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It wasn’t like he even knew this girl all that well, either. He was supposed to just show her all the worst parts of himself, now? Parts that he didn’t even want himself to see?

That was just impossible.

But...

His conversation with Emiliana was not yet done, he knew. She hadn’t gotten around to telling him what she knew about worms.

And that was important, goddammit. Certainly more important than all his stupid insecurities.

He opened his eyes, grit his teeth, growled to himself, and then scratched his brow hard enough to leave marks. He stared at that damn red crystal lying there on his bed, able to sense its calling pulse again.

He sighed angrily and picked it back up.

‘--there?’ came her voice again. ‘Ah! You’re back! What happened? Where did you go?’

He figured he should apologize first, even though a rather large part of him didn’t want to. ‘S-sorry, I, uh... I dropped the Shard accidentally.’

She took a while to respond. ‘...Is that really true?’ she said, taking that irritated tone with him again, this time more strongly. ‘Hector, I just--I feel like you’re not telling me something, and I don’t appreciate--’

‘Stop,’ he said, perhaps more firmly than he’d intended. ‘Just. Stop.’

And she did.

His anxiety from earlier was still there, though it had been significantly lessened by his mounting frustration. And he figured out what he wanted to say to her now. ‘If you want to keep your location and circumstances a secret... and if you want me to lie to your father about you... then fine. I get it. But you don’t get to do all that and then chastise ME for keeping a few things to myself. Okay? You just--’ He sighed through his nostrils. ‘You don’t get to do that.’

Emiliana made no response.

As the silence drew out, he began to worry that he’d upset her. But he didn’t regret what he’d said. He tried to sense what she was feeling again, but there was nothing. He supposed it didn’t work like that. He decided that his theory from earlier was probably correct after all. Her feelings must have needed to be extraordinarily strong in order for him to sense them, and right now, they simply weren’t.

Perhaps he needed to say more.

‘Look,’ he tried, ‘I... I don’t mean to be rude. And you CAN trust me. I want to help your family however I can. Okay? I really do.’

Still, she remained quiet.

He wasn’t sure what else he could say without backpedaling completely. And he refused to do that.

Eventually, however, she finally said, ‘...Okay.’

And then he sensed her let go of her Shard. He waited to see if she would come back right away like he had. He tried calling out to her through the Shard, wanting her to at least come back and finish whatever she was going to say about worms.

But she didn’t.

“Shit...” He was beginning to see a family resemblance.