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[Indent]Salem found her in the hallway after she walked away from the cafeteria confrontation. Marisol’s back was to him as she stalked off and Salem felt more guilt run through his veins than blood. He had no right to get into their fight like that; no right to plausibly cause their fight like that. If it were him, Salem would be downright furious if someone got between Gwendolyn and him. Then again, the Italian-American would never speak to Gwen like that - maybe he was old-fashioned, but respect towards women was always an important virtue to him. Still, he had no right to judge their relationship and intervene as he had; Marisol was a big girl and she could fight her own battles, if she wanted.

So lost in his thoughts, Salem didn’t realize the gap between them had grown and he had to start jogging to catch up, [color=8bccc5]“Marisol, wait up!”[/color]

[color=brown]“It's fine, I'm okay!”[/color] she told him out loud, really more so to reassure herself than to reassure Salem. Sol quickly wiped away the few angry tears that had been running down her cheeks before turning to him with a close-lipped half-smile. [color=brown]“Sorry for leaving like that. What's up?”[/color]

Salem halted in front of Marisol and swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. It wasn't that he was inexperienced in consoling girls; though Gwen never really exploded with [i]emotion[/i] (he still doesn't quite know what exactly happened back there), he had girlfriends before her that had. It's just that he didn't know Marisol well enough to be chasing her down like this and attempting to soothe her. In any scenario, Salem still would have gone after her, but the main drive for him in that moment was the guilt at having some hand (even if he didn't know what) in exacerbating the situation.

[color=8bccc5] “Hey, uh, listen, about  back there…”[/color] Salem started unsurely, gesturing behind him with his thumb,[color=8bccc5] “I didn't mean to start anything with you and your boyfriend. I should have stayed out of it. Uh, I guess I just have a hero complex or something.”[/color] Salem nervously ruffled his hair and let out a small puff of air that was half a sigh and half a chuckle.

[color=brown]“Trust me, Sonny is [i]not[/i] my boyfriend,”[/color] Mari stated, shaking her head in disapproval. [color=brown]“And I'm sure if you ask him that's what he'll say is my problem. But the truth is that I've been purposely trying to wean myself off spending time with him. Like, don’t get me wrong: the dude has been my ride or die since the day we were born. But we kind of got into some shit this past summer that left me all kinds of fucked up, and it ended with me in the loony bin for 2 weeks and stuck working until I come up with the money to pay off my parents for taking care of the legal shit that went down. I'm sure you'll eventually hear the story from someone else or even see the video that's been floating around,”[/color] she rambled on, taking a deep breath. Why did she always end up having therapy sessions with strangers?! Maybe it was because it was easier to talk to somebody who didn't know who she was, or maybe she was just that needy. As the mystery of how many licks did it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. 

[color=brown]“The point is, Sonny was one of the reasons I was going insane. Not on purpose, of course: it's not really [i]his[/i] fault. But in order for things to go back to the way they were I'm putting some space between us. That make sense?”[/color]

Sonny is a little shit as far as Salem could tell; but by the way Marisol talked about her friendship with him, Salem doubted it would go over well or do much to cheer her up. His first week at King’s Academy was busier than he had anticipated, between the homecoming dictatorship and the lunchroom fiasco. The locker behind him looked comforting and he leant against it, with the lock digging into his spine uncomfortably and his legs crossed in front of him. Salem focused on his shoes, the space between his eyebrows crinkling and his lips twisted slightly down in thought.

The truth was, Marisol is an unknown factor to him. He couldn’t approach her like he did with Gwen, and he couldn’t approach her like he did with his ex-girlfriend Noelle. The first one was steely and took everything in stride, and the second one was soft and needed constant reassurances. Don’t get him wrong, Salem was no casanova or player or fuckboy; but his ma told him to treat girls well and Marisol was sharing such intimate details of her life. The least Salem could do for her, after her openness and honesty, is think how to console her correctly before he acts.

[color=8bccc5]“Yeah, I think I understand,”[/color] his nose scrunched up and he didn’t look up from his shoes as he thought carefully on what to say. [color=8bccc5]“Before Gwendolyn, my girlfriend, I was dating this girl...her name was Noelle. Sweet girl, but she didn’t...I don’t know, it just wasn’t give and take with her. And we started losing touch with each other? We no longer had that intimacy we used to have, I guess. I knew, eventually, she would leave me. I only had so much I could give her at that time, and I just sort of … shut down on her, spent less and less time with her, because I knew I was going to be too hurt afterwards if I didn’t. If I lost her as a girlfriend, I still wanted to keep her as a friend.”[/color]

He cleared his throat before continuing, finally glancing up into Marisol’s eyes and laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. [color=8bccc5]“I [i]think[/i] I understand. You need space from him, to give yourself time to return to a place where you can keep that friendship.”[/color] Salem stopped, observing Marisol to ensure he wasn’t saying anything wrong. [color=8bccc5]“Am I getting this right or reading the situation completely wrong?”[/color]

Mari was quiet for a few seconds, staring at Salem with wide eyes. [color=brown]“Shit. You’re good,”[/color] she told him in awe, shaking her head. [color=brown]“Yeah, that’s exactly what’s going on. Son and I have been best friends for eighteen years now. I can’t imagine life without him, but we’re both so damn stubborn and hot-headed that if I don’t put some space between us now while I still can, I know we’ll end up saying and doing a ton of shit we don’t mean and tearing each other apart.”[/color]

He could say that it might be a bit too late, that they seemed to be tearing each other apart quite well a moment ago. The reply seemed particularly unwise, though, and there wasn’t really anything he could say to make her feel better. 

Smiling cheekily, a sudden shift from his serious expression before, Salem pawed Marisol’s beanie from her head and tousled her hair playfully. In between messing up her hair, he tickled her sides, eliciting giggles from her as she attempted in vain to defend herself of brush his hands away.

After a few moments, Salem stopped, his cheeks hurting from grinning so hard, and gestured grandly towards the yawning hallway. [color=8bccc5]“Would you do the honors of showing me around the halls, homecoming date?”[/color]

[color=brown]“I will if you give me back what’s mine!”[/color] she replied, taking the chance to lunge at him to playfully try and wrestle the beanie off his hands.

Salem sing-songed, [color=8bccc5]“You’ll have to catch me first!”[/color] And took off down the hallway.

Rolling her eyes with a smile on her face, Marisol hurried off after Salem, the sound of her footsteps and her thrilled laughter echoing across the empty hallway.[/indent]