<em>~Mila, at dinner with everyone~</em><br/><br/>Mila realized, as she looked down at her lap and listened to the silence that followed Bo's statement, that she wanted to flee to the safety of her room more than anything else in that moment.  Surely they would understand if she just said she was tired from the travel.  About to stand, she felt Marcus' hand on her knee.  That simple show of support was what kept her seated.  As badly as she just wanted to be alone and sort out her feelings, there were others here that she had to live with, and she could not hide from them, not if she wanted them to be her family.<br/><br/>Listening to everyone react, Mila kept looking down, blinking back tears.  She heard Mari try to lighten the mood, Nicci struggle to come with with a solution, and Marcus try to make peace.  She felt like all of this was her fault; if she hadn't been flirting so openly with Vince, none of this would have happened.  She struggled to fight the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.  She shouldn't have come here.  Blake had been right when he'd called her a slut and a whore.  Maybe she should have listened to her mother and sought redemption from the Church rather than seeking something like this out.  She still would never think of a polyamorous family as an abomination, but perhaps it just wasn't for her.  Here was the one place that she had thought her desires would be understood, but she'd been wrong.<br/><br/>And then she heard the challenge in Vince's voice when he confronted Bo, and could not help the single tear that rolled off her face onto her lap.  God, she didn't want them to fight!  She resolved even more not to look up, mortified that she was crying in front of these strangers.  Tears had not been allowed in her father's home, seen as a sign of weakness.  And Blake had not liked displays of emotion, either.  Mila was used to hiding her feelings from others, and fought to contain them now.  The lump in her throat was painful, but she would not cry, not now where it might incur more wrath.  She swallowed, and then swallowed again, repeating her mantra over and over to herself.<em>Don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry.</em><br/><br/>From the corner of her eye, she saw Marcus' hand in his lap.  Only a few moments before, she had felt like he was the one who she didn't know, but now she had a feeling that he would easily accept her need.  Surreptitiously, she slipped her hand into his, silently imploring him to understand her need for comfort in that moment.  In her adult life, she had not had anyone else to turn to when she was hurt, but here, maybe she wasn't so alone.<br/><br/>And then, Vince said something that made her startle enough to look up at him.<em>I've been in polies that died from guidelines.</em>Well, shit.  He'd been in poly relationships that hadn't worked before?  It was the one thing that she had been completely unprepared for, that the people here had tried polyamory in the past.  And it was the one thing that frightened her more than anything else.  He'd tried such relationships<em>and they had failed.</em>It was a huge reality check for Mila.  She'd come into this expecting it to all work in the end.  Suddenly, what had started out feeling so very right felt very wrong.