All of this had been caused by poor communication, and while it was uncomfortable to be so open about how he was feeling with someone he didn’t really know all that well, he didn’t want the situation to suddenly spiral back into the same pit they’d just dug themselves out of. Besides, Kalter had managed to explain her own feelings to him despite whatever discomfort she must have felt, so he owed her at least as much in return.

“I don’t think I was ever angry at you—frustrated maybe, because I’d thought we were moving past all of the distrust and everything,” August said, touching his neck again. “I was mostly just embarrassed about the things I said to you and at how everything happened when you grabbed me—then I was just stuck thinking about it all without any kind of resolution.”

The pang of discomfort from oversharing his internal state rose up as it always did, and he struggled not to glance away from her prolonged eye contact. Kalter had stopped working entirely at this point, the blade of the saw barely touching the top of the post.

“Embarrassed?” Kalter asked. “Why?”

The discomfort rose further as the expectation to expand on something he was already stretching to manage caused a flicker of heat to rise up his neck. A day ago, he probably couldn’t have imagined he’d have been having a conversation about his feelings with Kalter—of all people—but this island seemed to have a way of pushing him into uncomfortable situations.

“I was dealing with the whole render thing at the time, so it was embarrassing because I couldn’t even stand next to you without getting completely overwhelmed by what I was seeing and feeling,” August said, and then felt a spike of alarm at the way she tilted her head at his words. “I couldn’t stand next to the others either; it wasn’t just you or anything.”

There was an odd pause in the aftermath of his comment, and then as the silence stretched, leaving him with a growing compulsion to explain exactly what he’d actually meant by that.

“You were just the only one who got that close to me, so it was worse because proximity makes the three-dimensional render of the person closer, and you were already pretty close, so everything was right there, pressed against—” August said, realising how absolutely terrible it all sounded coming out of his mouth. “You were too much to deal with—it was too much to deal with—the information from the skill—”

August cut himself off as the embarrassment overtook him entirely, his face now hot at the rushed attempt to retroactively edit what he’d just said to her—if he’d ever needed a reminder of why he never told anyone what he was really thinking, he’d just found it.

“I was too much to deal with?” Kalter said.

The pang he felt at hearing her repeat his own mistake back at him felt like a knife through the heart—Devil’s Nest wouldn’t be the thing that did him in; it was going to be the shame of it all.

“Let’s go back to talking about how angry I am at you,” August tried, aiming for damage control. “Anger just isn’t a strong enough word, really, because it’s more like a burning fury—hate? It might even be hate; I’m just not sure yet; we’ll have to give it some time to fester.”

Rather than divert her attention, he was left to watch with a sort of muted horror as she took the saw away from the post entirely, the surface unmarred and the motion sparking to life a terrible, terrible future in which she continued the conversation.

“You already said you weren’t angry at me,” Kalter said, turning to face him more fully. “My render being too close to you—is that what you meant when you said you felt like you were being swallowed?”

“Oh god,” August said, not quite sure if he said it out loud or if the words had just reverberated inside of him at such a frequency that it had felt as if he had. “Aren’t we supposed to be making planks right now—”

“I answered your questions about what I was feeling at that time,” Kalter said. “I want to know.”

Saying those words to her might have been the biggest mistake he’d made since waking up in Devil’s Nest because they’d apparently become a part of her arsenal and a far too effective weapon to wield in conversation against him—the fact that she was spamming it like a long-range kick in a fighting game just made it all the worse.

“Yes, that’s what I meant when I said that,” August managed. “It felt like—like you were everywhere around me, filling the space, and I couldn’t move, so it was like—”

“Being swallowed,” Kalter said. “Is it like that every time?”

Why did she have to keep saying it?

“I’m usually not close enough to anyone, or for long enough for that to happen,” August tried, “Besides, I think I’m getting better at dealing with the information, so it might not be so overwhelming next time—”

“Next time?” Kalter interjected. “Didn’t I tell you that I’m the one who decides?”

August stared at her in stunned silence and tried to muster up the willpower to explain that he hadn’t been threatening to—she was smiling.

“That’s not even funny,” August said, breathing a rush of air out of his nose at the expression. “I meant next time anybody gets too close to me—you know I did.”

“I know,” Kalter said, the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Careful though, you’ve told me your weakness, so I’ll have to use it against you if you try anything again.”

Again—as if the previous attempt to grab her had been anything except concern for her immediate health.

“You don’t even need to exploit a weakness to take me down,” August said, rubbing at his face in a poor attempt to wipe the heat away. “But don’t worry, the next time you’re about to eat something that might be poisonous, I’ll make sure to cheer you on from the sidelines.”

Kalter snorted at the words before moving the saw back into place against the post—something that almost drew a sigh of relief out of him. August watched as she finally began the cut, and while the embarrassment lingered on, he did feel better about the whole situation.