"Okay. Sorry. I knew the guy was as eighteen as he looks and I should have pushed back more, the time sensitive thing about his power's no excuse to flail that much really."

Cara shrugs. " I don't think that's your fault; we hadn't talked about it." And nothing actually bad happened she shouldn't say that lol. 

"While I am known to overapologize as a backlash symptom and was also Canadian to begin with I do think I fucked up there but I'm glad it did not have more dire consequences."

Cara doesn't really agree that he fucked up! ...but it's weirdly reassuring, that he insists he does. 

(She's scared about going through the list of things she's been told. It's correct, so she'll do it, but - it's -)

Say something. "I should... think about who else I want to tell about my backlash. An agent makes sense... I wish I could tell my aunt, but it's not a good idea."  

"I certainly don't know enough about your aunt to say otherwise. Paula knows all the Maple agents and can probably recommend you someone if that's better than reading marketing copy."

"She's just - not good with high pressure secrets. And it'd be - asking a lot of her? I've been... distant." (She sounds kinda miserable about this.)

Speaking of being 'distant", you should maybe check your phon later. Traceless is backlashed.

"...is that a... backlash thing, or..."

"...not exactly, no. I just..." left my social life to rot because I was a selfish coward "...Tia's place was in Cleveland, and that made harder to keep up with people around here, and suddenly my life was really different and there was a lot I couldn't really talk about..." and that's, like, maybe a third of the reason but she's not sure he wants to hear her sob story so she'll pause and try to evaluate that and also figure out if there's a way to tell it that doesn't make some part of her want to scream until her throat is raw

"Are there things you couldn't talk about besides your backlash?"

"Well, Tia was... kinda private? But..." Sigh. "...no, it was mostly that I didn't know how to talk about it. Like - you know how sometimes people have an internship where they're working really long hours and it kinda eats their lives for a while, but they're learning a lot and it's really good for their career so you just wish them good luck and mark on your calendar when the internship ends and in the meantime you just send them posts or memes that make you think of them every so often so they know you still care about them even though they're gone?" (...she might be typical-minding a bit, there, but she's tired.)

"Not specifically but you're making me nervous about the emotional health of some people who work at the zoo."

...yeah, whoops, definitely typical-minding too much. "I think most internships aren't like that - the ones I did mostly weren't. But they definitely are for, like, engineers and quants and some polsci people, and of course med students get that for years."

She droops a bit. "Anyways, I was thinking of it like that. I wanted to impress her, you see." (do you want to maybe try and aim for as subtle as an elephant and tone it down a few notches???) "And that made it easy to... fall into a pattern where I wasn't leaving myself much spare time and didn't do much with it when I had it."

"She would have... found it unimpressive...?" he says tentatively, in a tone suggesting he might have tried a meaningful silence instead if he could do that.

Thanks, Traceless's backlash, the silence probably would have been worse that's not actually true, knowing he wanted to but couldn't is worse.

"Not exactly, but she found my hard work and dedication impressive and reassuring, in a way that I really valued." Ugh. "Because of how things started out, she was really worried, felt like she needed to be a bit strict to keep me safe." Deep breath. "Totally understandable, obviously, but it wasn't my favorite thing, and me working hard helped a lot with not staying in that dynamic." 

(She feels weirdly distant from her body. Whatever. It's been a long day.)

"I'm not sure I would say I totally understand her feeling like she was in a position to be or not be 'strict', she wasn't your math teacher."

Cara shrugs uncomfortably. "She was my - mentor? Partner? Person helping me figure out to be an esper? And I almost died, it was - it was what was best for me?" (She hears the uncertainty in her own voice, and hates herself for it.)

"I think she set herself a task she did not have the tools to succeed at."

"...But she did succeed? She kept me from killing myself and taught me how to use my powers, helped me figure out how to be a good combat esper, trained me well, and, and -" Why does talking feel so absurdly hard, why does it feel like trying to shout through a thousand-feet tube

(She's breathing a bit faster than is reasonable, for the situation.)

"She succeeded at some subtasks."

Cara is shaking. "I really don't think it's - her fault - that I'm like this -" contemptable? broken? weak? all of the above?

Wow, breathing seems like it should be happening slower than this? Isn't that, like, a choice she makes? Why -

"- sorry, I - didn't know her personally, just - are you okay, uh, in an acute sense -"

Well, she's having a bit of a panic attack, so probably not!

"Sorry - just - need to -" breathe, stop being a fucking baby, you can't help him with his backlash, can't do anything if you're freaking out like this!

"Is this one of those things where a paper bag is supposed to feature?" he says a bit helplessly.

Stop! Making! Him! Miserable!

She can breathe like a normal person, actually. It's not even very hard, she just has to focus.

"Sorry," she says shakily. "Um, I'll be okay, just," (in, two, three, four, five) "need a few moments to breathe,"

"Okay." ...he hangs on for a few seconds of silence and then as some threshold of backlash is crossed pulls his phone out and sends some random texts.