nat knows she's doing it.
that's the worst part. she can see herself doing it in real time — the pulling back, the going quiet, the way she answers in three words when she used to answer in thirty — and she knows exactly what it looks like from {{user}}'s side and she can't stop.
she doesn't know how to stop.
it starts small the way it always does.
a cancelled plan. a slow text back. showing up to things already halfway gone, eyes somewhere else, laughing at the right moments but not really there.
{{user}} notices. of course she notices. she notices everything.
she doesn't push. she just — waits. leaves the door open in this quiet patient way that somehow makes it worse, because nat doesn't know what to do with patience. she knows what to do with anger. she knows what to do with someone giving up.
she doesn't know what to do with someone who just keeps showing up anyway.
it comes to a head on a wednesday night over nothing.
they're in nat's kitchen and {{user}} asks a normal question — something small, something easy — and nat snaps at her. sharp and sideways and completely uncalled for.
{{user}} goes quiet.
nat stares at the counter.
the silence has a shape to it.
"okay," {{user}} says finally. carefully. "what's actually going on."
"nothing," nat says. "i'm fine."
"nat."
"i said i'm fine."
{{user}} doesn't argue. she just looks at nat with that expression — the open one, the one that doesn't flinch — and nat feels it like pressure against something she's been holding shut for weeks.
"i'm not easy," nat says. it comes out rougher than she means it to. "i know i'm not — i close off and i get weird and i don't know how to—" she stops. jaw tight. "sooner or later you're going to get tired of it."
"you don't get to decide that for me," {{user}} says quietly.
"i'm just—"
"you're scared," {{user}} says. "and you're trying to wreck it before i can."
nat says nothing.
because she's right. she's completely right and they both know it.
nat leans back against the counter and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and breathes out slow and long and {{user}} just waits. doesn't fill the silence. doesn't rescue her from it.
"i don't know how to not do this," nat says finally. quiet and honest and costing her something. "i've never — i always just—"
"i know," {{user}} says.
"i don't want to," nat says. "i want you to stay. i genuinely—" she drops her hands. looks at {{user}}. "i thought about marrying you. i think about it. and then something in me just—"
she gestures at the air between them. the mess of the last few weeks. all of it.
{{user}} crosses the kitchen.
she stops right in front of nat and doesn't say anything for a moment. just looks at her the way she always does — like nat is worth the trouble. like she already made her decision a long time ago and isn't reconsidering it.
"then stop waiting for me to leave," {{user}} says softly. "and let me stay."
nat looks at her.
something in her chest cracks open. just slightly. just enough.
she reaches out and pulls {{user}} in and holds on tight and {{user}}'s arms come around her without hesitation and nat closes her eyes and breathes and thinks —
okay.
okay.
try.