She hadn't really felt like going to her Wonder would make for any kind of solace, given how long she had avoided it for. It still didn't really feel like hers when she thought about it, just a grand hall that she happened to share a name with, but maybe that was the distance of it all.
Honestly, Lianhua had never been broken up with before. She strove to always be the one ending her relationships; it felt better that way. More like she was still in control of whatever was going on, even if whatever was going on was something she wasn't exactly having a great time with. She could believe that she'd held onto her dignity or whatever, and that whatever ending was coming was her own choice.
Usually, of course, that choice happened when things were getting a little too cushy and she decided to bolt rather than get too serious with her paramour of the moment, but that was her business and no one else's. The point was: she was experienced in many things when it came to dating and sex. Dealing with a broken heart was not one of them.
She was supposed to be the one breaking hearts, not the other way around. She wasn't supposed to be the one moping because a boy told her he wasn't interested in her. She was supposed to make people mope over her.
But once again, Winston was breaking all of her rules. She hated how much he'd managed to affect her. How much it mattered to her that he was upset by her choices. How much their fight was sticking with her, making her feel guilty and messy and a dozen other feelings that she really didn't like having and would honestly like to send back, except there was no one to send them back to.
The worst part was, she knew it was her own fault. If she just...hadn't been a feckless, ridiculous idiot, if she had just let herself accept that maybe she wanted something more than just a fun regular hookup sooner, if she'd realized that he was probably different and would probably get more attached than some dumb boy from Earth who just wanted to hit it and quit it and didn't care for--or, like her, actively preferred to avoid--actual, real, serious commitment? None of this would have happened. She wouldn't be hurting, he wouldn't be hurting--because she knew she'd hurt him. His face was stuck in her head, how he'd looked at her, how he'd...
She groaned softly and rolled over to put her face in her pillow. She'd made herself quite an impressive nest of them, in her haze of post-breakup misery, and had only really extracted herself to grab some food and make sure she texted Shuangxu so he didn't worry too much about her being a miserable puddle--over a boy!! Over a stupid breakup!! like she hadn't had a million of those before!! Okay, maybe more like a dozen, or so, but the point was---this was normal!! She totally knew how to navigate breakups!!
Except for all the ways that this wasn't normal and was totally different, and how she absolutely one hundred percent didn't know how to navigate this. Because Winston had been special. Winston had meant more to her than she'd wanted to acknowledge, and now it was all gone and it meant nothing, and that was one hundred and ten percent her fault and no one else's.
She should have kept her mouth shut, Lianhua thought, even though she knew that wasn't really the solution she wanted it to be. She could have just...not told him. She could have just let things continue as they were, rather than risking everything by trying to be honest and open about her feelings.
Except she hadn't even thought it was a risk! She'd thought that they'd just...get on the same page and move forward! But instead, Winstonh ad gotten all stuck on the things she didn't say before, on how the state change meant that things hadn't been what he thought before, which if Lianhua was real, really didn't seem fair. She'd bared her heart to him and he'd just...gotten all mad that they hadn't been on the same page, which was what she had been trying to correct. But oh, no, the fact that it had been a fling to her for a while meant that there was no possibility of things ever being any different, even when she was desperately trying to push for that possibility. Fun, cool, Lianhua loved that and loved the way it made her feel.
(She didn't. She hated it. She didn't want to feel this way, she wanted to feel...something else. Anything else.)
She wanted to be angry. She really, really wanted to be angry. It would be so much easier to just be mad at Winston. Because it really was unfair! He could have just let her confess and then they could have moved forward! But no, apparently that wasn't what he wanted, so here they were, with her laying in her bed surrounded by pillows and sobbing, glad that she hadn't done up any fancy makeup (or any makeup since he'd dumped her) because that would risk getting whatever it was all over her bedsheets.
So yeah, anger sounded like it would be nice. She wanted to be mad at him. She wanted to believe that she had been done badly by him dumping her, like there was a salvageable solution and that solution was "get angry at Winston and get over her broken heart that way."
Except that when she thought about getting mad at him, she really just felt more miserable, because the thing she kept circling back to was the ultimate truth:
she couldn't be mad at Winston because it was all her fault. She was the one who'd heard him talk about how he'd been treated, how he'd been so miserable on his planet, how he wanted something else here--and had continued to try to treat their hookup as, well, a hookup, and not even really considered that might not be what he'd wanted.
She'd deluded herself. Let herself think that maybe he wanted to let loose and have a little fun, rather than the obvious ******** answer that he wanted someone to care about him, and in the end, it meant that she'd ******** everything up. All because she was stupid and selfish, and wanted things to go her way, even though her way sucked and was stupid.
She also wanted to believe that since she was young and hot and all of that--all of the reasons she'd wanted to keep it casual--that this probably didn't mean anything in the long run. She was only twenty-one! Surely there would be other boys, surely there would be other chances, surely this was not her one and only shot at love.
And objectively, sure, that was probably true. But the thing was, objective reality didn't really matter at the moment, because subjectively, she was in her ******** feelings and her feelings were Bad.
She groaned and rolled over, forcing herself out of her nest. Laying in bed wasn't doing anything for her, so maybe getting up and trying to do something would.
Her foot nudged against something poking out from under the bed, and Lianhua bent down and picked it up.
She recognized it instantly--a bracelet of Winston's, presumably dropped there while they were hooking up, and forgotten. She wondered if he missed it.
...She wondered if he missed her, or if he felt good about being rid of the dumb slut who'd been leading him on. Even if she hadn't meant to, that was...probably a fair interpretation of her behaviors.
And there it was. A crushing sense of guilt, all over again.
She groaned and dropped the bracelet on the nightstand.
There was one place that would never be full of memories of him. She'd never taken him to Karakorum. She could go there, and get some peace, and wander around the place a little to get a better feel for it.
She didn't bother getting dressed or prettying herself up; she could walk a block or two to power up and all of her messiness would be fixed the moment she took on her magical warrior form. Lianhua Feng might have to worry about bad hair days, but Karakorum of Cybele sure didn't.
This time, when she appeared on her Wonder, it was in the great hall. and while being here didn't necessarily feel any better, it at least felt different--she was no longer moping in bed! Now, she was moping in a gorgeous building built into a tree, and even though when she poked around, she found that the stairs looked a little risky and unsteady, there was still plenty to do on the first floor.
There were tables and chairs. Scattered, messy. Like her life, like her home. And honestly? If Karakorum could take a little bit of control here, maybe it would make her feel better about all the control over her life she'd lost getting dumped.
Moving heavy furniture would at least tire her out, if nothing else, and maybe she could take a nap in space and forget for a little while.
So, with all the determination of a girl trying to avoid her feelings, she got to work.
[wc: 1,573]
