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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Jul 3, 2012 14:45:41 GMT -5
Caitlyn had about an hour to go before she had a band rehearsal, and it was now time for her to weigh her options. There was always too much to do in a day, she had discovered in high school. College was of course no exception. It was probably unwise at this point to go back to her apartment or anything, because it wasn't worth it for such a short period of time. What could she do at the Academy? Well... she sort of wanted to grab food, but there was none of that to be found at this hour as it was currently in between meals. She did have a blueberry muffin that she'd brought herself this morning (it was always good to have these kinds of things because she tended to forget to do things like eat) and so instead she munched on this. It was just something she'd bought from the store, as Cait lacked both the time and the skills to bake anything herself, but it was good, and for some reason she was starving, not having eaten breakfast that morning. She'd gotten the chance to eat lunch a little bit at least, but it hadn't seemed to do much. Caitlyn would survive, however. She had thus far, after all, and so it was that, munching on her muffin, she headed for the Earth Common Room. Classes were done for the day, and she could probably get some studying done, or perhaps get around to correcting her piano students' theory books, at least in this hour (fifty-two minutes now, she noted with a glance at her watch) before she had that rehearsal. She liked rehearsals, of course. She just liked music and playing.
Now that she thought about it, the correcting for her students' theory lessons was probably more important. Caitlyn was very much focused on her own goals and what she was doing in her life, but this was also her job and she really wouldn't want to let any of the kids down. She was sort of soft at heart in that way, and she had that sense of professionalism. However, she wasn't even sure that she had brought the theory books with her today... Sometimes she did when she knew that she would have time to do a bit during the day, but it had been a sort of hectic morning, and now she slid her bag off of one shoulder so that it was hanging on just the other. She tried to rummage through it with one hand (the other hand was holding onto her muffin still). She had mild difficulty entering the Common Room because of this, but she managed to do it and then it was back to searching in her bag. She found it, then, one of her students' books, tucked away between two textbooks, and she sighed in relief. Little had she realized that she was only about two seconds away from walking straight into someone, and she looked up just in time to stop and scoot a few inches to her left and avoid this collision. She recognized the person, however. "Oh, hi Ashton!" She was unaware yet that there could be any problems.
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 4, 2012 11:05:27 GMT -5
Unlike Caitlyn with her good work ethic and her dedication to studies, Ashton was the opposite of productive. He sat now in the Earth common room with a couple of ninth graders doing the exact opposite of what he was meant to be doing. Instead of studying the fragile and exotic plant that was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch, Ashton was manipulating the plant to the amusement of his peers. He caused one of its tendrils to grow bigger and wrap itself around a girl's wrist lightly—she shrieked in surprise but giggled as she pulled her hand back. Then he changed the colours of the delicate flowers. They'd started as white but shifted to blue, orange, yellow, purple. "Can you make patterns and stuff?" The curious inquiry of one of the intrigued Earths led to the petals turning into rainbow shades, zebra stripes, leopard spots. He made it smaller in size and then increased the size until it took up an entire half of the coffee table, which unfortunately caused the pot it was in to shatter as the roots grew. "Whoops," he laughed sheepishly, gazing at the mess of scattered dirt, broken pottery, and the tangled roots of the plant. "Looks like I've going to need a new pot." He was making a general remark, which caused several of his companions to chuckled, but the girl from earlier was kind enough to offer fetching a new one. She did, and after they'd potted the poor plant they all set to work on cleaning up the mess on the coffee table and floor. Ashton would have been contented to do all of this on his own considering it was his fault the mess was there in the first place but they insisted on helping him and he was touched by their friendliness. Such was the dynamic of the Earth element.
He still had dirt on his hands, though, and so Ashton decided that a trip to the bathroom might be a good idea. Their cheerful little gathering broke up and he stood up from the couch, brushing some dirt from his jeans and shaking his head at how silly that had been of him. It was one of the first things he'd been taught in like, ninth grade: you don't mess with sizes unless you have a bigger pot. He saw Caitlyn coming, though she was too distracted to notice him, but Ashton decided after a brief hesitation not to say anything to her. It had been a while since they'd spoke, it was always a while between conversations, and so he figured that she really had no interests in talking to him. He didn't like to feel like he was pushing his friendship on people. Most of the time he would not take notice that someone did not want to talk to him unless they made it obvious but it felt like Caitlyn was avoiding him and that was reason enough to make him doubt himself. He was going to walk around her when she stopped in her tracks and moved herself, the same way that he'd been about to move—a common and sometimes amusing occurrence between two people trying to avoid bumping into one another. "Um, sorry," he said a little sheepishly, and would have moved on quickly if she hadn't said hello to him. "Hey," he replied with a bit of an awkward smile. Well, it felt awkward to him but it probably looked rather normal. "Are—how are you?" He couldn't stop himself from asking. Force of habit, he supposed. He cursed himself for doing so but didn't take it back, lingering as he waited for her reply.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Jul 9, 2012 21:31:17 GMT -5
Caitlyn never did mean to ignore her friends. She really, really didn't. It wasn't something she enjoyed by any means, but she was perhaps a little bit flighty, a little too willing to leave friendships and socialization behind in favour of whatever her to-do list was on any given day. There were rarely days when this list was empty. She had learnt to deal with this, however, and it didn't bother her quite so much as it could have. She didn't know how most other people felt about it, of course. Some of them told her and then it made her feel bad, really it did, but there wasn't too much she could really do about it. There was no chance of Caitlyn blowing off class or putting off homework, and she couldn't very well skip a rehearsal, a practice, her piano lessons for the kids. By this point, she had resigned herself to things, and she was sure that many people she was friends with were well aware of this fact too. At least she never had bad intentions, and for Caitlyn, people's intentions were all that ever mattered. She knew well enough that outcomes weren't always the desired ones.
"It's okay!" she said, not bothered at all by this. If anything, she was the one who had failed to notice where she was walking. It was lucky she was in the Earth Common Room, where even if she didn't know everyone, there always seemed to be some kind of friendly, warm atmosphere. Maybe it was the smell of the earth and plants around her, too. It was always a relaxing one. She liked that smell, the mixing of dirt and flowers... She knew that other people couldn't stand it, really, but Cait loved the outdoors...even when they were indoors, like the dormitories and such. She did still enjoy spending time here even though she had her own apartment in town. Not only was the atmosphere just sort of amazing, but she always considered it a good opportunity to hang around her fellow Earths, like Ashton! It had been a long time since she had really spoken to him. "I'm not bad! I just have a few minutes so I figured I'd come hang out," she told him, checking the time quickly on her watch. She still had plenty of time, luckily, and she dropped her wrist. This theory could wait (it was the bane of her existence anyway) when she had a friend to keep her company. "How are you?" she asked in return, smiling.
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 11, 2012 22:34:27 GMT -5
Caitlyn seemed awfully friendly and cheerful, something that put him off and confused him. He was still very much convinced that he had done something wrong and that she was upset with him. Sadly Ash could not find it in himself to be all that angry with the people who severed friendships with him, cut ties. He always put it to the fact that he had screwed up somewhere along the line and that it had probably been easier for the other person to walk away rather than to confront him about it. He could understand that, really, because he was awful at confrontation. He remembered trying to be all tough and confront Asha about the things she'd done to him, the way she'd left him, remembered how it had ended in him apologising and asking if everything was alright. He was not good at being the bad guy.
With who? Oh, dear, bitter thoughts. He might have been a nice and genuine guy but that did not mean Ashton was entirely immune to a dark thought every now and again. He wanted to believe that Caitlyn was as comfortable around him as she currently seemed but the past little while without contact was making him iffy. He twitched his lips into an awkward sort of smile. "Oh, well, uh... that's nice, I guess." He sounded genuine enough despite his uncertainty. Why did things have to be so difficult? I thought we were friends, that's why. Clearly not. Was she talking to him simply to keep up appearances? That made the back of his neck tingle. He was not angry, didn't get angry unless in extreme cases, but he really did not know what to do with himself at this point in time. "I was, uh, I was practising with my powers and... stuff." Would she notice the change? Ash was not shy and rarely stumbled over his words. He did not notice how obvious he was being but he was not good at hiding things. At all.
She asked how he was and he wondered why she even bothered, yet another bitter thought that he pushed aside. "I'm good," he told her. "Great, really. Fantastic." He had to assert this multiple times for his own benefit thanks to how insecure he was feeling. He wasn't sure how he was feeling, his stomach was in knots and he felt anxious more than anything. It didn't sound right in conversation, though, "I'm nervous, it's all good!" so he'd lied to try and make up for it. Pity that Ashton was a bit of a terrible liar. "So, um, where you you... y'know... been?" He wanted to be more up front about it and demand to know why she'd been avoiding him but that wasn't Ashton's style.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Jul 14, 2012 16:24:39 GMT -5
Caitlyn wasn't sure she would consider herself particularly more or less observant than other people, but she could see that Ashton was acting a little bit... weird. Or very weird... Probably very. She had known him for a while now, he was only a year younger than she was, so they'd been at the Academy together for years now. Even if they hadn't spoken in a while, she doubted that he would have made a complete personality change in that time, so this was definitely not normal, she was pretty sure. He seemed nervous or something, or maybe just awkward. Either way, it wasn't something that Cait liked. It made her feel as if he were trying to avoid talking to her more or something, and she didn't know why. That was a tiny bit frustrating. If only she knew what Ashton was thinking, she would have laughed aloud... before apologizing a million times over, or at least as many times as she could before running off again. Caitlyn almost never considered how her friends might feel at times, however, at least until someone called her out on those things. She never intended to ignore her friends. "Oh. That's cool!" She didn't know what else to say. He didn't seem like he wanted to be very forthcoming today.
He said that he was great, and yet for some reason it didn't sound completely honest to her. She almost said that this was good, but it somehow seemed inappropriate to respond to something that she was pretty sure was anything but genuine in the first place. Instead she kept silent, not saying anything until he asked where she had been. That question still seemed awkward, but even then she didn't figure out what the heck was wrong. "Where haven't I been?" she asked, sighing a little bit in an almost tired way. She didn't feel that bad, of course. Caitlyn was fairly used to it at this point. This year was no less busy than any others in the past. "Work, a lot," she started as some way of explanation. "Also rehearsals for band, volleyball practices. Oh. And I guess I go to class." That was an understatement, the last part. Caitlyn wasn't the type to skip her classes or anything most of the time, and certainly not now in college that she paid for it all. "Are you sure you're okay?" she couldn't help but ask after a second, concerned. Was Ashton upset with her?
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 15, 2012 22:08:07 GMT -5
He blinked. She sounded tired but the comment confused him. What did she mean? Was it a serious question? It sounded rhetorical, especially since he could not exactly speak for all the places that she hadn't been. Thankfully she saved him the dizzying confusion a moment later by clarifying about how busy she'd been and all the things that she'd been up to. "Wow," he said, admittedly a little awed by the amount of things she'd been up to. "That's... um, that's really a lot." He'd known her for quite some time and he knew she got busy at times but he was often a persistent friend and jumped on people whenever he saw them. The other times she'd been busy with her studies, Ashton had probably been too busy filling his schedule with other friends to notice her absence in his life. He had so many friends that it did not often bother him when one wasn't around for a couple days. He simply didn't take notice. He'd noticed for the first time about Caitlyn, though, and unfortunately for her he took things entirely the wrong way. "How do you.... y'know, sleep?" Was she even getting enough sleep? That was worrying. He worried obsessively over his friends.
Paranoia would not allow him to simply write it off as her being busy. No, in Ashton's eyes it was that he had done something wrong. Optimism was not always the best medicine when he had never noticed distance in a friendship before. When something happened that was sudden and unexpected he could not cope with it as well as if he'd been prepared. He didn't do well with sudden changes in a friendship. Of course, there had been no change, it simply felt that way to Ashton. She asked if he was alright, calling him out on the way he'd been asking. "I'm okay!" he lied, and it was a bad one at that. Ashton knew that he was a terrible liar and he rubbed the back of his neck as he admitted, "All right, maybe not... that... okay." He wanted things to be okay in this moment, he really did. He did not deal well with confrontation and didn't like telling people that they'd done something 'wrong' or that he was upset with them in any way. And in this case, he wasn't upset with Caitlyn. He was upset with himself. He liked to see the best in others so naturally it was he who was at fault for this, right? "Just, um..." He cleared his throat, looking nervous. How did he put this without sounding needy and attention seeking? "Are you, uh, is everything okay with... us?"
Well, that was worded awkwardly. Laughing, mostly out of nervous reflect, he amended, "I mean like, are you... mad, or something? Cause I haven't talked to you in a while and um, yeah... I thought that maybe... did I do something wrong?" Many 'um's', 'uh's', and pauses later, he finally managed to get the question off his chest.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Jul 28, 2012 21:42:12 GMT -5
Caitlyn wasn't sure how much her schedule sounded like when she actually told people about it. Admittedly, a couple of things, three or four, didn't seem like much and she was pretty well aware of this fact. Even so, Cait at least felt that it was quite a bit. Luckily, her work hours were very flexible, easy to arrange around so long as she had the time to go and make phone calls to students and/or their parents and work it out with all of them. It was still pretty concrete, though. Band practices were regular, once or twice a week... She had three volleyball practices a week, and then the rest of her time was taken up by classes. When she was at home or elsewhere just hanging out, in reality it was really just doing homework. Caitlyn... liked her life a little bit busy, it was true, but it was also easy to get overwhelmed. "It's... yeah, I guess it is kind of a lot," she admitted, but it was with relative ease rather than any kind of tone that suggested she was whining. Cait's life was what it was. She'd gotten used to it, more or less. His question made her pause and frown for a second, though. "I... just sleep whenever I can, I guess." She survived surprisingly well on three or four hours of sleep sometimes, mostly because she had to. "It's not that bad," she added to reassure him, aware of how it sounded. Caitlyn had been okay thus far.
She was much more worried about Ashton than she was about herself, at any rate. This was seriously very abnormal behaviour for him. Even though they hadn't spoken in quite some time, she did remember that Ashton was extremely talkative. She had always considered him a good friend even if not a ridiculously close one, so when he was behaving strangely, she really wasn't sure what to do. The best she could do was ask. It didn't help when he denied any problems, but luckily he changed his mind afterward. Caitlyn just listened with a small frown forming on her face. "With... us?" she repeated. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion before he fixed his statement, and then her mouth fell open. "Oh." Realizing what he was saying, she suddenly felt... very very bad. "Ohhh," she said again as if it had just dawned on her. It sort of had, honestly. She would have never figured it out on her own. The book she was holding nearly fell out of her hands, but she caught it. "Everything's great with us. Or... I mean, it is for me. I was never mad or anything!" She blinked. "Why would I be mad?" As far as Caitlyn knew, he hadn't done anything that warranted her getting upset with him. "No, I just... haven't been around much in general lately, I think," she concluded. "I never meant to." The last part was said quietly. Flighty as she was, her friends really did mean quite a lot to Caitlyn. She had never meant to ignore anyone.
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Aug 10, 2012 15:06:34 GMT -5
To someone like Ashton, the amount of work that Caitlyn accomplished in a single week (day, even!) was unfathomable. He was not so lazy that his life was stuck at a total standstill but he certainly couldn't imagine taking multiple lessons while also trying incredibly hard in his classes. He was an average student and it was all he could do to keep his grades up on top of working a job and making as much time for friends as possible. Despite being confused and a little awkward around her, he managed a bit of a smile. "You're kind of amazing, you know that?" He chuckled, shaking his head. He really did admire her work ethic, even if he didn't understand it himself. Ashton wished that he could be that productive but then again, he wasn't an envious person. It didn't affect him if his friends had better lives, jobs, or experiences than he did. He simply allowed himself to be happy for them and gave occasional attempts to do better himself. Occasional.
He valued his sleep and so to him, what she was saying sounded quite bad indeed. All the same, he nodded. It must have worked for her considering the fact that she was still standing and talking to him rather than laying passed out on the floor like he'd have been in her position. The resilience of some people was amazing.
Ashton was confused when it seemed to dawn on her—if she'd been avoiding him, why would it come as such a shock to her? He'd been expecting some sort of explanation of what he'd done wrong or else for Cait to make up some sort of hurried excuse to get away from him and avoid confrontation. A lot of people were brave behind the scenes but tended to panic when the outcome of their passive aggressive ways came back to bite them. He didn't know which sort his friend was since they'd never had a problem like this before.
Then she explained and he felt like an ass.
As a pacifist and a rather selfless guy, he didn't like to cause others to feel upset or guilty without a good reason. If I hadn't overreacted, this wouldn't have happened. He appeared distressed at her final comment, feeling awful for making her feel awful. "Just me being silly, I guess," he said, then realised that the 'I guess' sounded more like a cop-out than anything and amended, "I mean... definitely me being silly." He raked a hand through his hair and smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. You can't help that you're busy..." No one could help things like that. Just because he made a lot of time for his friends didn't mean others could afford the same. She actually seemed to care a whole lot about her future while his was in the dark.
"I, uh, I actually don't know why you'd be mad," he admitted with a soft laugh. "It doesn't make much sense but I was just freaking out and, um, yeah. Sorry, again." He allowed an awkward silence. "So things are definitely okay?" His smile was a mixture of hopeful and relieved.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Aug 14, 2012 17:04:09 GMT -5
Caitlyn didn't think that much of the stuff she did was particularly amazing, but it was... the way life worked. Being a college student at the Academy, she obviously had no choice but to attend the classes in her schedule, and her desire to do well wouldn't let her skip any more classes than she felt it was absolutely mandatory for her to miss... and even then it was rarely a decision to actually skip the class. As for teaching piano, she did need the job so that she could pay rent and the like -- although her parents could have helped her out at any time with this, and she knew that they would have been willing to, a small (or large) part of Cait was pretty fiercely independent at the same time. The other things she did -- her volleyball team, band practices, and sleep when she got around to it -- were obviously just... things she enjoyed. Though the logical part of her knew that these hobbies would be the first to go if things ever got seriously busy enough, this was what she'd definitely consider a last resort. They were as much a part of her life as... school. These were things she couldn't really give up, in the end, so she didn't think that there was anything amazing about it at all. Still, she smiled at Ashton. "Not really, but thanks." Her life was just her life. There was no changing it even if she tried.
He seemed seriously distressed at her last words, and this made her feel worse. "You weren't being silly, just..." She trailed off without finishing the thought, not knowing what else to say. It would have probably been different if this hadn't happened before, but it had -- not with Ashton, because she didn't figure that it was likely to happen on multiple occasions with just one person... but others were a different story. It was probably a bad habit of Caitlyn's. Her sub-conscience was just, apparently, far too willing to drop and abandon friends (or at least make marginally less time for them) when the situation called for it. It really never was intentional. She bit her lip, hoping that Ashton wasn't actually annoyed or bitter. "No, no, it's okay, seriously." She did feel bad, but it was the type of thing she'd get over. Making Ashton feel bad for it wouldn't help the situation at all. "But really, no, everything's okay. Not mad," she said, smiling a little to re-emphasize this point. "Next time you can just ask, you know. Or I'd tell you if I was mad... or something..." At least, Cait would be sure to do so now that this conversation had happened. "Yeah, things are definitely okay. I'm really sorry, though. I didn't know it was bugging you."
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Aug 15, 2012 17:40:56 GMT -5
It did not take a lot to impress the Earth elemental. Even if they did less than he did in a day, so long as they were good at what they'd accomplished he'd be amazed by their skills. No one should trust him to judge anything, really, because he'd probably be too blinded by the highlights to appreciate the flaws as well. It was simply who he was. "Well, I think so," he said, chuckling. "I could never get all the stuff done that you do." That was mostly because they had different personalities. He wasn't driven and he wasn't overly independent, the latter being shown by the fact that he was in no real rush to get out from under his parents' roof. A new place would be nice in the future but he wasn't hurrying himself along. He did have to admit that having a job and his own cash was pretty sweet, though. He didn't have to get up the guts to ask for money every time he wanted to to something.
They both felt bad and this was why two Earths should never be allowed in a room together, or a friendship. How could one handle all the awkwardness and guilt? He didn't protest because he couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound redundant. Ashton knew as well as most people that continuously insisting something, no matter how true it was (or how true you thought it was), could grate upon the nerves of others.
He breathed out slowly when she assured him that she was fine, taking a moment to let his nerves calm down. He didn't do well with confrontation, it always put him on edge, so to have a peaceful end to it all was a bonus. It would have sucked if Caitlyn had been super angry with him and had called him a horrible person or something. But she's not like that, I don't think, he reminded himself. Some people had bad sides that only came out after so long but his faith in his friends meant that he didn't often assume they were those sorts. "Good, I'm glad," he said, then laughed weakly. "Geez, I spent weeks worrying over this for nothing. I really need to just ask you things." He didn't blame her, no, of course not. It wasn't like Ash to shift the blame onto others.
She apologised and he smiled briefly before shaking his head. "You don't need to apologise, you had no way of knowing," he assured her. "I was the one who didn't say anything. Really I'm the one that should be apologising." He already had, though, and he was pretty sure that spamming the air with 'sorry' wasn't going to do any good. Brightening, he said, "Well, do you have any time for anything now? Or soon? I really would like to hang out if you can find it." He'd try not to be upset if her schedule was too full for him from now on. There would always be the small pangs of upset since he did love hanging around his friends so much but so long as he reminded himself that it wasn't her fault, he figured it would be all right.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Aug 19, 2012 19:30:32 GMT -5
Caitlyn didn't really hold it against people if they weren't particularly driven. Considering everyone's age around here, it was honestly pretty commonplace (at least she thought so) that most were just shmoozing around until they found something to do with their lives, and sometimes that really could take forever. She didn't understand the way they thoguht, but she could at least sympathize with the fact that, well, it really was stressful to be doing something and keeping busy all the time. Cait could understand that readily enough. "It's not so bad if you like what you're doing," she told him, smiling a little -- and it helped that Caitlyn did like it, all of it. There were... up and down moments, to be sure, but on the whole, she wouldn't trade her life or any aspect of it away unless she absolutely had to. Luckily, no masked murderer had yet to hold a gun to her head with the demand that she changed up the things she was doing in life. That would be frightening.
He seemed ridiculously relieved now that this was all taken care of for the most part, and she just smiled her reassurance. Caitlyn... had her moments like most everyone else, but she'd never had reason to be annoyed with Ashton. He was just ridiculously nice on the whole, actually. "Weeks?" she repeated, frowning at him. That didn't do anything to make her feel better at all, though she was sure he hadn't had the intention of making her feel better or worse either way. "Yeah, asking things would be good. And... I mean... what are friends for, right?" Her smile was a little more hopeful than reassuring this time. She didn't want to be the friend nobody felt they could trust -- she really did care about her friends and having something of a social life too, it was just that... it often came after other things, more obligatory things.
Even so, she was glad that he changed the subject so that they weren't going in this neverending loop of awkward apologies anymore. Cait was a busy girl -- she didn't mind talking about nonsense and hanging out with friends, but that string of "sorry"s would have just been counterproductive and a waste of both their time. "Well, I have a few minutes before rehearsal!" She paused. "For band, I mean. Not long though... but soon would be good! I mean... are you doing anything this weekend?" She tried to run through a mental copy of her day planner as she said this, but it didn't work as well as she'd hoped. "I usually have time on Sundays!" Then again, she knew that some people were just especially busy on weekends, so maybe that wouldn't work. If Ashton had any other plans and such, she'd obviously understand. It would be awfully hypocritical if she didn't understand other people's busy schedules at this point.
( this post is pretty lousy. D: i'm sorry!)
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this post is pretty lousy. D: i'm sorry!)