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chapter ten; lando, ━━━━━
AWKWARD WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT to describe their current situation; the unresolved tensions was so thick and palpable as it lingered between them that neither one of them said a single word during the first hour of the drive. The low hum of the radio and other drivers beeping their horns loudly at the other occupants in forewarning was the only thing that saved them from sitting in an eerily silence. It's not like it's intentional—at least not on his behalf. He wanted to talk to Cleo, but he found himself lost on how to initiate a conversation with her.
Albeit he apologized for his aloof and standoffish behavior towards her recently, he could still detect a fair distance between them. Like there was something that she wanted to address to him but didn't know how to approach it. And though he harbored the same feelings, Lando was apprehensive himself on talking about it because he didn't want to say the wrong thing again. He missed her too much in those past two weeks and didn't want to suffer another temporary break in their friendship just because of something so redundant like his feelings.
Admittedly, when he walked into Cleo's room and saw her ex lying in her bed, he was upset. He had been under the naive assumption that their friendship was starting to develop into something more visceral; that there'd been something between them that they both felt and noticed and would eventually want to explore.
But then he realized that his feelings were unreciprocated.
Lando's avoidance of her wasn't because he was angry at her for not reciprocating his feelings, but because he felt foolish for initially thinking so. He'd been chagrined by his foolish assumptions and had decided to distance himself to recover his mending heartbreak. Truthfully, his feelings hadn't completely gone away—hell, they haven't gone away in any aspect whatsoever—but, he figured that it was better to have Cleo in his life as a friend opposed to not at all so he buried his feelings deeply inside of himself and placated a facade like he wasn't still deeply enamored by her.
But aside from his issues with Cleo, his mind was also focused on his father and his health struggles. He already feels defeated at the thought of having to convince his parents into allowing someone to provide him at home aide. Lando dreads the inevitable conversation, knowing that both of them would rebuttal against it with claims that they were more than capable of handling the situation themselves.
Lando's fingers tighten their grip around the steering wheel and he exhaled a deep sigh through his parted lips. Out of his peripheral vision, he can see Cleo gauging a worried look over at him. She'd been reading a book to bypass some of the time during the drive, but his agitated suspire had interrupted her moment's of solitude. She folds down the edge of the page that she was reading, setting it as a placeholder as she closed the book shut.
