#rutgers

"Wait..." she puts down her soda. "I remember there were cupids, but what happened with you two?"

"I hate them so much. I ever catch one, I swear, I'll just start snapping bows in half"

"You know how it is. They make people act in all kinds of weird ways. Ways you can't trust, feel things that aren't real."

"Or...sometimes feel real things more clearly," she points out.

Snort.

"So? What happened?"

"He was hit, and said stuff he didn't really mean, and I... I mean, Symon was my best friend."

"I didn't want to lose that."

"Did anyways, but, well, that's what happens, isn't it? Everyone leaves."

She looks over at the sluagh's closed door. "Sometimes even when they're still there."

Sympathetically, Flopsy rubs his head into her fingers a bit more.

She tilts her head. "Can I ask...what kind of stuff?" she asks quietly.

Sam's mouth twists.

"He has a girlfriend now."

A blink. "He said that kind of stuff. Like...pushy? Or...graphic?"

"Graphic? Sy? Never."

"He said he liked me."

A pause. "That's it?"

"Like... liked me, liked me."

A longer pause.

Eventually, she says, "I'm not surprised."

She shoots a look at the other troll, flummoxed.

"I'm not. You two have been absolutely devoted to each other, until Evil Bitch From Hell got in the way."

"He's my best friend. Not... " A vague gesture. "I didn't want to lose that."

"Of course not. I get it. I wonder, though..."

She considers her words a minute. "Dagmar, if you were absolutely certain that your friendship would remain solid no matter what happened...would you have been interested in that kind of relationship with him? Or does that just not appeal, regardless? There's no wrong answers here," she assures.

"I..." She stops.

"I... I don't... he was... like, what we had was... it wasn't like Nadeen or Adam."

"Right...?" she coaxes for more.

"It's... it's....how do you date half of yourself?"

That makes her smile. "Wow. That's an awesome thing to say."

"And now he's gone and I hurt him, and I screwed it all up and I didn't want to ruin it because he'd leave but he left anyways."

Sylvi bites her lip. A quiet moment.

"For what it's worth...I think it's that relationship between him and you that'll help pull him from her clutches, when the time's right."

"I miss him."

"I do, too, but it's definitely different for me. I'm sorry."

She rubs her nose with the back of her hand. "He was always just... safe. I didn't have to be afraid around him, even when he could see all the ways I'm screwed up in the head, right? He saw the ugly parts and didn't flinch."

Sylvi nods, listening.

"But then that cupid had to make it about girlfriends and boyfriends and dating and... and I can't... I can't do that."

Sylvi's brow furrows. "Lots of baggage with that, I know."

"Yeah, well."

"I refuse to believe you 'blew it with him" Flopsy huffs, "Symon and you have made mistakes with each other, but for a sluagh he is rarely shy about making his scorn known. If he were truly angry with you, he would say so"

"But some bad stuff doesn't mean you have to cut yourself off from ever giving that kind of love a chance, right?"

"And there's that," she nods to what Flopsy said.

"Listen...if that kind of love isn't your thing, I totally respect that, and I know that Symon would totally respect that, too. But I have to wonder if all that bad-relationship stuff is making you decide that it's not your thing, regardless of what you're really feeling."

"Of course he respected it. He's Symon."

"Doesn't mean it didn't hurt him. And it doesn't mean it didn't change things, anyways."

Casually ignoring other conversational topics, there.

The avoidance doesn't escape her. "You don't know, do you?"

"Don't know what?"