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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 17:41:10 GMT -5
"I don't know, but not as another innocent lab mouse!"
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 18:07:33 GMT -5
"I'm hardly so infatuated with you that I can't assess the situation for myself."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 18:12:16 GMT -5
"You are hardly infatuated with me at all!" Nina said hot-headedly, getting to her feet, with tears in her eyes.
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 18:30:18 GMT -5
Curt startled back.
"How I feel about you," he amended lamely, "shouldn't matter. You don't owe Raoul anything."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 18:33:08 GMT -5
"No, I know that. But he knows me for who I am; I don't have to hide with him, and I don't have to remember. You wouldn't understand, Curt."
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 18:41:05 GMT -5
Of course; it was only possible that Curt saw her as his friend's daughter. Not even a friend, for he had few enough of those -- an acquaintance, a business partner. She thought that little of him.
"I suppose I couldn't do that. What is it that I can't understand?"
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 18:44:04 GMT -5
"What I am. What I really am."
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 20:20:55 GMT -5
Curt grimaced.
"What does that make me?"
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 21:15:19 GMT -5
"I don't blame you for not seeing it. No one wants to see the monster right in front of them."
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 21:24:12 GMT -5
Curt coughed with bitter laughter between his teeth. For someone who'd dealt with high schoolers often, he'd developed no patience for melodrama.
"You're not a monster. Rotti Largo is a monster. Henry Kissinger's a monster. Nina, you are twenty-one years old."
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 21:25:54 GMT -5
"I know I am. And you tell me so often enough that I wonder who exactly you suppose needs the reminder," said Nina, with a deep bitterness she had not realized she felt.
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 21:43:50 GMT -5
"You mean, has it been lost on me all this time that I'm practically your father's age? Of course not."
All this time, meaning weeks, and for all of them he had been excruciatingly aware -- but even as a younger man, well. He hadn't had much to offer her even then.
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 21:46:10 GMT -5
"You treat me like a child and then you treat me like a woman and then you behave as though you hate both outcomes!"
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Post by Dr. Connors on Feb 18, 2018 22:14:46 GMT -5
"I don't know what you are to me, under the circumstances, and the last thing I want to do is burden you--"
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Post by Nina Fortner on Feb 18, 2018 22:38:35 GMT -5
Nina's shoulders sank. She moved to approach him, but halted. He seemed - not to want her company much right now. It seemed she was burdening him - with her presence, her emotions, this entire vacation.
"You're not a burden, Curt..."
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