed her eyes, breathing, until she heard the scrape of a chair. The heiress pushed off the counter, her wedges clacking lightly against his kitchen floor, and moved to where he held out the chair for her, taking a seat. His fingers brushed her skin as she sat- she was hypersensitive, aware of every small gesture he was making. Still, she couldn't read his mind, couldn't predict his actions. She was shaking again, and it wasn't with cold.

He filled the glasses and she reached out to take one. She fumbled, caught it, and brought it to her like it was a shield, both hands wrapped around the stem briefly before she took a sip and set it down. Cara, he said, and she looked up at the word, wondering what it meant. Oh god, his eyes.

Half-deaf, she stared at his eyes. Those damn beautiful eyes.

Clouding over, filming, dying, because she was Scylla, and she'd hurt him, and one day she'd be found out, and she'd be the death of him, and this was all wr-

He would hurt her, or she would get him killed and the only way this would end was badly and Elzo would never forgive her if she got his baby brother killed and Daphne would be mad at her, and her mother would be so disappointed and-

The stem of the wineglass snapped in her hands, and she shoved out of her chair, the bloody hand pressed against her shirt. "I- I can't- I- Marlo- I lo- I can't-" she was hyperventilating, completely out of her own control, shaking and tripping over herself, stumbling for his front door. She couldn't breathe, couldn't formulate a thought, and oh, she was bleeding again, but it wasn't bad, in comparison to other bleeding she'd done, it wasn't bright red and she could feel the sting.

She stumbled again, tripping out of her Alexander McQueen's, and it was the same choice Cinderella had made- did she stop for her slipper, or did she run away from the Prince before he could catch her and see that she was only a pauper, confused and scared and conflicted? Cinderella had made the right choice- she'd run, and Jada did too, struggling barefoot and one-handed with Marlo's front door.

Jada clawed at the door, desperate, until she heard the click that was going set her free. Finally, she would be able to get out of here, out of this place, she would be able to curl up in a corner somewhere and just breathe, let her mind wrap around what he’d said to her. Two steps- that was as far as she got, moving for the stairs, trying to get to the hall. She hated elevators, and if she took it HE would see her, HE would come, and ask her why she was bleeding, why she was crying, why-

Two steps, and a hand closed around her wrist, grip painful, jerking her back down her two steps away from the door and inside his mousetrap, slamming it shut behind her and pinning her to the wall. Her wound hurt all the more when her hand was pushed to the wall. “Not walking,” she gasped, trying to be brave, not looking at him for fear she would break down- “Running. You’re hurting me, let me go.” He had to let her go, because she would cry, and blotch, and it was bad enough everything was ruined. He’d never forgive her, he was angry, and he’d never be her friend.

“I love!” she yelled it, everything defensive, and she pulled against his grip. “I have—I have feelings! And you hurt them, and now you want me to forgive you, and fall into your arms like I don’t remember how it felt when you broke my heart?” she shook her head, black curls flying. “I’ve tried to be what you wanted me to be, a friend, tried not to look at you, because you said- you decided!- and now it’s finally a success Marlo! I finally have someone, someone interested, and cute, and... am finally ready to risk my heart and move on, and you do- you do this to me.” He told her- he loved her. That thing, his emotions, that meant so much, and so little, and she was so confused, and so hurt, and-

He loved her.

It was like a shock of electricity, and her face contorted. "Y- You can't." she told him. And then she started crying.

She couldn’t even think. She just cried.

Jada wasn't one of those girls, who could look even prettier when she cried. She did indeed blotch a little. But thank god that it could always be worse.

Not gone. Jada's past feelings were anything but gone, or else this entire debacle wouldn’t hurt so much. It was self-flagellation, it was torture, it was what was best for both of them and it wasn’t what she wanted. But she had to do it. She stared up at him through watery eyes, the twisting in her stomach and the knowledge that she’d done this- she’d severed these ties, and shoved away a person she’d once hoped could be… the person she’d… it was over now. She’d broken his heart, those last, precious little shards that he’d so generously bared to her and the knowledge made her want to curl up in a ball and die.

She’d done what was best for him. And for her.

She had to have done what was best.

“You don’t have a ******** clue what I deserve.” She told him dully. If she could have seen the look on her face, the sheer pain and sorrow, she might have known better than to say anything more. Any idiot would be able to see it, if they weren't caught up in the entire drama of the situation. “But I do know. And I certainly don't deserve you.” In his current mood, maybe he would take it... Maybe he would see it as the last jibe, the last red-hot poker she could stick in the cracks of his armor. Maybe it was. She didn't deserve to be treated like this, any more than she'd done anything to deserve his affections. Regardless of his actions, of the pain he was causing with his insistence and his- Jada was seeing him through the eyes of a woman who loved him. All she could see was that she was flaying him, hurting him.

She didn’t know how much of what he said about Brandon was true and how much wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. Even without his insults- maybe truths, she didn't know- there was not a chance she was going to say yes to going out with one of Marlo's employees when it would bring her back here. To this place. Not unless she got the idea to really stick it to Xanis good. No. That wasn't rational thinking, that was anger, and hurt.

He didn't see her pain. She had won, if that was what it could be called, this crushing pressure in her chest. Get out, Marlo told her, and her hand was released. Of course he was the one who got to go stomping off in a huff- ******** Xanis. He had to be the one to walk away, had to get in his own hate and poison words, couldn’t have just let her go while they could have still been friends. He took one step away, and another, and the only difference between the first time he'd run away from her and this time was that she was physically bleeding, not just emotionally.

Jada stared down at her hand, the glass in her palm and the blood that had dripped down her arm. She was a mess, disheveled, and she had no earthly clue how she was going to get out of here without someone seeing her, even if they probably wouldn’t dare say anything. She could take the stairs-

Marlo slammed his door behind him and she flinched like it was a physical blow. Get out.

Moving into the kitchen, she turned the water on very low and plucked out the shards of glass. It took a couple tense minutes, but she thought she got most of it. She'd bled on his carpet, and hadn't the foggiest on how to get it out, but she pulled what little cash she had out of her wallet, dropping it on his table on top of her comp card- to help pay for the cleaning. It only took a few moments to carefully scratch words onto the card, after she glanced at it again, with a black ballpoint from her purse, in the corner where he wouldn't see it easily, if at all.

And when she was ready to leave, she gathered the flowers. She'd get them down the stairs somehow.

Rainbow roses were her secret favorites, after all.