It's a strange thing, to watch the other person boil over first. He wonders how much of his own stake in this was hers, and not for the first time--what is him, in how quickly his anger bleeds away for the words.

As far as apologies go, being shouted at while she falls and quivers is hardly expected, but he can't pretend she isn't being genuine. He can't pretend he hasn't been trying to find himself just as much, in his walks through the trees, in his separate from everyone else and their reactions. Was there so much difference, for all their splintering reasons, when they both could look at themselves and not quite name, not quite engage, what they feel?

A question for someone smarter than he, with even just a full fucking diploma to hold over his GED.

"It's alright," he says, same as before. That much is him, she certainly isn't in a forgiving mood. Whatever she is, he might need her--to hold him up in the water, or trade off in an ugly task. To argue with, until they both know what the limits of it feel like, until they both know they can without anyone breaking. "Hey," he adds, his footsteps careful again, coming to kneel at her feet and look up at her from the ground. "Even if I walk away, I'm not going very far, okay? You tell Kate why we're short two mugs and I'll call it even."