Characters: Lydia, Peter
Genre: Drama
An important question
Peter walks down the street slowly, behind Lydia. She's decided that today she's ignoring him, but this doesn't bother him. He needs to ask her something, and he's going to ask her, whether or not she wants him to. He walks a little closer, so when he speaks she can hear him.
"Lydia," he says softly. "Do you think…"
"That you're a creep, a weirdo, a psychopath?" She pauses but doesn't stop walking. "Yes, I do."
He smiles slowly. He loves that not only is she not scared of him, after everything, after all these years, but she just says the first thing that pops into her head, she doesn't care who he is, how dangerous he is capable of being. She just says whatever she wants to say.
"No, I was going to ask…" He wants to ask her, needs to ask her, but he can't quite bring himself to do it. He has to do it, and It has to be her, he knows that much. She's the only one who understands him enough to fully understand the question and the only one brave enough to answer honestly. Well, maybe it's not bravery. Maybe it's cruelty. He knows she wants to hurt him and she'd be happy using honesty to do it.
He wants to ask her if she thinks he's capable of loving someone, truly loving someone. He's bitter and torn and broken but… apparently, even the bitter, torn and broken still want things like love. He can still remember that before everything he was capable of love. He was married, and he'd loved his wife. Really, that's probably why he's as destroyed as he is now. He had everything he'd ever wanted, he'd had love, and he'd lost it, he'd lost it all.
And yet… he would like to, someday, be able to feel that way again, to love someone again.
Not Lydia, of course. But someone. Eventually.
"You know what? Nevermind. I'll ask you later," he says with a sharp shake of his head. He crosses the street after that and a few blocks down the road he turns off down some side street, he isn't paying attention to which one, it's just so he isn't following her anymore.
After a few minutes he decides on tomorrow. He'll ask her tomorrow.