When the Spanish is parrotted back at her Marta smiles. It's always soft, with this girl, but there's a density to it, every time. A perceptible weight.

She can feel how it unsettles him. "I know. You didn't trick me into it." But it matters, to him, so it matters to her. Together, now or together, not now. The together part cannot be extracted from the rest. It feels like it could be considered by others as an extreme, except for the part where Marta remembers that everyone else he's ever known clearly picked the not at all... with no other caveats... at every given opportunity.

"If I say no, I don't want it to be special. It's because you say special like it's a Christmas candy. Too sweet, too syrupy. Sticks to the roof of the mouth. And I don't want that. And if I say yes, that it will be special to me. Because it's you. You will go back into the water. So I'm not saying either." Marta takes a breath and forces herself to stand, putting her hands on his shoulders to balance as she shifts her weight from one leg to the other.