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Green wasn’t trying to pout too much about the fact that Purple had let Red preen her wings before him. He knew that Red was just good at that stuff, but come on man! Second obviously got there first because they knew first, but she had wanted to actually tell him first, and Green was pretty sure the main reason she didn’t want her wings played with then was because Second had literally just preened them.
He was being petty and jealous and he knew it. Purple was happy with it, Red was only trying to help, it wasn’t a competition. This was a difficult thing to get through his own head, as competition came naturally to him, but he felt like he was self-aware enough to know, reasonably, that it wasn’t personal.
Everyone loved preening, including the avians. Green remembered how Second had been worried they were “just giving everyone another chore to do,” when they were still figuring out “how to avian,” as everyone liked to call it. That had kicked off a discussion and a sheepish reveal that they had been using their turns preening Second as a hidden currency among them.
On several occasions, someone had offered to make someone something, do a favor, or help someone with a prank with the condition that they got to take their next turn preening Second. Yellow had literally made a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the deals so they could all keep track of who was preening when, once the deals started getting out of hand.
“You ended up back to the way it was at the beginning,” Second had said through giggles while looking through it. “The order got shuffled back to the original order!”
Their feathers were soft and colorful, they all made sure of it, and were just really fun to sort through and pet. It was nice getting to snuggle up with one of their friends and listen to the sleepy coos and warbles they would make when the preening really got going. Watching their feathers fluff up, and their ear feathers quiver with enjoyment was delightful.
It was fun to let their friend feel loved, and to see the reaction to that love while being let close enough for that to happen.
So when Green got the reveal that Purple was an avian, he was really excited about the idea that even more of those soft and sweet moments were on the horizon, and with Purple no less! Green could theorize that she was somewhat insecure about her place within the group, this would be so good for all of that!
It was taking longer than he thought it would though, which was fine if it weren’t for one little thing. Second had been first, Red had been next. Green hoped he would get to go after Red.
Except next was Blue while Purple was recovering from her broken wing, and Green could see that. She was like their medic. Purple’s wing was broken, and that meant whoever was preening that wing needed to know how to avoid doing damage, and it was bad practice to preen one wing and not the other. So that was fine. Unfortunate, because her wing was broken and Green could see how frustrated it made her, but it made sense.
And Blue was the main person to preen Purple while she was recovering, so that was the needed dynamic. Blue had talked about wanting to make sure Purple didn’t view her as a threat from the ordeal, so it was even rational and practical outside of the medical stuff.
Then Mango got to go next, and that also made sense, because that was her dad and she needed to be working on that filial imprint, given how distressed it was. Green had kinda wanted to be the one to help teach him at least, but because Blue was the most practiced with Purple, she got to teach instead. She was more familiar with what Purple liked, so yeah, that also made sense.
So many things that made sense, even if Green was feeling more jealous.
It wasn’t like he didn’t spend time with her, they hung out a lot, she probably did spend more time with him than anyone else. She liked to stay active while the bone was healing, and Green was happy to help with that.
Purple’s wing eventually healed and Green thought he might finally get a turn because now the injury barrier was gone, and he wouldn’t need to be worried about making the break worse.
And then Yellow got to go. And Green had a harder time rationalizing that one. He could get there, sure, but it was a bit harder. Purple and Yellow had just been hanging out and Yellow offered casually. Green had overheard because he was already preening Second nearby. He had paused for a moment in surprise when she accepted the offer, and was snapped back to the task at hand when Second gave an irritated chip at him meaning hey, focus.
“Sorry,” Green mumbled, and was quick to return to what he was already doing. Second was good with reading moods, and Green noticed their feathers puffing a little in worry, so Green actually did completely refocus on working on preening second.
Okay. Okay. Green had already been preoccupied, and with already preening their friend no less. That was no one’s fault. Just bad timing. Not even bad, just unfortunate. He was already preening Second, and Purple was also there and she was more comfortable being around the group. It wasn’t a competition. It wasn’t a competition.
He was just the last one to preen Purple. Even though he had been the one to chase after her. No, no, it wasn’t a transactional thing, he didn’t expect anything special because of that. That was nothing to hold over her. It was just…he thought they really were closer than the rest.
Look, it was no secret he liked her, and he was pretty sure she liked him back, given that she was always flirting back with him, and oftentimes initiating. The preening thing was probably nothing. He was reading into it too much, that was all. Lots of coincidences, and everything had made sense, he just really thought that would have happened by now.
He was sure he would be next. He would get a turn next. This was about her, not him, and eventually it would happen, he just needed to be patient.
Green was feeling a little proud of himself, especially after the whole influencer debacle. He didn’t want to fall back into the egotistical way of thinking, when he had been mean, or overstepped because he was too focused on what attention it would get him. He was doing better talking himself out of the impulse to show off, to be the best, to be in the center of attention when that wasn’t the point.
He was doing well. He was going to take this as tangible personal progress. It was fine, and he was just going to be next.
He wasn’t next. Red got there again, and this time she had actively sought him out.
And Green was really starting to struggle to rationalize everything. It wasn’t just that he was last, he was also the only one who hadn’t gotten a turn, and now one of his friends had gotten two turns before he even got one. Not counting Blue, but that was because she was the most qualified at the time.
He knew it was bothering him. He wasn’t trying to take offense, but it was causing him worry. He felt like he should have gotten the chance by now, given how much time had passed, and the fact that she hadn’t indicated that there was a reason. There probably wasn’t any harm in bringing it to her directly, so that’s what he decided to do.
No confrontation, no accusations, just a simple request and opportunity for him to know what was going on.
He texted her to ask if he could come over, and she sent him the go ahead.
Ourple: yeah, that’s fine! Lmk when you’re on your way.
Grass Chomper: Is now okay? I’m pretty much good to head over now.
Ourple: Now’s fine, you know I won’t turn down more time to see your face ;)
Green smiled at his phone and called out to the rest of the group that he was going to Purple’s for a while. He was glad to not be going to the tree fort while there was an active emergency going on.
Getting there was normal. Purple was happy to see him and greeted him with a friendly hug and playful nudge of the shoulder. Her place was very clean in some areas and more of a rushed job in others where Green assumed she had hurriedly tidied up the area before he made it to hers.
He asked how she was, she said she was going well, and they were quick to settle into light and easy conversation.
She didn’t seem upset with him at all. He was worried there was something going on with that, but no. She was happy to see him as he was her, and he truly didn’t feel any indication that there was something underlying their interaction that Green needed to be aware of.
So with that in mind, he figured he might as well ask.
She had gone to dig out an armor trim she had found from a chest and Green could see her feathers clearly. They certainly weren’t in bad shape, but they were a little ruffled around the edges, and could use a small touch up.
“Hey, you up for a preen right now? You seem like you could use a refresher.”
She paused, only slightly, but enough that Green spotted it.
“Oh, not right now,” she declined without turning around. Her voice was even and light, but it carried something else beneath it. That irked Green. If there was something else going on here, he wanted to know it. It wasn’t fair to shut him out of what was supposed to be a bonding activity for a reason he couldn’t do anything about. He was receiving some mixed signals. What was up with the flirting and advances and her literally saying she was closest to him out of everyone, but keeping him away from an activity that let him interact with an entire part of herself?
“Okay, I just have to ask,” Green started. “Why does everyone else get a turn, but not me?” Purple stiffened very slightly. “Why don’t you want me to preen you?”
She sucked in a breath and her wings twitched a little.
“It’s not that,” she said, voice tight. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
“Really? Because it seems like it does? I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten the chance and that seems off. I’m willing to accept that it’s all just a coincidence, but if there’s a reason, I’d like to know it.”
Her face was slightly red and her brows were furrowed.
“I’m still sensitive to everything,” she said, but her tone still had that deflecting, lying hint to it that Green had gotten better at spotting since getting to know her. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in touch with it.”
“But that goes away with everyone but me?” he challenged.
“Why are you pushing so hard to preen me!” she snapped.
“I’m not!” Green argued back. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t, but I would like to know why everyone else is allowed to and I’m not!”
Purple narrowed her eyes Green watched in real time Purple’s walls go up fast and he recognized very quickly he had stepped wrong somewhere.
“It’s not about being ‘allowed to!’ Stop talking about it like that! I’m an avian, not a pet!”
Purple was starting to get agitated, and Green was paying enough attention to recognize she was getting the wrong idea of why he was upset. She had snapped that she wasn’t a pet, and it reminded him of something he had read. When researching, he had run across a few articles on social issues with avians in the outernet that perhaps he should have read up on a little more when he learned she was an avian.
He didn’t really get it, but he had skimmed an article, years ago, that covered a type of mentality toward avians that sounded odd to Green. Apparently, some sticks viewed them as less competent, less intelligent as a result of their additional instincts, and how avians had pushed against it by arguing that they weren’t pets. It was a collection of testimonies from avians expressing frustration when people would approach them telling them how they should or were feeling, or telling them what they should do to be healthier while not being avians themselves, and especially when they were strangers.
Given that he didn’t live in the Outernet, and didn’t know anyone who did when doing initial research, Green hadn’t put much thought into it because it didn’t apply to the present situation at the time. Second actually didn’t know much, none of them did, so that whole research binge had been for everyone. And they weren’t strangers, nor were they approaching it with the attitude that Second was less intelligent for any of this.
Green considered that Purple coming from that background might have set up more sensitivities to these things, and he figured he should make it clear that he wasn’t even upset about it from an avian perspective.
He simmered down a little while Purple’s feathers were still puffed out. He held out his hands slightly, making sure she could tell he was giving her space.
“Sorry, no, you’re not a pet, I don’t see you like that, that’s fucked up. It’s not what I’m trying to express, it’s not even really about the avian stuff. What, uh, what did I say that made it sound like that?” he asked. Her wings lowered a little and a look of recognition crossed her face.
“Right, you guys didn’t grow up in the outernet,” she mused. “You wouldn’t be familiar with that. Okay, so a lot of the time, when people talk about being ‘allowed’ to interact with avians’ instinctual side, it’s usually coming from someone who doesn’t think very charitably of avians. I guess it’s not the words, it’s the people who tend to use those words that’s more of a thing.”
“People don’t like avians?” Green asked, confused. “Why?”
She winced and tilted her head side to side. “I mean, it’s not like they’ll actually say they don’t like avians? Well, most won’t. It’s more like some people look down on avians. It’s complicated, there’s a lot of stuff going on there. We’re viewed sometimes as being 'primitive,'" she put air quotes around the word. “Generally just a lot of disrespect. It’s gotten worse in the past few years, since The Disappearance. Some of the key spokespeople died, I think, I don’t know, I was young. But that attitude was actually a reason I moved into minecraft. The system isn’t good to avian kids, it’s bad with supporting them and we tend to get homed with people who have some kind of savior complex going on.” She caught the mildly confused, but attentive look Green was giving her. “It’s like an attitude of ‘oh! We’ll take in the baby bird and nurse it back to health, and then all our friends will know we’re good people and we can get a cute little pet out of it!’ kind of thing that happens and it just puts you into a worse spot.”
Her voice was bitter and mocking, and she was already on the track to start venting. Green recognized this sudden openness from her as similar to that time on the mountain. She kept going on her frustrated ramble.
“And there’s only so much they can do about that, you know? Avian bonding has a lot to do with choosing members of your flock and some random government agency assigning a new flock doesn’t really work no matter what stuff they have in place. But the kinds of people who say they can take in avian kids are really likely to be like that.”
“Are there no avians who can take in avian kids?” Green asked.
“High demand, low supply,” Purple answered. “I’m not saying non-avians who take in avians in the system are always going to be like that, but it’s like that a lot. And it’s still the system trying to force a bond.”
“...did that happen to you?” Green asked softly, even though he could already tell she was speaking from experience.
Purple shifted. “Yeah, first home I went to was like that. The woman constantly had her hands in my wings, I hated it,” she growled and Green saw her eyes constrict a little at the memory. “She was always petting me. And the man always called me birdie, it felt awful.” She stretched a wing and looked over the feathers, which looked much better since some of the ones from the bald spots had begun to grow back in. “I could tell they saw the feathers before they saw me. They thought I was a bird, not a person. It’s why I started binding them. I didn’t want them doing that, I didn’t want them in that role, and they were trying to force themselves into it. They wanted to replace mama, physically, mentally and instinctually. And I wasn’t going to let them. It’s one of the reasons I stopped indulging that side of me. It felt like the only thing I could do to keep them away.”
She sighed and fell backward into the nest. She played with the tail on a stuffed mouse near her head a little. She remembered how it started well. Harsh words had been exchanged when she had stopped showing her wings.
When Purple sat down at the table, she could feel the poorly veiled disappointment from both of them clear as day at being unable to see her feathers. Purple felt a flash of self-satisfaction at being able to hide from their prying gazes.
“Birdie, that’s not good for your wings,” the woman said softly, her eyes lingering past Purple. She refused to dignify her with a response. She just shoved more food in her mouth, wanting to leave the dinner table as soon as possible so she didn’t have to see them more than she had to.
“Take them back out,” the man ordered. Purple pretended to not hear him. She wasn’t obligated to do a thing he said. She just took another bite of the food. She didn’t even bother to pick around the avocado, knowing full well it was going to mess with her stomach for the rest of the night.
He didn’t like being ignored and Purple felt the silent conversation happening between the two of them.
“Alright Purple, that’s enough of this,” the man said and started to move toward her. Purple’s eyes snapped to him and she hissed the stay back sound, and stood up sharply, abandoning her mostly eaten dinner.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, to make sure he got the message. These people didn’t know a bit of birdsong.
“Then get those binds off. You’re being ridiculous. Take them off yourself or I will do it for you.”
She kept backing up. Her wings were straining to flare out defensively and her eyes were darting around to look for a strategic exit. She wasn’t taught much on how to make an exit, but she was sure she could figure it out easy enough.
“You’re not my dad,” she hissed. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Your father isn’t coming back you stupid girl!” the man yelled and Purple felt the familiar feeling of wanting to defend and protect herself coming up.
“Sweetheart…” the woman said softly, as if trying to placate her husband. It all felt too familiar, but these were not her parents.
“Yes he will!” Purple shouted back, even if she didn’t quite believe it herself. “He just doesn’t know about—” her breath caught and she couldn’t finish the sentence. Not so soon. “He’ll come back for me! As soon as they find him and tell him what happened, he’ll be back!”
“He’s not coming back! He’s like you! He severed whatever bird bond he had with you. He’s gone. Move on already!”
“I am not a bird,” Purple said, her voice shaking while she heard this man who was trying to replace her family demean both her and her father in the same breath.
“Yes you are. Just accept it.”
Purple’s heart was hammering in her chest. She was fighting furiously against tears of anger and fear, and her vocal cords were fighting to let the emotion out, but she would rather die than give him even an inch of proof that she had no control over her avian tendencies.
She didn’t care what she had to do to prove it, but she would make sure she would. Any birdlike trait, she could control into submission. She would. This man wanted her to be a bird so bad, so she would make sure he never heard so much of a chirp ever again. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
If he was right about her traits, he might also be right about her dad. He couldn’t be right. She wouldn’t let him be. No matter what she had to do.
She looked back up at Green, who was giving her a worried look. She must have zoned out while thinking about that night.
He still lingered outside the nest, not having been given the okay to come inside it, but she saw him sitting outside and gave a movement with her eyes and head that invited him inside. He was happy to accept, but knew better than to make a deal out of it.
“Stopping was easier than I thought it would be,” she confessed. “It never went away, but not seeing the wings, keeping the birdsong from coming out, and the fact that I…lost everyone I had imprinted on, I was better at being a normal person than I thought I would be. I was good enough at it that they sent me back. They said I was too difficult, that they ‘weren’t equipped to help me with my issues,’ but it was really just because I wasn’t giving them what they wanted. I was done with the system, so I just left before a social worker got me. That’s when I found Minecraft and moved there. No one ever found me until you guys.”
Green wasn’t really sure what to say. He was feeling the differences in where the two of them had grown up. Sometimes he wished their little circle of people wasn't so private, but hearing what Purple was talking about, it sounded like the outside world was a lot more complex than his small group of friends who just loved each other without question. The more people there were, the more complicated everything became, it seemed. He reached over and held her hand. She grabbed it back and gave a small squeeze while smiling at him a little.
“I’m glad we found you,” Green said quietly. “Even if it didn’t start out so well, that gave us the opportunity to get to know you later.”
She brushed a thumb over Green’s hand.
“I’m glad you found me too.”
They smiled at each other, happy for the peaceful little moment in which they could just love each other without the rest of the world looking in on them, as if the past had no bearing and people didn’t speak from concepts of what should and shouldn’t be. Whatever that meant, both were interested.
Green was still worried about the barrier between them. He worried his next words might be the wrong ones, but he had always hated feeling left out of anything. And he had tried so hard to be clear about that, so he wanted to try one more time to just understand what was happening.
“I don’t understand why I haven't gotten the opportunity to help preen you,” Green mumbled. “It’s not even an avian thing. I mean, it’s related, like that’s the context, but it’s not the point? It’s an activity the rest of my friends can do with you, and I can’t, and I want to know why that is.”
“It’s…ugh.” She brought a hand to her temple. “Look, there’s a reason, and it’s not because of anything you…did.”
“Okay?” Green prompted. “What’s the reason there?”
Her face reddened and she shuffled in her nest.
“Well, you know how we’ve been,” she waved a hand around in circles as if Green was going to be able to interpret that. “Flirting?”
Green’s eyes widened a little.
“Yes? Do you…want to stop?” He asked anxiously. She shot up from her lying down position, a look of worry on her face.
“No! No, no that’s not what I—no. Well, it’s just that, you know how personal preening is, right?” Green nodded, relaxing into a smile again. “So with the connotation of us flirting a bunch, and with that being the dynamic we have, along with the feelings attached to that, I just—it’s going to mean something different if you preen me, versus if someone else did.”
Green quirked an eyebrow slightly and she shoved him.
“Different, huh?” He teased.
“Shut up! It’s another one of those differences in the type of bond, okay?”
“And what is that difference?” Green asked, and they were slipping right back into the familiar rhythm of teasing each other about the nature of their feelings.
“You know the difference.”
“I don’t know, I don’t want to assume anything,” Green teased. He leaned back against one arm while pretending to check his nails.
“Oh, you’re the worst,” she complained with a smile on her face. “The difference is that I like you romantically.”
Green feigned surprise, and brought a hand to his forehead in an exaggerated movement.
“Purple! You have a crush on me? Why didn’t you say so?”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed.
“As if you don’t also have a crush on me,” she said back. “You’re not even an avian and you still act like you’re one of those exotic dancing birds toward me.”
“I like to put on a show, what can I say?” he said, and softened up a little. “But back to the subject at hand. You’re saying you’re more hesitant to have me preen you because it has a different emotional meaning coming from a romantic partner?”
She nodded and looked away sheepishly.
“It’s just, we haven’t really talked about it. I didn’t want to get that part of me attached if we weren’t actually…y’know?”
He caught the worry in her posture. He felt like he could read between the lines a little. Purple was often insecure in her connections, she was probably worried he didn’t mean it as a serious thing. Second had explained the back and forth thing she had felt and done to the group after everyone knew. He gently reached out and placed a hand on her arm.
“Hey, it’s all real, okay? I wouldn’t be flirting with you if I didn’t like you like that, especially since I know you feel the same. I mean it.”
She smiled softly. “I mean it too.”
There was a pause of silence between them, held by the mutual question, shared between them being what are we? It felt reductive to say “friends,” they were certainly more, but what?
Neither broke the silence, but Purple broke the stillness. She leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Green’s cheek. Green could feel himself smiling like an idiot and brought a hand up to his cheek. He didn’t really know what to say. How stupid would it be to say “thank you?”
Purple laughed. “Good to know what can take your words away.”
Green mocked a gesture of offense and everything felt just fine. It didn’t even feel much different. The feelings hadn’t changed, the words did very little to do anything about that. But the existence of the words existing in the empty space between them made everything feel so much less uncertain.
Purple sighed and closed her eyes peacefully, probably feeling the same kind of ease. She looked gorgeous. She must have felt Green’s gaze on her.
“You can do it,” she said softly, and Green figured out what she meant reasonably easily.
“Really?!” He struggled to hide his excitement. “I mean, are you sure? I really don’t want to push, I know you said you were worried about getting attached.”
She shot him a teasing look. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“Now when did I say that?”
“Careful,” she said, further teasing him. “Refusing to preen a partner might mess with the bond.”
“Well it’s a good thing I’m not refusing then.”
Green was excited. He was so excited, he had been looking forward to this for months. And not just the preening, also the relationship. It had been heading that direction for a while now, and it had finally reached that point! And he couldn’t wait to actually get to preen her. She was giving him a look and spread out a wing in an inviting gesture. She gave him an impatient chirp. Green whistled back as well as he could imitate a teasing patience.
She huffed, but quickly relaxed when he started carefully by carding through the feathers, as normal. Best not to jump right in, just survey the wings and feathers just to ease into the rhythm. She hummed.
Already, her feathers were in good shape. There wasn’t much debris to pick through, even if there were a few stray leaves he could pick out, and most of her feathers were healthy enough to be left alone. They were just a little ruffled and in need of straightening out. There were a few twisted ones here and there, but their friends had done a good job getting these wings back into a good shape after years of neglect.
Slowly, Green started messing with them more, beyond the smooth petting. She reacted fine, and did a good job subtly moving her wings around to direct him to areas in more need of attention.
“Use the clarinet,” Purple asked sleepily. Green smiled and started using the clarinet voice he learned in the note block universe.
He was being careful. Second had set him up as something of a perfectionist when it came to preening, and there was no way he was going to fall short of it now. He wanted to figure out the best way for her to experience a preen, now that she was finally more open to that side of herself.
Green had been watching from afar as she dropped the barriers on her birdsong, stopped hiding her wings behind her back to return their placement to where they had been stuck for so long. She seemed happier. Purple was always rather tricky, she had a mischievous and determined streak, but Green hadn’t noticed just how quietly uncomfortable she had always been until he saw her becoming comfortable.
He couldn’t blame himself too much for not noticing, he had never known her without the discomfort. A similar thing happened with Second. Both of them had been fighting instincts as long as Green knew them, so he never flagged it as out of the ordinary. Still, he wished he had noticed something.
Second had been able to notice, and Green was glad for it. Even if he wished deep down he had been the one to notice, he was glad Second sorted it out.
Green ran a careful hand down the primaries closer to Purple’s back and she started singing lovely notes of happiness. He would have to keep that in mind for later, if that was a favorite spot.
She was different to preen from Second. Second was always just happy to go limp and let them do whatever they pleased, only offering a little direction. Purple was more active. She shuffled her wings toward and away from where Green was preening when she wanted him to move, and was quieter with her birdsong. She didn’t make as many of the mindless sounds, rather just giving affirmative noises when Green did something well. It worried him at first that she didn’t chirp anything that sounded like a feeling for a bit, but after a few times of Green giving an imitation whistle inquiring good? He figured it was just a difference in behavior, and decided to worry less.
She was actually easier to preen in that way. Green was always determined to figure out the best way to preen Second, which was hard when they never gave any direct feedback during or after a preen, even when Green felt like they had enjoyed it more. Purple, on the other hand, seemed far more inclined to chirping directions at Green after a little bit.
Go up, she would whistle with a soft and relaxed tone, and he would follow. She would relax and flex her feathers in and out for a bit. Occasionally, she would use her violin voice to sing along with Green’s still playing clarinet, but that had more to do with the joy of making music than it did in communication.
It was communication, but it wasn’t as clear. It was another activity stacked atop the current one that helped them understand the others mind and patterns better, instead of a clarity of emotion or history.
It was like its own kind of dance. Green noticed even his own movements moved in time with the music they were playing through. Green threw in a joking melody and Purple shot him a dazed glare when he tried to sneak in the Weezer riff, like she knew he was making a joke but she wasn’t sure what it was. He did it a few more times with other secret melodies before settling back into the smooth sounds of music mixed with chirping each time. He didn’t want her thinking he wasn’t taking this seriously.
She was fun to preen, no doubt. He wouldn’t say he preferred one of the avians over the other, but he never considered just how different it could be. Green wanted to be good at it.
He messed with her feathers for probably 45 minutes, and the two of them just enjoyed the moment. Green wouldn’t dare suggest recording a voice memo of it, not since she had given him a stern talking to when she found his channel, but he would certainly be interested in working with the melodies they came up with together. That would be a suggestion for another time.
“You’re really good at that,” she said once she had her brain back, and she stretched to rest against him. “Second was right.”
“I try my best."
“You always do,” she said, looking up at him upside down. “I hope you know you’re stuck with me now.”
“I’m hardly stuck with you, I would be here regardless.”
And she smiled.