LIBERATION || L. MESSI

SEVEN

It wasn't long before the sandwich had been placed in his hands, and the Argentine gladly accepted the food. He managed to eat it rather quickly, despite the hangover, and Cordelia was jealous that he only seemed to have the headache with his previous night's drinking antics. She usually ended with the whole package.

"Thank you," Leo spoke up after everything had been cleared away "for last night." The look in his eyes was so sincere, a scream of agony and his want to get better 

Cordelia nodded, sitting across from him at the kitchen counter. She rested her chin in the palm of her hand as she watched the man.

The way her lips were slightly slanted made her expression unreadable. Leo couldn't figure out what it was she was thinking about, her eyes spoke of concern and her lips of intrigue. Her body was begging to know, as if she wanted to be reassured she wasn't alone, but the girl also didn't want to know. How could she want to hear a person's story of pain without any guilt?

"What is it, if you don't mind me asking?" She questioned after a moment of deliberation. Leo pulled a strange face, one which made her clarify "What makes you feel this way?"

It could have been anything. Anxiety. Depression. Even bipolar or something to do with his body - you couldn't tell with these type of things.

With a dragged out sigh, Leo considered his options: he could lie, and be faced with the criminality of holding back the truth; or he could be honest, and face the criticism of his broken interior.

There was a moment of silence before the man almost whispered "PTSD."

And then the world around him fell into silence.

He could no longer hear the soft laughter at the TV screen from the other room, the birds outside were no longer singing, he couldn't even follow the rhythm of the girl's breathing; he had been honest. Honesty was something he had never faced. Never owned up to his own situation.

Instead, he usually brushed it off with a comment about stress or tiredness, but something had driven him to tell the girl.

Cordelia's silence was worrying him. Maybe he had judged wrong. Maybe she was fine in herself, and would now think of him as just another crazy person with too many problems she couldn't begin to solve.

Then she nodded, sides of her mouth curling up in a sympathetic smile that said more than any words could ever. Her eyes told of understanding, although not to the same extent, but in elements. She didn't need to say anything, both Leo and Cordelia knew that speaking wouldn't suffice the situation.

Supplementing words for actions, the Spaniard took ahold of Leo's hand across the counter. It wasn't a long touch, but the slight squeeze she gave his fingers told that she understood. Then her hand was back by her side.

Leo's fingers twitched, wanting to feel her skin against his once again. It burned his hand in a way he hadn't experienced for an extended time; a way of longing. Suddenly he longed to touch her again, to have her consolation and to share in her emotion - a stupid thought really, but it was as though something had just clicked inside his head.

Despite only meeting a few times, he cared for the girl. She barely knew him, and yet was more willing to give him attention than many of his life long friends.

No one else would have driven the distance to his house. If they had, they certainly wouldn't have stayed the night and prepared painkillers the next morning.

Cordelia clearly cared, too.

"What about you?" Leo asked warily after a moment, watching as the blonde's features twisted in a mix of shock and emotional turmoil - similar to how Leo had looked as he weighed his options.