Closed Out in the Open

[Solomon Tofilau]

Set after this thread.

Sully's stomach felt sour as he stepped out into the cooler air of the courtyard, the breeze a relief after the stuffy hall. He didn't get why Chloë was so worked up about all this, keeping his shoulders hunched up defensively as he turned around to glance at her. "We're outside now, you gonna yell at me or something," he said sullenly, jamming his hands into his pockets. He'd been coasting all year so far on not getting caught up on the small stuff, he wanted this year to be fun and now Chloë was ruining it by getting all bent out of shape over something that happened ages ago. Thought Sully couldn't ignore that she'd said she wanted to talk about graduation too. Couldn't he have just a few months without worrying about crappy stuff like that. He kicked a stone near his feet sourly for good measure, looking back up at Chloë. "I didn't want to mess up our last year with annoying stuff like this," he said, pulling a hand from his pocket to flap it vaguely to encompass everything Chloë apparently wanted to talk about. "I thought you'd get it," he added petulantly.

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë wasn't sure exactly what was happening but at least Sully had agreed to head outside, away from the prying eyes of the other students nearby. The last thing she wanted was to end up as some inaccurate story in the hogwarts gossip circuit. The evening was already going worse as it was. Her mouth dropped a bit at Sully's words, looking at him in disbelief over what he had just said. "Wow.." Was all she managed to choke out as she could feel her eyes start to burn, trying her best to keep the tears at bay even though his words were hurting her. It wasn't like this was how she had planned the evening going. She wasn't the one who had kept something from him for months. Or who brought up the subject of graduation. And yet it felt like Sully was blaming her for the entire conversation. "So what? Talking about our relationship is annoying?" Chloë questioned, frustrated by how sulky he was being. "I do get it. Which is why I've never brought up graduation this year. Not once. Even when you're leaving and I'm left behind. Do you think I don't think about that? But I've never brought it up because I don't even know how you feel about graduation in general and I didn't want to ruin the fun. Your fun."

 

[Solomon Tofilau]

Sully looked pointed at the ground the second it looked like Chloë might actually start crying. He couldn't handle a girl crying right now. He hunched his shoulders as she started in on their relationship, frowning down at his feet and trying not to grind his teeth. She was the one looking for things to complain about, apparently cause she was mad he was graduating or something, and he was the one getting told off for it. This was bullsh*t. "Well, it's ruined now," he said in a huff, chancing a glance up at Chloë's face and realized that she hadn't actually started crying. "It's not like I can control the fact that I'm graduating, so don't get all mad at me," he said defensively, his shoulders still hunched up by his ears. "I thought you were cool about this sort of stuff, it's why I wanted to date you in first place! I don't want to think about downer stuff like who kissed who or graduation and all that. It sucks. This sucks," he said, waving a hand between them for emphasis. Chloë just wanted to be mad at him over nothing and Sully just wanted her to go back to being that relaxed, chill girl he was used to and stop talking about all this.

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë couldn't believe this was the way their night had gone to, leaving her outside in the cool air arguing with her boyfriend. The worst thing was that she had't been mad before, just hurt, but with every word that Sully said she felt herself get more frustrated, if not a little bit angry. Something she wasn't especially often. "I know that, but what did you expect?" She responded when he mentioned graduating wasn't in his control, unintentionally raising her voice a little. "That we'd just keep pretending nothing is happening but then when the end of the year rolls around you'd just leave? You do know we were bound to talk about it at some point, right?" In all honesty, Chloë wished they didn't have to talk about it. Especially with the way the conversation was going right now. But simultaneously ignoring the topic of graduation forever wasn't realistic and she knew that. Especially not when there was so much uncertainty connected to it. "Right, no, I'm sorry. Forgive me for caring about the fact that another girl kissed you and you didn't feel the need to tell me. Or the fact that you have to leave in a few months. I mean I'm only your girlfriend so obviously I should just be chill about that, right? Who cares anyways, no big deal." She responded, the sarcasm almost dripping from her voice. Because it was a big deal and in all honesty, she just couldn't believe how he didn't see that, how he could even say any of that. Chloë made a frustrated sound at Sully’s final words. "What, this conversation? Or this relationship?" She blurted out in response, yet as soon as she did she could only pray he wouldn't say the latter.

 

[Solomon Tofilau]

Sully dug his hands deeper into his pockets, curling and curling them into fists as Chloë kept yelling at him. He'd wanted to avoid talking about graduation and the kiss too for this exact reason. Why mess with a good thing when he knew it was going to be over soon. "If we both knew it was going to happen, why do we need to talk about it?" He said petulantly. Talking about it meant Sully had to make a decision about what they were going to do once he'd left school, and with everything going on, the last thing he'd wanted to do was admit he didn't know which outcome he wanted. He was pretty sure he was in love with Chloë, and yet the idea of sitting around waiting on her for a year seemed exhausting. Like he wanted to be the guy stuck writing stupid owls to his girlfriend while everyone else was off traveling or starting new jobs and stuff.

And then there was the Aisa thing. "Look, if you can't handle someone else kissing me once, then how are you going to handle me not being around all year next year," Sully said, pulling a hand from his pocket to point at Chloë accusatorily. "I didn't want to ruin everything by bringing it up, since I thought it didn't matter. It didn't mean anything and I thought you could handle it. I thought you were all mature and stuff," he said sharply. Sully had never really brought up the age gap between him and Chloë. Really a few months didn't matter in the grand scheme, but lately, or right now, it felt like a gulf with him leaving on one side and Chloë stuck on the other, yelling at him. But as angry as Sully was starting to feel, his blood still ran cold at Chloë's next question. "What?! Why are you being so crazy all of a sudden? This is why I didn't want to talk about this stuff!" He said, throwing his hands in the air. He'd expected a lot of things to happen to tonight, but to Chloë to get hysterical and start threatening to break up hadn't been one of them. "God, girls are so stupid," he muttered, dragging a hand down his face, heart in his stomach.

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë shook her head when Sully asked why they even had to talk about graduation when they both knew it was coming up. It being so close was exactly why they had to talk about it at one point. She wasn't sure what was going to happen when he graduated and she was starting to think that perhaps he didn't either. But he was going out in a world that had so much to offer and she had been wrecking her mind about what that would mean for them. Things were obviously going to change and she didn't know in which way they would. "It's not even the kiss itself, I just don't understand why you didn't tell me about it sooner. Especially if it didn't mean anything and you thought I would be cool about it." She shrugged, trying to calm down and control her emotions a bit more after her little outburst. Yelling wasn't exactly going to help her cause any further after all. She didn't want to admit it out loud because that likely would make things worse, but him not telling her made her feel insecure. Like maybe it had meant something. Or maybe he kept saying he thought she would be cool about it but didn't actually think so. Either way, it confused her.

Chloë felt like Sully bringing up their tiny age difference and him being gone next year was a low blow and she clenched her jaw to try and stop herself from shooting back. It wasn't that she wanted to get angry but for some reason all of the worries and emotions she had been bottling up throughout the year about him leaving had caused her to snap. "I-I didn't mean that." She responded with a much softer voice, taking a deep breath as she tried not to respond to him calling her both crazy and dumb in less than three sentences. "Look, I'm sorry for snapping at you.." Chloë struggled to get the words out, thinking it wasn't entirely fair that she was the one apologizing right now or that she had to explain why she had snapped. But she was going to anyways. "I just feel like we've been dancing around graduation all year and I'm just.. scared.. I guess..That you're not just leaving, but leaving me. Like for real." She started, looking anywhere but at him as she paused for a second. "I mean there's a whole world for you to explore out there and I won't even be close because I'll be stuck right here. You can't tell me you haven't thought about that.." She continued, crossing her arms as if that was going to protect her from this conversation. She had been with Sully for a while now and knew him well enough to know that there was no way he hadn't thought about that. About how while she'd be stuck at school he might feel stuck waiting for her. She wasn't even sure if he had the patience to do so, no matter how much she liked him or he did her.

 

[Solomon Tofilau]

Sully shrugged, curling his shoulders in on himself at Chloë's question. He didn't know why he'd put it off so much. He'd just been happier pretending it hadn't happened, it was easier that way, and then when Aisa went all traitor all on him and brought it up again he just figured it'd be easier not to worry Chloë about it. "It didn't matter," he said again gruffly, as if repeating it would make it true for both of them. "Not like you tell me everything you do ever too," he added defensively.

Sully felt a bubble of relief when Chloë started to back down, like they were both taking a step away from a ledge as she lowered her voice. "Yeah, whatever," he said sullenly as she apologized. He knew he should probably apologize to her as well, but part of him was adamant she was just looking for something to be mad about and the other part figured saying sorry would confirm he'd actually done something wrong here. But Chloë was right, Sully had been thinking about it, and he hated every second of it. Cause sometimes, sometimes he thought about how much easier, how much more fun it might be, if he didn't have to worry about Chloë back at school all year next year. If he could just go out and have fun without feeling bad for leaving her behind. And he hated it. "It's not like we can do anything about it, though," he said, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder idly, not willing to pull his hands back out of his pockets to fidget. "Unless you wanna drop out or something," he added, a shadow of a smile as he made the joke. "But that's why I wanna enjoy right now without fighting and talking about all this stuff," Sully said, raising his voice again, as if he could convince her by sheer virtue of being louder. "Let's just enjoy now and worry about graduation when it's actually happening," he said, stepping closer to her, eyes imploring as he reached out to brush a thumb over her cheek.

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë scoffed at Sully's response but kept her words to herself. There didn't seem to be any use for them anyways and she already felt like she had been saying the same thing over and over, just in different ways. But he didn't understand her point of view and she didn't completely understand his, which made continuing to talk about it feel useless. Maybe it hadn't been a big deal. Maybe he had really thought it to be so insignificant that telling her about it had slipped his mind. Or maybe it wasn't and he just didn't want to admit he should've told her. Either way, she was done with the conversation.

By now Chloë wasn't entirely sure how she had gone from starting the night trying to think she could just ignore everything around her to getting into an argument with Sully but it was almost starting to feel like it was actually her fault. She hadn't been the one who had brought up being kissed or graduation but the night would've gone so differently if she had just laughed it off, decided not to worry about it. That was far more easier said than done, especially since she had been worrying for a while now. She didn't think she had done anything wrong though. Other than snap at him, obviously, but he had snapped right back so in some way that made her feel like they were even. "Not a chance." Chloë responded with a soft chuckle when Sully mentioned dropping out, which made her feel a little naive. Or a whole lot. Him saying there was nothing they could do about it gave her absolutely zero sense of security about what would happen and yet here she was smiling at his dumb joke. "I thought talking about it might make that easier," She admitted, having thought that if they could talk about graduation everything would be fine. That those worrying thoughts in the back of her mind would disappear and she could just have fun. "But I guess all it did was ruin the night.." She added quietly before looking at him, wanting nothing more than to go back to ingoring everything like she had planned to. To having fun and being around him now that he was still at school. And if that made her naive and she'd end up being hurt then so be it. She was a teenager, she was allowed to be naive.