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i'd rather go blind ╚═════════════.✾. ═╝
STANDING ABOVE THE mess of a storyboard she had worked on during her brainstorm, Angie stared at the piece of work with her arms folded across her chest. The more she scrutinized the piece, the more she could point out the flaws in her development which was both a good thing and a bad thing.
Considering this trip was meant for her to focus on her scripts in order to turn them in to studios Angie was pleased to finally have some time to work on something. The storyboard was only an outline tool for her but it at least gave her some physical evidence that she didn't entirely waste her time here babysitting a certain actor. Eventually her process was interrupted by her phone ringing to have her look on the caller ID for who it was.
Ryan's name appeared for her to look at it with a wide-grin, answering it immediately. "Hi, Ry! You usually don't call me so early I wasn't." Angie stopped as he talked to her on the other line. Taking a seat in her desk she focused on his words confused. "Sure, of course, what do you need to talk about?"
As this conversation went on Michael had gotten back on his own errand run into the now quiet home. Looking around confused as he expected for Angie to be around he placed his things down on the counter. "Ang?" He called out. Earning no reply he went up the stairs in the direction of her room assuming she had either fallen asleep at her desk or was too focused on her work to notice him. "I have your bagel and coffee you could take a break and come down."
Stopping at her door he paused to knock first. Only hearing shuffling on the other end he knit his brows together confused. "You okay?" Michael asked, opting to knock again for the girl in question to appear in front of him.
"Sorry I didn't hear you come in." Her cheeks had gotten flushed as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Angie looked to Michael watching her confused by her reaction as she tried to play this off. "You said you brought me something?"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Angie I'm not an idiot." She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from spilling over. She didn't want to talk about this with Michael; in fact he was the last person she would want to talk to about this. Angie was buying herself time until she was able to get Alya on the phone. "I tell you everything."
This made her laugh, thankfully, as she walked past him to the kitchen. "I don't ask you to though do I?" Going through the bag as he followed behind her she took out the two items as he continued to watch concerned. Noticing Michael was still doing this she stopped to raise a hand to him. "I'm fine, really."
"You looked like you were crying?"
Faltering at this Angie only laughed it off to not push this any further. "I got into an emotional bit with my script that's normal." Seeing this didn't satisfy him she let out a breath to lean on the counter for support. "...You're not going to understand and I can't tell you."
At this he let out a laugh to stand on the opposite side of the counter from her. "What makes you think I won't understand? I can be understanding."
She decided this wasn't going to end any time soon and nodded in agreement. "Ryan cheated on me— again." Michael was taken aback by her mention of this casually as she was completely unfazed by the subject now. Lifting one of the bagels she raised it up for him to see it. "Mine's the cinnamon and strawberry right?"
"And you're leaving him?"
"No, obviously," Angie answered quickly, to pass the other over to him. Taking the snacks she bit into the bagel as he still awaited for some follow-up to this. To her this was a bump in their relationship as it always was. Ryan acted out when she was away in school and now work and he always apologized to her for the mistake afterwards. Angie found all this to be normal in a relationship despite it being wrong to everyone around her. "He told me and that's what matters."
Michael couldn't understand her thought process. The mention that this had happened before, her complete casual behavior. He wanted to act out for her since she seemed so incapable of doing it herself. Ryan had a hold on her and he didn't deserve it. Imagining that he would be joining them in New York only fueled his anger. "So that's supposed to make it okay? Because really I don't see what you mean by that here?"
"That's why I didn't want to tell you. You just don't get it?"
"I think it's a pretty reasonable reaction that if someone had cheated on you multiple times it's reason enough to leave them." Michael laughed at this fact. He didn't want to also mention he thought it was a miss on Ryan's part to cheat on Angie. She was so perfect to him he couldn't imagine anyone misguiding her let alone putting her through this and letting her think it was normal. This then led to Michael imagining him being with her again and grew frustrated. "You deserve better than that."
She'd heard the phrase before, from Alya and friends in university. Angie had felt the same too and planned to leave but she never had the urge to. Even with the cheating Ryan seemed to know what was best for her. She worried that if she didn't follow through she was going to end up lost. Everything felt purposeful and it kept her with him even through it. "I love him. I love him and that's all." Raising her snack and drink in her hand she gave him one last look before she turned away. "I'm gonna be working if you need me."
Feeling her air as he walked past her, Michael turned expecting for Angie to say something else about this and was disappointed to see her leave to her bedroom instead. Neither of them spoke to the other the rest of that day until coming out for dinner. The discussion of what had happened, however, was completely avoided as if nothing had happened.
