Perhaps, she had resolved, if she allowed him to keep talking to her, he would eventually say something damning (callous, or thoughtless, or rude) and this illusion she was under would save her by shattering? No, it was not yet to be – he had chosen his siblings for a subject, and their name scheme. This was so sweet that she couldn’t help but smile, and accidentally meet his eyes again, watching his face light up as he spoke. She almost liked him better for his bashfulness. (That was bad. She ought not to be charmed by anything about him at all.)
“Oh, but the letter E is a very pleasant letter,” she assured him, half in teasing and half to defend his mother’s choices. “And it is always nice to have something to unite you all. I do – my brothers’ names are all from Yoruba,” Callista said – and she knew something was wrong with her now, because she was already speaking too freely; people were not often interested in her family’s language and heritage. “Though my sister and I – I have three brothers, and one sister, younger – have less unusual names than that. But we were raised more here than our brothers were.”
“Oh, but the letter E is a very pleasant letter,” she assured him, half in teasing and half to defend his mother’s choices. “And it is always nice to have something to unite you all. I do – my brothers’ names are all from Yoruba,” Callista said – and she knew something was wrong with her now, because she was already speaking too freely; people were not often interested in her family’s language and heritage. “Though my sister and I – I have three brothers, and one sister, younger – have less unusual names than that. But we were raised more here than our brothers were.”
