responsibilities

There's all these secrets I can't keep
Like in my heart there's a hotel suite

As she settles beneath his hand, slowly calming and almost subconsciously nodding along, Jude feels a tsunami of relief sweep through him. This is an immensely complicated situation and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to truly comfort her or give any sort of advice when he considers her far more worldly than himself. What insight could he possibly offer?

When she shoots to sit up so suddenly it's disorienting, and Jude merely blinks quickly and pulls his hands away automatically, giving her space and ensuring his touch wasn't what had upset her. It never has, but it's an instinctive thing.

Immediately befuddled by her stammered question, he parrots it back to her. "Wha- still be with you?" Where did that fit into the conversation at all???

Luckily she bulldozes forward before he can question it any further, and his expression softens into something understanding and a bit chagrined. "They might. But I - I'm nobody here." Privately he thinks he's nobody anywhere. People just like to think he's important because it makes gossip juicier, and then they meet him and realize he's anything but. "And I don't live here permanently. It wouldn't be the same." Not nearly so intense and invasive as the land he was born in, with all the combined history of all three of his parents so firmly entrenched in Torchline's sands. "Besides, they'll all be looking at you. Not me." As they should, and as most people do (in Jude's eyes). "And all that aside, in the end it wouldn't matter. Losing you wouldn't be worth a quiet life." He'll suffer through any measure of increased anxiety to stay by her side.

And you lived there so long
It's kinda strange, now you're gone

Jude