@drstmbrg. gets a reply! ╱ here.
𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐊 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐊 as Arnold stalked over to it, pulling the file from beneath her hands and closing it firmly. She had never known the professor to be an angry sort, or a person who really ever got heated over much, but in that moment-- if looks could kill-- they’d be attending a funeral tomorrow.
It wasn’t that Margaret was trying to ignore Lilly’s warning about Arnold’s preference to do this alone or that she was purposefully ignoring Arnold’s own admittance that this wasn’t something he wanted to share with her, she just genuinely wanted to help. Margaret never claimed to be anything but a rather nosy and intrusive sort; it was a curse. Something she was trying, albeit a bit halfheartedly, to work on but-- so far she failed. Slowly, she leaned back away from the desk and took a half step back around to the front of it, watching Arnold as those eyes bore into her and his voice came out in almost graveled frustration and anger.
“I just thought-- I just thought an extra pair of eyes couldn’t hurt,” she explained almost shyly, shoulders hunching slightly in an attempt to diffuse the situation-- and her guilt. Large eyes drift to the folder then back up to the man she had always considered more like a brother than a friend. Had she ruined that for them? Had she gone too far, finally? Oh, how she hoped not. Her hands flexed nervously before she reached up with her right hand to pull her hair behind her ear and began twirling a loose curls between her finger. It was a nervous habit she had adapted from her childhood habit of toying with her nasal cannula; she had had to busy her hands somehow and so she took to toying with her hair instead. “I’m sorry,” her voice was quiet and meeker than her usually confident and upbeat tone and she looked at Arnold with an ashamed look of guilt and regret.