self_composed | why would you even bother telling someone your secrets before killing them

By the end of Bio, the halls are full of people eager to inform Bella and everyone else within earshot that her friend is a murderer. They have entirely the wrong attitude to have formed the impression because he just now murdered someone, and also her father hasn't come looking for her yet, so this is probably nonsense.

Bella goes to gym.

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From:

self_composed

"How many of me do you think there are?" Bella asks, amused. "Enough to be worth it even now that my historical behavior is a fait accompli? For that matter, did you expect me? Would it have been productive to make any plans contingent on my future arrival?"

From:

edgeofyourseat

"I think there's exactly one of you," he says, laughing. "And you were a complete surprise, that's the point."

From:

self_composed

"If I lived in a fairy tale universe, giving my lunch to a random hobo could grant me a wish," Bella says. "I won't know if I live in a fairy tale universe until I feed all the hobos in the world, in fact, because perhaps only one is magical. That doesn't mean I should plan for it, because I would wind up being very hungry and having no time for anything else, and even if the hypothesized magic hobo is powerful enough to make all the work worth it if I find them, there might also be zero magic hobos." She makes a vague, expansive gesture. "Here I am, how surprising. That doesn't mean it makes sense to repeat otherwise-a-bad-idea behaviors that happened to pay off. Especially since I'm already here, and as you concede there are not several of me, lurking in the corners and waiting to call you names if only those names are sufficiently obvious."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"Mm, okay, lemme put it another way," he says, tilting his head back to look thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "I don't really do stuff that makes it easier or harder for people to hurt me, because sometimes I like it when people hurt me and sometimes I don't, and I don't know which one it's going to be until it happens."

From:

self_composed

"Mmm... hm." Bella closes her eyes and tilts her head back. "That doesn't mean there's no useful tweaking to be done. I might want to buy something a telemarketer is selling. I don't know whether I do or not until I listen to the sales pitch. But on average, listening to telemarketers is a waste of time, so our house number is on the do-not-call list. Meanwhile, I haven't asked my mom to stop sending me email forwards that she gets from her floaty silly friends, because while plenty of those are also wastes of time, a fair number of them are cute or interesting, enough that it's usually an okay bet to spend the time opening the message. I bet there are ways you could make it harder - or easier, for that matter - to hurt you in particular ways, that would make things better overall. There's no reason to think that the exact amount currently happening is exactly right."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"I'm falling in love with you again," he informs her, smiling crookedly.

From:

self_composed

"How many times can one do that, really? Surely it's redundant by now," yawns Bella, smiling slightly. "Unless you've been falling back out each time when I wasn't looking."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"Well, maybe I need a more accurate phrase. I'm falling in love with you more?" he tries.

From:

self_composed

"This must be one heck of a deep pit, with a lot of really convenient ledges," Bella muses.

From:

edgeofyourseat

"Pretty sure it's bottomless, actually."

From:

self_composed

She smiles. "You're very cute when you want to be."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"Thanks, but—" he makes a buzzer noise, as of a game show highlighting an incorrect response: ennnh. "Wasn't trying to be cute."

From:

self_composed

She shrugs. "Then you are occasionally very cute when you aren't deliberately undermining the impression of same."

From:

edgeofyourseat

He laughs. "Okay."

From:

self_composed

"What are you generally trying to do? Or are you bouncing around like a pinball, occasionally meeting sharp impacts but never rolling around towards something specific?"

From:

edgeofyourseat

Alice blinks.

"...I think that's actually the most accurate description of my life I've ever heard."

From:

self_composed

Bella bursts out laughing.

"Well, pinball wizard, bounce off anything interesting today apart from the rumor that you're a murderer?"

From:

edgeofyourseat

"The incredibly weird realization that I'm friends with somebody who has other friends?" he says after a moment's thought.

From:

self_composed

"Have you historically been friends even with people who didn't? Your mom left me with the impression that you've been altogether a loner, historically."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"I've never been, like, hey-come-back-to-my-house friends," he says. "Well, not since I was a little kid. I've hung out with people. Sometimes even the same people for a while. But, y'know, even people who don't wanna avoid me sometimes wanna hang out with people who wanna avoid me."

Which is apparently also the pattern he expected their nascent friendship to follow.

From:

self_composed

"I don't understand the idea that one's friends all have to get along with each other," Bella says. "I can go to Angela's to paint our toenails and yours to invent - we never actually named that sport. Hm. Anyway, even if Angela wanted to avoid you that wouldn't mean I'd have to interact with only one of the pair of you."

From:

edgeofyourseat

"Are you sure you're a high school student?" he teases. "Because you make way too much sense."

From:

self_composed

"Here I am, enrolled in high school," Bella says. "Taking classes. Actually showing up to them, in fact. Teenagers being idiots is optional, but most people will be idiots if you give them an excuse and wedge them into low-stakes environments."