Gabriel paused at her squeaked outburst and turned to look at her. "That's funny... I was here trying to figure out how to apologize to you for sounding rude. I don't hate you or anything like that." This had all gotten entirely out of hand very very quickly. He wasn't even sure how it all came about really.

Leaning against the table he looked to her, wondering how it would be best to fix this mess. If it was a fixable mess at all anyway...

“Okay,” Annie replied, taking a step back from the table and turning to look Gabriel in the face, as if to verify whether or not he was speaking the truth. He seemed to really mean what he said, which, at once, made her feel both foolish and relieved. There was a pack of pixies darting around violently in her belly, and she wasn't sure she could feel any more socially inept, but truly believing that this boy didn't hate her was a start. “Okay. Okay. So, um... I'm just going to go, and you promise you're not mad at me, right?” she asked, grabbing her bag and taking a few painfully slow steps toward the door. The question was mostly rhetorical, but she wanted to give him the opportunity to take back what he'd said, just in case he realized she was, in fact, a total freak. Ugh. She supposed this was what it felt like to believe you were going to die alone at the age of sixteen.

“Okay, um,” she muttered. Even as slowly as she was slinking across the room, she was approaching the door, and soon she'd have decide whether she wanted to pass through it or stick around. She really could not take another second of this near tangible awkwardness. With a rather half-hearted, non-commital wave, Annie pushed the door open and stepped outside, slamming it shut behind her so she couldn't change her mind. She stood for about three seconds outside of the door before the truly awkward nature of what just happened set in. Wincing, she jogged down the hall and back toward the Salem dorms.