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Dani and Parker were fighting. Fighting. A perfectly fine lunch had turned into a nightmare all because Dani was incapable of minding her own damn business. No matter how much Parker cared for her, he could not find it in himself to forgive her for how she'd forced herself into a place she should not go. At least not now. His family was off-limits to her aside from the seldom-spoken slivers of memory he shared about his mother from time to time. Didn't she understand that?

The stress of the fight had Parker cartwheeling backward toward his previous state of jaded bitterness, and the taste was so acidic in his mouth that he could hardly stand his own thoughts. Sitting alone in his room at Hillworth was terrible. All he did was think of her. It had been a few days since they had spoken, and he had no intention of being the one to cave first. He was mad; he had a right to be mad. How had he violated her privacy?

All of his inner turmoil manifested in a desperate need for activity. Parker -- who typically liked to sit on his computer or read all day -- was suddenly going for runs. Yes, runs. He even went to the Art Center and painted a ceramic pot. He didn't want to take it back to Hillworth so he passed it off to a homeless man, and then cut across the street to a line of shops. Parker was just starting to save up money again after having to pay for his cast, but it didn't mean he could suddenly spend as he pleased.

Still, Parker needed to do something, and after running that morning, he knew it needed to be something relaxed.

Up the strip, there was a small little store with a hand-carved wooden sign jutting out over the sidewalk. Parker had been there once before to shop for a Valentine's gift for Dani. It sold fair trade goods like painted boxes, metal works, and earrings from other cultures. Parker hadn't found anything for Dani then, but he decided to go look again. They had these nice journals in there too. Parker remembered them from his last visit. Not moleskin, but certainly of high quality. Maybe a little shopping would help him forget?

Slipping into the store, Parker breathed in the scent of incense and musk and tried desperately to forget about Dani -- at least for a few minutes.

Parker slipped toward the corner of the store where the journals and candles sat on dark wooden shelves. A half wall stood between him and the opposite corner, and the empty space was filled by hanging witch's balls and ornate tapestries. He lifted a light blue journal with green etchings of leaves on it. Blue like Dani's hair. Green like Dani's eyes.

Damnit.

Parker put the journal down and moved over a few steps. He picked up a black journal with white and yellow pinpricks all over it. In the center, a large carved star stood out from the background. A little too bold for him, but still pretty. He had just started to set it back down when the voice of a girl on the other side of the half-wall reached his ears.

Ugh. Parker hated when people talked on their cellphones in the middle of stores like that. He really had no desire to hear about the mundane bullshit of other people's lives while trying to select toothpaste or tube socks. He had enough of his own mundane bullshit, thank you very much. There was something about the voice that kept him listening, following along with what the girl was saying. Something about her father's ranch... people bugging him.

Did he know this girl? There was something familiar in the voice, but also not. His memory was too muddled to pull out a face. Reaching one hand out, Parker pushed ahead a tapestry of an elephant and peeked through at the girl on the phone.

Oh. Well. It was Aurora. It was that girl from the metal shop.

They had met so long ago, but Parker never forget an annoying face. She had been quite the brat, even when he was helping her. Oh, so her daddy was in trouble? Hah! That sounded great to him. For a moment, Parker forgot about Dani and focused all of his energy into eavesdropping on the spoiled girl from Crystal.

Oh, so her father was facing a lawsuit? He ran some kind of farm, and people were after him. Parker logged away the name of the farm for later googling. He could search the Clerk of Courts wherever her father lived to find the actual lawsuit claim. By the end of today, Parker could have a whole blog post ready to go to expose this privileged princess and her fat cat father. Parker didn't know much about Aurora, but if she had the money, he'd be able to find something about her family on the internet. Hopefully, at least.

Excitement bubbled in Parker. It had been a very long time since The Proletariat Provost had put out an entry. Some of his more dedicated supporters began to fear he had died, or that there had been some massive coup against him. Parker sent out a few messages to let people know that he was deep in an investigation that required his attention. In truth... he was just in deep with Dani. It was hard to spit bile and hatred when you were so happy. Yeah, were.

A smirk crossed Parker's narrow features, chest tightening at the thought of spending an afternoon the old way, the way before Dani. See? He could be without her. Yeah, he would be just fine.

The girl hung up her phone, and Parker started to move away. He wasn't fast enough. They locked eyes. Straightening, Parker lifted the elephant tapestry and gave it a good look. See? He wasn't staring at her, not at all! He was just looking at this hideous elephant tapestry.

Totally innocent. Totally.

Aw hell naw.

Parker lowered the tapestry. This girl wanted to fight? Well, good news for her -- for once, he wanted a confrontation. "I'm surprised you decided to slum it in here. I thought you were more interested in the kinds of goods made by children in companies too poor to be considered good enough for you. Is this your community service for the month?" Compared to Parker, Aurora looked like she was dripping in diamonds. He wore a pair of holey jeans, a sweater that was two sizes too big, and shoes that were duct-taped together on one toe.

Yep, not the picture of class.

With every word, Aurora slipped deeper into Parker's stereotype of Crystal girls. He assumed she was stuck-up and elitist because of her wealth. The things she was saying only confirmed it.

Parker glanced up to her. "Riff raff," he said, and then glanced back down to the tapestry. "That's a big word. Word of the day calendar finally paying off for you? That's good to hear. I'm very happy for you." He hung up the tapestry, blocking her from his view and crossed to a wall covered in decorative mirrors a few feet from where Aurora stood.

There were a lot nastier things that Parker could say, but his impulse was still to be passive, even in his attacks.

Parker spared Aurora one glance. "Oh, you count," and then glanced back to the merchandise. He didn't want to get in a screaming match, but a little verbal sparring was fine by him. He needed to take his aggression out on someone, and he'd already marked Aurora as a person of little worth to him. Why should he spare her feelings or try to mend anything?

He made sure to pursue casually, as if he didn't care at all that she was there, as if her presence didn't affect him in the slightest.

Wait -- what advice? "I must've missed the lavender-scented memo of advice you sent my way. Or maybe I just couldn't read it." Parker threw her a belittling stare. "You know, too many typos." He actually had no idea what she was talking about, not even a little bit.

Parker remembered the first encounter, but after a while, everything Aurora said started to sound like wakka-wakka-wakka to him. He had received a very bizarre, very Big Brother carnation on Valentine's Day that had a similar nature, but he doubted the girl would give enough of a s**t about him to go to those lengths. This was only the second time he'd met her. Normally, he wouldn't be so rude, but he was in a bad mood and she was really really annoying.

He checked the price on a large mirror with stained glass edges (realizing with a pang that he was thinking of it for Dani) and then took a slow step away from Aurora toward the incense. "I would call you supercilious and puerile, but I don't have the time to wait for you to find a dictionary," he said. Parker intended to end the conversation there. He enjoyed giving her s**t, but he wanted to have the last word.

Shooting her a bored stare, Parker crossed to the other side of the room where a collection of paintings hung. He intended to peruse them until she left. Then he could declare himself victorious in his own mind.

Parker barely glanced her way, and he did not notice the glittering of tears in her eyes, even if he noted the softness of her voice. Was she so easy to back down? It wasn't like Parker to be empathetic, and so he wasn't. There would be no apology from him.

When she left the shop, a smile lit across his face. It hung for a few moments, and then disappeared. He was alone again, and the memory of Dani came racing back into his head like a burst of electricity. The argument with Aurora had been a band-aid on a hole in a dam wall. It didn't do Parker any good. It only hurt the girl's feelings and made the clerk at the counter shoot daggers at Parker's back.

What? She had started it. Why did he have to back down -- because he was the guy? Whatever. If she didn't want to argue, she should not have run her mouth. It wasn't his fault that she was dumb. It wasn't his fault that she was weak. Parker tried to think terrible things about Aurora, but the feeling in his chest was hollow. He was slipping backward, losing the warmth that Dani had brought into his life and receding into the dark corner where everything was a threat and everyone was out to make his life miserable.

A scowl set on his features, and after a few minutes, Parker left the store too, no purchase in hand, and disappeared down the street, cold wind whipping at his back. A skill more important than intelligence? Parker scoffed. Name one, he thought, pulling his coat tighter. Name one.

And then, a quiet voice in his head whispered: love.