Her sleeves are rolled up, her hair's a mess, and she looks completely and thoroughly pissed.
Dustin opens his mouth to make a snide comment about her unruly appearance, but then it occurs to him that perhaps Val had informed her of their...discussion. Groaning inwardly, he braces himself for a Val-esque outburst from Karina. The second one today. It's as if the universe wants to torment him as much as possible.
But then she takes a deep breath, composing herself, and says with a surprising calmness, "You're an idiot."
Dustin crosses his arms. He supposes the two of them aren't as alike as they appear to be. She's still visibly upset, but unlike her younger sister, she seems to not be the type to lash out when provoked. Not to imply that she's any less terrifying than Val, of course. The cold, icy gleam in her eyes is enough to fill Dustin with a faint sense of dread.
"Tell me what you did to her," she continues, a stern malice lacing her words.
With a scoff, Dustin rolls his eyes. "I didn't do -"
She raises an eyebrow.
Yeah, still terrifying. "I did what I had to do."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"I...." Dustin trails off, then scowls. "What do you care about my side of the story? You'll take her side no matter what I say."
"Because I want to know what was going through your head when you broke my sister's heart," she replies coldly. She punctuates her sentence with the placement of both hands on her hips.
He averts his eyes. "She told me she loved me."
A small part of him expects Karina to explode with laughter at the prospect of anyone loving the likes of him, let alone her own blood. Instead, though, she nods grimly.
"So she finally admitted it," she says. There's a certain sadness in her dark eyes.
"You knew?"
"I knew before even she knew."
This catches Dustin off guard. "You...what?"
Karina turns away, her arms folded across her chest. "I've seen the way Val looks at you when she thinks no one's looking. Her eyes just...it's cliché, but they light up. Every time you walk into the room. She doesn't even have to smile. I can just see how happy she is to have you around in those big blue eyes of hers."
To that, Dustin has no response. No witty one-liners, no snide remarks...only silence. What is he supposed to say? How can he defend himself when all he did was break the heart of the woman who thought the world of him? He himself isn't sure why he rejected her. It isn't that he doesn't want to be with her. He's come to enjoy her company, the warmth she brings in a world that's always felt so cold. Her laugh, her smile, the way everything seems so much simpler with her around. That is, until she laid her feelings bare to him and he pushed her away before he could even process what he had done.
Why did he break her heart?
"My sister has been nothing but kind to you," Tights continues harshly. She appears on the verge of snapping at him, hardly able to contain her growing anger at him.
He deserves it.
"I know," Dustin says, because it's all he can think to say.
"She loved you - loves you - and you repay her by breaking her heart?"
"I get it."
"By telling her that she means nothing to you?!"
"She doesn't mean nothing to me!" he fires back in the heat of the moment.
Karina stops right in her tracks, her words catching in her throat before she can throw them at him. It's then that Dustin realizes what he said, and his face is set aflame.
"I-I meant to say that she does mean nothing to me!" he sputters. "Because she doesn't! I mean, she does! She does mean nothing!"
Grinning triumphantly, any traces of her rage all but gone, Karina jabs her index finger in Dustin's face.
"You LOVE her!" she shouts.
"No, I don't!"
"You're in love with her, but you've never been in love before, and you're just afraid of all these feelings!"
"I'm NOT!"
It's too late for that, though, because now she's grabbed him by his shoulders and begun shaking him back and forth excitedly. "Tell her how you feel, you idiot! You still have a chance to make this right!"
"What happened to you being pissed at me, huh?" Dustin asks, face still flushed.
"I can yell at you all I want another time," she says dismissively. "Right now, we have to fix this!"
Her eyes look so bright and full of hope, hope that her sister's broken heart can be mended. And as Dustin looks into her eyes, all he can think of is how he wishes they were someone else's.
How he wishes they were blue.
Oh.
He does love Val, doesn't he?
