"Don't be a stranger," she manages to say before he pulls entirely away, eyes quickly darting up, not knowing if they'll find his at all. But those words, at least, are honest. Because whether or not she's willing to put herself in the position of loving someone in that way when their paths seem to so naturally diverge, it doesn't change the fact that she loves him. She loves Chris as a friend, as someone she can't imagine abandoning in a million years, and it's just on her now to figure out how exactly to climb over the hurdle now, there's a laugh that doesn't dare escape her lips right now, thinking of her parents, and how she's felt that same strain between them at times, lately. Whenever they fight. Whenever the floorboards start to creak.

So her shoulders slump, and her hands rest in her lap, before she hurriedly raises a hand to wipe at the corner of her eye before her tears spill over too noticeably.