Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gryffindoll 
Braeden looked like he'd just been slapped across the face as Melanie had the audacity to blame him for his misfortune! HIM! Hello! He was the one who had almost died two seconds ago! This was completely, entirely nobody else's fault but hers - the Evil Hufflepuff's. Sheesh. And he thought Slytherins were supposed to be the evil ones around here.
"Killed you?" said the boy incredulously, his dark eyebrows raising up to his hairline and his brown eyes growing wide. "Maybe you didn't notice, Mel, but the one choking to death for a moment there was me. And the one who couldn't breathe was me as well. All you did was stand there and freak out," he pointed out. Hmph. Though he was at least a little grateful that she had been caring enough to freak out over his near-death experience. Wait, or was she freaking out because she thought she - not him - was dying?
"Your heartbeat's fine," declared the boy after feeling the wrist Melanie offered, waving it off as unimportant. Alright, so maybe her heart was beating a little faster than it should've, but it still didn't change the fact that he almost died. Not her.
Braeden nodded his head at her words about the soreness going away with time, while absentmindedly taking smaller more careful bites from his food before she went on to remind him that she hadn't tried to kill him. "Did too," replied Braeden childishly. He set his sandwich down and turned to Melanie with large, sparkling brown eyes, his forehead beginning to crease slightly. "I understand if my company might not be the best, Mel, but that's no reason to kill a guy… I thought… I thought we were friends…" His bottom lip quivered, his brown eyes sparkling with what looked like tears.
Then he turned away, 'sobbing'.
And by 'sobbing' I mean, sounding like he was sobbing but in reality snickering to himself. He was determined to continue with this guilt trip. Melanie Lockhart, Gilderoy Lockhart's great great granddaughter would feel guilt! And he was going to pull out his best acting skills for it.
"Yes," she replied, with a little huff of frustration.
"I was being perfectly kind, telling you not to choke and then you did... It was awful, Brae. I thought you were gonna die." And then everyone would blame her forever and she'd live out the rest of her life as the girl that let Braeden the cowardly lion choke on his ham and cheese sandwich, feeling guilty for all of eternity and probably adopting multiple cats eventually. He almost sealed her with that, terrible, terrible fate!
"I really don't know how you have the nerve to stand there and not apologize for what you've just put me through after I was as nice as to warn you not to choke..." She looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for the answer to her pondering.
Her gaze quickly shifted back to Breaden, though, as he dismissed the rate of her pulse. Rolling her eyes, as if he was being silly, she informed him promptly,
"It's probably beating so fast that you can't even feel it. Like when superheroes run so fast that they turn into streaks of color... only totally different, of course." Of course.
And... now what was he talking about? Melanie raised her eyebrows skeptically, as Braeden claimed, once more, that she had tried to kill him.
"I don't go around trying to kill people," she began.
"And we are friends." Er... kinda? She'd only talked to him twice, counting now, after all. that wasn't the point though. Melanie was trying to prove she wasn't homicidal here!
"Please, don't do this..."
Oh.
Oh Merlin
NO.
He was crying?!
Blinking in confusion as he turned those big, sparkling brown eyes on her, Melanie shook her head. No, no, she was the victim here!... but awww. AWW, he looked so SAD.
And then he was full on "sobbing." Immediately feeling guilty for making the boy "cry" Melanie shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Braeden...?" She gave him a little poke on the shoulder.
"I really didn't try to kill you. Please don't feel bad. Oh. Don't cry!" she begged, a troubled expression on her face.
"I'll do anything if you just stop. Apologize or whatever!" As long as he quit that infernal sobbing! She couldn't take it!
Melanie, being Melanie, didn't realize it was all a ploy to make her feel bad. Apparently, even after the tree house incident, she didn't get accustomed to the concept of a guilt trip.