Reflections of Mist

Determined decisions

"Hey, Nyx. You did good. You are doing good. He's not worth your time."

"Maddie, if you're going to start on me, I will go sit on my own somewhere else." Nyx said curtly, looking straight ahead at the wall in front of her across the room.

Maddie shifted closer to Nyx's side, hampered a bit by her injured leg.
"Hey, look at me. I'm just going to say one more thing, and then I'm going to shut up and not talk about this again. Unless you decide you want me to."

Nyx did look at her then, a very unimpressed, almost sarcastic look of attention.

Maddie raised her hands to her shoulders as if in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'll keep it extremely short. Don't let it sap you away like this.
Don't let this decide for you. Because then they win."

"I'm not quite getting what you mean."

Maddie twitched a smile. "Permission to talk about it in an effort to explain?"

"You're being weird. Just do it."

"This isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. Who you are and what you do from this point on is not decided by this one incident, it's decided by you. If you choose for this to change you, then fine. But you don't have to.

Yeah, you'll remember it. Yeah, you can learn from it.
But it's not what chooses what happens in your life. Even though it may seem like the centre of your universe now, you just have to remember it's not."

Nyx gave Maddie a funny look. "You're being strangely understanding."

"I'm your friend. It's my job. And trust me, you're going to need the support."

She gestured to a corner across the room, where Sebastian sat in the shadows, obviously separate from everyone.
His knees were pulled up to his chin, his arms wrapped around them. Nyx couldn't see his face clearly, but had a feeling he was looking at them.

"You're not going to like this," Maddie said, re-attracting Nyx's attention. "But in a way, I'm glad that this is the incident that broke you up. It could have been a lot worse, with his record."

Nyx nodded, not really listening. She felt numb, like she wanted to just crawl under the covers of her bed and not come out until her next birthday.

Instead, she stood up. "Well, nice as this is, I'm going to shove some rubble around.
You are not invited," she said as Sebastian went to stand up. "Neither are you." She gestured in Alysha's direction.
"Anyone else who's able-bodied, and actually see's getting out as a priority, please do feel free to volunteer."

She turned sharply on her heel and stomped off determinedly into the tunnel.