She wonders if it was a foolish question to ask and there’s an embarrassment that streaks through her, hot and flushed so that she dips her gaze, avoiding looking at him directly for a second. It was a silly thing to ask of someone—something so innocent but so personal for two souls who did not know another, not really. A brief encounter as children did not acquaintances make, let alone friends. They weren’t friends.
Disappointment bites into her next.
She flushes it out with renewed determination though, glancing up at him and unwittingly blasting the full force of her emotions toward him in the newness of this encounter. “I don’t know either,” she says with a crooked smile, answering the question he had not volleyed back at her. She has no way of knowing why he had not bothered to ask her again—did he view it as too personal? did he not care?—but she chooses to not dwell on it. Instead, she focuses all of her energy on studying him, drinking in every detail she can.
“Everywhere,” she is as vague as him, she realizes, although not intentionally. She just doesn’t know how to answer that question. “Away?” her voice rises on the end, as if asking if the answer was satisfactory. It is then that warm humor radiates from her and she laughs, shaking her pretty head as if chasing away her nerves that lace through her every thought. “I’m sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve done this.”
She bites her lip and looks up at him, shy once more.
“I’m afraid that I am not very good company.”