, and you don’t even talk.” Julius let out a low loud laugh. Lines around him curled for a second, but then untwisted.
All around him the flock began to rustle. Nancy jumped to take control, to take advantage. “Back in the circle everyone, you’ve had enough time now to get to know each other.”
Alecia slinked forward from the corner. As always she was agitated and soft, helpless and angry. Perhaps that was why she was here, because of all the contradictions raging around in her, pulling from every angle. Eventually everyone was settled around the circle once more. “Now one person from each partnership will say their names and something that they learned about each other.”
Alecia was first up, Gabriel gazed at her, whenever she was lost, even just for words, her eyes flashed the brightest blue. The same color as the jelly beans that his mother would give him when the world was quiet, when a glittering golden silk shroud had been thrown over life itself. “I didn’t have someone, why did I have to get an odd numbered group of men?” her voice cracked, she spoke leaning forward with hands like claws and eyes bugged out as though being in such a group was akin to being punched in the stomach.
Nancy just asked for her name and she eventually gave it.