Cora had barely shut the door to Phalanx House before the first tear rolled down her cheeks. Of all places that Lennox MacAlistair could have picked to come and give her a hard time, he had happened upon her when she was at work, meaning that she had been forced to stand there and deal with him with the politest customer service voice that she could. By the time that she had managed to send his coffee careening into his lap, she had felt degraded, embarrassed, and meaningless, which she supposed was part of his goal. She hated him, she really did, and she had half a mind to figure out how to get some kind of revenge on him. Half a mind. The problem was that she wasn’t the kind of person to wish any badness on anybody, even the people who so clearly deserved it, which meant that regardless of what he had done to her and how he had made her feel… she wasn’t going to retaliate. Personally, she would just rather he disappeared from her life altogether, so she didn’t have to think about the fact that he existed at all.

Cora reached up, wiping the tear away as she made her way upstairs, thankfully it seemed that just about everybody was gone, either at their respective jobs or out and about in the Quarter. That was good, nobody would see her crying, nobody would ask her what was wrong, and there were a few that she knew probably would. Like Jae, for instance. There were very few people in this house who knew her well, and of those few people, fewer were around when Lennox had become a part of her life, and then left it. Really the only person that knew about the whole situation was Asha, because she was Cora’s best friends, and therefore the only one that she trusted with that kind of information. She was also the one that had supplied her with girl’s nights, including ice cream and sad movies to allow her to wallow in a more healthy way than… what she usually did. Shoving everything down and bottling it away until it became too much for her to handle was not a great way to deal, and she knew that, but dealing with it meant unlocking the part of her that she kept well hidden, the part of her that she refused to drag out and let see the light of the day. It was the part of her that got exacerbated by the use of her powers.

Finally, Cora made it to the top of the stairs, and she made her way down the hallway until she finally reached her own door. By this time, more tears had fallen, and it was everything that she could do to keep it together. She pushed the door open, and was greeted by the site of Asha, sitting cross legged on her bed. That alone was enough to make Cora break down, her sobbing making her shoulders shaking as she wrapped her arms around her. “I. I fucking. Hate. Him. So much.” Each sentence was punctuated by a sharp gasp, tears rolling down her cheeks.