Thrills ⋆ Harry Osborn

⊳ 𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢𝐢. Unnatural Territory

Sabrina always made her worry. With how much she worked, with how little she valued herself, with how she took on too much – but Atlas was simple. He was relaxed, untouched and unfazed by all those things that bothered Sabrina endlessly. Atlas was always her rock, stable and unchanging, but now he wasn't. She worried, her rock was shaken, and she didn't know what to do.

"Love what you're doing with your hair," Atlas lifted his finger to make a motion about what he was talking about.

Toni rolled her eyes at him. "I just put it in a braid. It's not that impressive," she waved it off, and for a moment it felt like everything was completely and utterly normal between them. Like she wasn't unsure about everything, like she wasn't nervous about what was going on, but completely and utterly calm.

"Still looks good," Atlas shrugged.

"Well, thanks," Toni managed. Who knew taking a compliment could be so hard? Toni always took them, expected them, because she had always been showered with that, but now she was unsure. She didn't want to be a bitch, and saying thank you sounded bitchy, and nothing felt right or normal at all.

There was a beat of silence, and it wasn't the good kind. Atlas was talkative, and she was too, but sometimes they relaxed enough where no words came out and they just existed together for a moment. It was always one of Toni's favorite things, but now the silence just felt awkward and incomplete.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Atlas asked, and for the first time he looked unsure as well.

Toni nodded in agreement. "Yeah, so much shit's been going on recently," she added.

"Oh?" Atlas raised an eyebrow.

"Don't you oh me as if you haven't also been through a lot of shit recently. Shit's happened, it's not like we can just ignore that," Toni rolled her eyes at him.

"I mean, we could. We could just ignore everything and maybe all of this awkward energy will just, I don't know, fade away," Atlas offered but Toni gave him a look, "Or maybe not."

"You know I don't do that. I'm confrontational, I need to talk through shit, we can't just leave this in the air," Toni told him, because leaving it in the air would mean leaving all the doubt and hesitation, the awkwardness and tension, up like a cloud above them, following them no matter where they went.

"Yeah," Atlas agreed in a small voice before clearing his throat, "So..."

"You ignored me," Toni blurted out, interrupting him before he could say anything, "You – You ignored my calls, you ignored me when I wanted to hang out, and then you lied to me. I'm not okay with that."

Atlas' eyes diverted down to the table. "I know I did that, and I'm sorry," he owned up to it, "I just – it's not that simple. Like you said, shit's happened to me, and I couldn't tell you. Not just you but anyone. And, well, maybe it's also that I'm not ready to tell you. I need to keep this to myself for a little longer, please let me do that."

His eyes were so pleading, so begging for her understand, and some rebellious part of her wanted to turn her nose up and say that's unacceptable. That she couldn't just accept that her friend was lying to her and keeping secrets, demand for him to tell her just so she could know everything while she kept secrets herself, but that was hypocritical and she couldn't do that.

Doing that would mean ruining her friendship with Atlas, and she held that dearly. He mattered to her, and she couldn't just invalidate his feelings of wanting to keep something private because she wanted to know even if she wanted so badly to understand.