"What's wrong with you?" Yang stands propped up in the doorway of Blake's room. "You haven't spoken actual words in days. All you do is go to the hospital and study. And honestly, I doubt you're even doing that when you look like that's what you're doing. Staring blankly at the pages."
"Just go. Please." Blake rolls over in her place on the bed, turning to face the way and away from Yang. She hears the low hum of music through the wall. Knowing it's Weiss' music just makes the ache in her chest worsen.
"Is taking a break with Weiss really the worst thing?" The question alone makes the hair on the back of Blake's neck bristle. "I mean, you can focus on exams, graduate, have a little fun-"
"How about you just shut up and leave me alone like I asked?" Blake doesn't even care about the sharpness and lack of kindness in her voice. "What if I don't want to have a little fun? What if I want to spend time with my girlfriend and focus on what happens after all of these things you've so frivolously brought up?"
"Well." Yang looks to the side, slightly shocked by her typically subdued roommate's outburst. "Guess I'm going to just go be somewhere else for now."
"Sounds great." Blake mumbles as she hides her face, as well as her frustration, in her pillow.
She hears the door click shut as Yang leaves. She can't help but sigh, hoping some of the emotions would magically evaporate and leave her body.
But they don't.
The only thing that settles around her is the emptiness she feels from Weiss' absence. It has been a little over a week. They hadn't spoken. Though she had caught a glimpse of her out of the kitchen window early one morning after she'd gotten home from the hospital.
Blake wanted to call, text, whatever she shouldn't do. It was what she wanted. But she had made a mistake. Broken the one promise that Weiss had asked of her. And now it felt like the rest of life was just… there.
Her final board exams began in two days and she couldn't bring herself to crack a book and study. If she didn't know it by now, she wouldn't be able to learn it in two days. Or at least that's what she was telling herself every time she got home and could only find energy to lay in bed.
Every time she closed her eyes, or sat in silence where her mind wasn't busy with work, she heard Weiss' voice over and over in her head. The disappointment, and the hurt in her voice ripped at Blake's heart each time. Weiss was, is everything to her. And Blake made her feel as though she weren't. Betraying her promise. The one thing Weiss had ever asked of her.
She wanted to be angry with Weiss for not allowing her to explain herself. To tell her why she had turned down the interview. But the longer she thought about it, the more she saw how there wasn't a defense for a broken promise.
The night before her board exams, Blake pulls the blankets up over her head and fights through her Weiss filled memories and thoughts. Tears fall slowly down her cheeks until sleep finally takes hold of her.
When she walks out to her car, dressed as though she were going to a job interview, in an overpriced blouse, pencil skirt and heels the next morning, she happens to leave at the same time as Weiss.
They make eye contact but the other woman makes no attempt to speak to her or even acknowledge her existence. Before the tears can well in her eyes and threaten to ruin her makeup, Blake steps down into her car and turns the key in the ignition and drives off to her exam.
The boards themselves go by in a blur and haze. She thinks she did well. But she can't say that she honestly cares what the results are. So she just continues on, day by day. Without Weiss. Yang had told her that she was throwing her a party after the white coat ceremony. But it honestly felt meaningless to her.
Which was awful. She knew her friends cared about her and wanted to celebrate her success with her. But it was difficult when the one person she wanted to share these successes and feelings with wasn't speaking to her.
So when the day of the white coat ceremony comes, she video calls her parents and reassures them that it's alright that her father has work obligations and that it's okay that they can't make it to see her. She was used to being the chieftain's daughter by now. But she does promise to come see them sometime soon.
As she recites her oath and feels the white coat placed on her shoulders, she looks out into the crowd of countless, nameless faces, searching for one she never finds.