“I thought it was Christmas that was supposed to make people feel like that, not birthdays.” Summer approached from behind, deliberately. On-going joke, that: Tony, you need me as a bodyguard. She put her own drink down on the little table, then put her hands in her pockets, gazing up at the same spot he was.
“I won’t tell you to forget about it, but this isn’t helping,” she went on, softly.
There were several things that Pariah did not like; people coming up behind him whether he knew they were there or not, and Christmas. The fact that he had to deal with both at the same time was not helping his mood in the slightest.
On a scale of one to ten, where five was normal and ten was manic, he was basically hovering around a two at that moment.
“Christmas is worse.”
He looked over at her for a second before looking up at the sky once more.
“You can tell me to forget about it, but I won’t.”
“This isn’t helping,” she repeated. She put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re tearing yourself apart.”
And sensing it was tearing her apart.
“Tony … ” Daring, a little bit. “Will you talk to me?”