Don't mind us, we're just spilling our guts

As happened all too often these days, Chloe had been up late studying. Wrapped in a blanket, she was going back upstairs with a mug full of hot herbal tea for herself, heading back to her room to knock out that last half of a chapter.

It was harder to focus with all the worrying she'd been up to, lately. She hoped the tea would help her beat that in this last stretch before she turned in., making her warmer, more relaxed.

On the way back to her room, as she often did, she looked out through the glass door at the view past the balcony. It calmed her down sometimes, watching the stars, the milky way reflecting off the ocean. It reminded her of things she could be grateful for - living here, having Malara to support her and Amber, nobody laying an eternal claim on her soul -

But tonight something was disturbing her reverie. A hooded ball, sparking against the railing, strands of blonde hair poking out between hoodie and knee and hidden face. A sad, cold bundle in self-imposed exile. As soon as Chloe knew what it was, she knew that Dalia knew she was there.

Chloe stood a moment with her hand on the door, hesitating. She took a breath. After a few seconds, it slid open, and she was out in the cold with her. One arm held her blanket around herself, protecting herself from the cold ocean breeze, while her other hand held her mug out towards Dalia when she had shuffled close enough.

"Here."

Chloe didn't know the tears were there until Dalia turned her head. It surprised her a bit - not that Dalia cried, but that Dalia would let Chloe see her cry. It hurt Chloe to see her hurt, to think she might have been making the pain worse.

She wanted to get closer to Dalia, maybe even hug her, but the sparks along the railing held her at bay. The last thing they needed was for Dalia to accidentally injure her. So Chloe pulled up a chair so it was right next to the railing, and she sat down in it, wrapping herself up a little tighter in her blanket.

"There's been a lot going on," she said. It felt like the understatement of the year, and that was just accounting for the things Chloe knew about. She didn't even know what she didn't know.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Dalia thought she was a selfish brat? Chloe just waved at that idea, dismissively. "You're dealing with a lot, too. I can't blame you for trying to cope with it." Chloe was sure that would make her a hypocrite.

With that said, Chloe sat and listened to Dalia go over the major points. Izzy could be a little shit sometimes, yes. Chloe bit her tongue trying not to get defensive about it - this wasn't the time.

So she kept listening. Chloe knew the kind of promise Dalia and Phaedra had made. "A blood oath." Chloe felt like she was starting to understand Dalia's aversion to Phaedra, now. "That's why you called her a traitor?"

Chloe also felt like she was just scratching the surface, though. She knew Dalia and Phaedra were close, but this was a few steps past what Chloe expected about their relationship.

Chloe sat, silent as the spider-girl sobbed, searching for something to say that could soothe her. The silence stretched on longer than she would like. She somehow didn't expect Dalia to be looking at it this way, and she didn't want to make this worse by saying the wrong thing. But she had to say something.

"I don't think it's fair to blame yourself." Chloe paused to shiver a bit, her teeth chattering as she pulled her blanket closer around herself. "You were a great sister to Phaedra and a great friend, from everything I could see. They were lucky to have you. But... I don't think anyone can be good enough, of a friend or a sister or a girlfriend, that nobody would ever leave them. That might not be possible."

Chloe didn't answer immediately. The depths of Dalia's despair were difficult to look at. She still couldn't give Dalia a hug without hurting herself. Plus, she hoped nobody would get hit by that mug Dalia dropped, and that it wouldn't damage anyone's car. That would be just their luck, wouldn't it?

Ok, she had to focus. Fight through her exhaustion and say the right things to help Dalia. That would mean not making promises that sounded like what Phaedra made with her. So she'd have to say something else. If not to make Dalia hurt less, to at least help her process this better, like Chloe had to learn to.

"...Because being alone sucks," Chloe told her.

"You know... when I first got stranded here, I wondered the same sort of thing. Why bother making friends, if I might just get ripped away from everyone I love again? What's the point? So I stopped trying to make any, I just hid out in my dorm room for a few months and I read a lot of weird magic books and gained twenty pounds.

"It was just about the worst I've ever felt in my life, and I did it to myself because I thought it would make me feel better. It was like if I got sick of the pain I would get when I stubbed a toe or broke my ankle, so I decided to cut both my legs off." To paraphrase an analogy her therapist at the time had used.

Chloe worried she was rambling about herself too much. She couldn't think of a better way to talk about this kind of pain than to talk about her own, but it still felt wrong, on some level.