Chapter 150 - Conceding

Samuel wasn't sure how long he and Lena laid there before the princess decided to speak again.

"Have you ever realized how frustrating your persistent stubbornness can be at time like this?" She asked although her voice didn't hold the annoyed tone he imagined it would've based upon the words that she used.

"I don't think any has told me that before." Samuel replied honestly as he shifted slightly so that his cheek was resting against her back rather than his forehead as he continue to speak.

"But then again I don't think that I've ever been this persistently stubborn for anyone before. With you though, it seemed like persistence is the best way to get any kind of reaction out of you." The last part was a joke to which the princess made some type of inaudible noise that he imagined was supposed to be a scoff.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" She asked, her voice more at her normal turn as she shifted away from him.

"I'm not sure I want someone as ungracious as you to touch me after a comment like that." Although Lena's tone sounded indignant, he could also hear the traces of amusement in the back of it as well which told him she wasn't quite serious.

"I'm sure you don't mean that. Isn't it nice to know that there's someone who's willing to be put up with your stubborn difficult side and try to work past it to still be here for you?" Samuel asked as he tried he shifted his position so that he was propped up on his arm as he looked in the direction he knew the princess to be in.

Despite still not being able to see all that well in the dark, he could make out her shape in the bed still and somehow he found it to be a bit sad that she looked so small and didn't hold the normal imposing aura that he was used to her having.

"Not when you put it that way it isn't." She replied feeling a touch sour about the way he said it even though she knew herself that she wasn't the easiest person to deal with at times.

"I believe that blunt honest is the best policy in these type of relationships. Decreases the risk for confusion or misunderstandings in the future. Lena made a noise that sounded like huff but was quiet otherwise following what he said.

"I suppose that since you're going to be insistent on me talking with you and clearing everything up, we can do it now even though it is in the middle of the night." Lena finally conceded even though she wasn't that thrilled about doing. She couldn't deny that it warmed her heart a touch that someone was being so persistent about something that everyone usually left her alone about when she was like this.

Not to say that they didn't care about what she was going through, the princess just never wanted them around so that she work through her emotions on her own without having to be so raw with other people being around. The only person who ever really saw her when she as struggling this much had been her father and that was simply because he had been the one she clung to after everything that happened.

"Wait is it really that? I know we had been here for a while, but I didn't think it had been that long. I still don't have my phone back, so I have no actual way of telling what time it, especially with it being so dark in here." 

"You never got it back?" Lena asked as she reached over to the nightstand where she knew her own phone was located.

"No, I don't actually know who has it." He replied. He had been so bothered with everything else that had been going on he hadn't much thought about asking for it back. With his mother being at the estate and able to tell her father vaguely what was going, there wasn't, much of  a reason for him to worry about where it was.

"It's two thirty in the morning." She told the other since he wasn't able to see her screen for himself. Samuel made a sound of surprise when she said this.

"I guess we really have been here for a while. If it is too late for you I don't mind coming back tomorrow to talk about everything if you at least agree to eat tonight before I leave." He told. He wanted to know what was going on, but he didn't mind waiting if she was willing to eat in exchange for them discussing everything at a different time.

"It's fine. We might as well talk about everything now. It's not like I would be likely to sleep once you left anyways." She replied, a mildly defeated indifference to her tone. If he had been able to see her imagined she'd have shrugged her shoulders as she said that.

"Can I turn on the light at least so that I can see while we talk?" ventured, uncertain what her answer to this question would be. The heavy silence that followed it told him that the princess's answer would most likely be a no.

"Alright." She agreed after an extended pause, her words were followed by a sigh.

"It's not like there won't be points in time in the future where you'll see me like this anyways." She told as she turned on her phone light so that it was pointing away from here but so that Samuel could use it to reach the light switch on the other end of the room.

Lena flinched and covered her eyes after the light was turned on. Three days in the dark had caused her eyes to not be as used to the brightness as they used to be. She used her left hand to shield her light from her eyes as she waited for them to adjust so that she wasn't stuck squinting.

Samuel wasn't quite sure what to say after he turned on the light and he saw how Lena looked. Worse for wear hardly described her appearance. Her face and lips were pale most likely from not having eaten anything since they got back which was over three days ago. The bags and circles under eyes gave her a rather ghostly appearance as well. Had she also been crying? He couldn't tell by the glossy look of her eyes and the way her nose was red. Her hair was a mess, and she didn't look much like she had changed out of the clothes she had gone to collect him in except that she had shed the jacket which was tossed across the floor to lay on the opposite end of the room. She almost looked as though she had been through hell and back even though Samuel knew that she had only been shut in the room for three days.

"You," He began to say but stopped short when he tried to think about the best way to phrase.

"I look like hell." She finished for him as she tried to run a hand through her hair to fix it even though she knew it would be impossible since it had been over three days since she last brushed it. Her bedding was also a mess from where had been laying.

"That's what I was thinking but trying to say it in a more delicate way." Samuel replied feeling a touch guilty that he was so honest about it. Probably not the best thing to say consider the current state she was in. She raised her left eyebrow at him.

"There isn't really a delicate way to tell someone that they look like hell when it's the truth. Besides I thought you were the one who just said basically the blunt honesty is the best way to approach these types of relationships?" She had a point; he did indeed just say that.

"This and that are different though. One is being bluntly honest about emotions and the other is trying to be delicate about someone's feelings." He defended as he came back over to sit on the bed nearby here. She rolled her eyes at him but said nothing else.

"Do you want to talk about everything or eat first?" He asked her as he reached out to put his hand on hers that was nearest to him, he didn't miss the way that she had to stop herself from pulling away from the touch.

"I still don't feel like eating, so let's talk about everything instead." She replied as she looked at his face. There was still something in her eyes that he couldn't quite make out that made her feel quite off from how she usually appeared to him.

"I will start first though because all of this tied in with what I went through and it's better to go through talking about it first otherwise I'll probably change my mind." Lena told him with a sigh.