Avoid, regret, repeat.
It's a process that she finds comforting when faced with the possibility of change.
She is so easily swept beneath the rip tide of emotions (she has learned to hold her breath, swallow her fear), and it is only around him that she realizes what a weakness it supposedly is.
Is she foolish for humoring a hypocrite?
She can't help but be afraid of the prospect that hatred might dissolve into understanding, branching off into (she inhales sharply) intimacy.
And she sees it in Paul's eyes, sees it when she doesn't even want to, sees it everywhere, and she is so fearful of succumbing. What is more terrifying than jumping into deep waters with the one person that she (thinks she) despises more than anything else?
And when hatred does dissolve into understanding—
(a forced, civil conversation that led to something of a revelation)
and understanding leads to intimacy –
(the 'incidental' brushing of fingertips, the reddening of faces)
she feels like she's been blind all along.
She had been so afraid of change, yet nothing changes at all.
