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He couldn't think of a way to break the silence. That was such an unfamiliar feeling that Roch looked a little lost as he and Taryn made their way back to school. He shoved his hands a bit deeper into his pockets, hunching his shoulders a bit. He... he really didn't want to call Xiu yet. Not yet. The moment he talked to her he would go right back to the same problem he had earlier, one he'd been trying to break free of.

"Taryn," he said quietly. "Can I--I just--"

"Can I just tell you WHY I asked her not to call me?" he begged. "Please? Because if I call her now--if I go back now--I'll just be right back where I was. I can't do that, Taryn. Please don't make me do that?" He wasn't one you were used to hearing beg, so it seemed a bit startling. "I still haven't--I need more time."

"I... I gotta be free of this, Taryn," he said. "I got enough to worry about without thinking about the fact that I'm obsessed with a ghoul that isn't even in LIKE with me." There they were, in the middle of the path leading to school, the brisk air flowing around them, and the sky getting darker by the moment.

"This isn't the place to have this conversation," he said. "Look, let's go to my room, my granddad sent me some frozen pizzas and stuff, or it was probably his stripper ghoulfriend, but either way, they ain't bad at all. We can eat there and I'll--I'll explain, okay?"

"It ain't... it ain't good," he said quietly, starting to walk again. "I jackin' HATE being this vulnerable, Taryn. It's more than I can handle right now. I'm just a street punk, one that'll either wind up a decent reaper or stuck in jail for the rest of my life. They've got a seriously thick record on me, Taryn. Not all of it is stuff I've really done, I'm sure, but enough of it is. My biggest concern right now shouldn't be... shouldn't be who Xiu is or isn't dating, it shouldn't even be the hunters, although they're a big deal. It should be graduating."

He looked at her. "It sounds like no big deal to most of the kids in the school, but it's a serious thing for me. Somethin I ain't sure I'll be able to do."

"Y'know, people keep seeming to think that, and I got no jackin' clue why they don't believe me," Roch told her, looking a bit confused. "Probably because they've never seen my record," he said with a shrug. "And gettin' involved in all the stuff they're trying to cover up on top of that? Jack, Taryn, I'm a living breathing target. I got a record, I showed up in school right before the trouble started, almost. If I was them I'd try to pin it on me."

He really didn't trust the boogies. At all.

"It keeps gettin' thicker," Roch said. "Last I looked it was over two inches, for sure. But yeah, it'd be hard to blame it JUST on me. Simply cuz I can't do magical fire and s**t... but Danny's got fire. She's a good pal of mine, and I bet they know it by now," he said. Then he shook his head. They were to the school campus by now, and he headed inside silently, trying to think of how to put it.

"I still like her," he said quietly. "I wound up spending the last day of my vacation with her, and the one picture I'd finally gotten the scare up to delete was replaced by like, ten. I'm still tryin' to figure out how to make myself delete those."

"Well... yeah, but Danny's an idiot," he said simply. "Who do you think is more likely to help a punk kill everyone, a straight A student or... a Danny?" He waved it off, thinking that was enough to explain that one. "And my juvie record folder, it's getting thicker--okay, maybe not since I came to school, but trust me, I've seen it a LOT of times."

"I didn't say they would think I did it, I said they could pin it on me and get away with it," he said patiently. "Oh, and another thing," he added, slinging the backpack on his back off and digging through it. He pulled out a single black rose. "I've been giving these to people. They're pretty, ain't they?"

He held it out to her with a grin. "You can have this one."