Body language was telling, distorting one's view like tiny ripples in water. Although Ange had her answer far before she caught the set jaw line, Jonah's movements gave away far more detail than initially asked for. The glance aside, the fixed stare at no human eye. Here was a young man in silent distress. And Ange, the inadvertent cause.

What more could she expect? When the lines of reality and fantasy blurred, your existence came into question, pulled apart with reason and logic and fallacy. A person is taught to trust the real world, and experience makes them abandon the rest as trivialities. What were you to do when you learn the things that once held weight--became so dear--were not real? How was that not supposed to bother them, as Jonah put it in no uncertain terms? How could she entertain this prospect so smoothly, as if considering a simple math problem?

Because. Because once upon a time, she had been in his shoes. Had allowed the realizations and the doubts destroy the ones that might have brought her a shred of happiness in that dull, gray world. Somewhere, she had let explanations like this slide through without a single regret. Somewhere in her heart of hearts, she had made them matter very little.

Ange, too, turned to watch the fountain, her movements calm despite the subject. It took a minute for the girl to speak, but speak she did. Otherwise, their conversation couldn't continue. "I'm not going to belittle your feelings," she began, "nor am I going to try and reason them out. You're right in that it's worth a bother."

Her tone lowered. "That kind of thing...is the worst."