Try to talk her down.

You're cornered with nowhere to run, and a furious animal, nearly a decade your elder and with **** in her glare, stalks closer. You consider your limited options given your fuck-up, look her up and down as she stalks near, and try to think of the most calming things you might say right now.

"I'll stay late and alone to fix this!"

"You'd fall asleep before you ever found it, you little-"

"You can trust me-"

"Like Hell, you... you tiny-dicked little shit!" You flinch at words so unbecoming of this setting. Her eyebrow twitches only slightly, failing to break the pattern of rage that wrinkles her brow. Your stomach twists as this newfound mask of fury draws near. "It amazes me," she says with an unsteady calm, "how incompetent men in my generation have proven. I think back to what my parents went through, and all the stories of heroism and hard work... and somehow men like you are what've crawled out: no loyalty, no sense and no balls; can't even find a fucking notice of appearance, a single piece of paper you yourself probably fucking misfiled in the first place-"

"... Your generation?" It slips out of you, a bit dumbfounded and half-amused at her considering you to be close to her age. In truth, she's right, and you normally wouldn't have said anything aloud... and now you regret it as her eyes go wide, astounded at your audacity. "I-I mean yeah... but... we're not all so-"

"Don't even start with your bullshit excuses, Derek, I've heard them all and I don't care!"

As much as you worry for self-preservation, especially now that your back is against the far cabinet, a spiteful retort forms in your mind, one that, of course, you don't say aloud:

Man, you gotta feel sorry for Mr. Lemmings.

She stops dead in her track, and her face flinches as if slapped. Her next words whisper like a knife in the dark. "What did you just say?"

You blink at her, terrified anew. "I mean we're not all incompetent, this is just-"

"Don't you-" She shivers with rage as she speaks, "don't you... FUCK with me, Derek! What do you know about that miserable... adulterous... worthless little shithead I once called a husband! No one should feel sorry for 'Mista Lemmings', you cocksucker!" She looks ready to crucify you for what you said... but you didn't say it. You're sure you didn't. You thought it, certainly, and intensely and spitefully so. But your mouth was consciously sealed to prevent it from leaving. So how- "How... How dare you?"

"I didn't-"

"So you know, don't you?" Your hands raise defensively as she inches closer, merely three feet away now. "You found out how I live, huh? Who told you? Xenia? I thought she knew better than to open her mouth like that."

{if Xenia_slave = true}"W-Well," you almost chuckle out nervously, "I can tell you she opens her mouth for more than-"{else@}"X-Xenia? I don't know what you-"{endif}

"Shut up." You stare at one another in silence, her in boiling rage and you in animal fear. "Yes, he did cheat on me and, yes," she says slowly, more gravely as she continues, "I'm stuck living on a friend's couch, basically homeless, all thanks to him and his idiot friends kicking me out of my own home. But you have no right... no..." She points her index finger at you, mere inches from your nose. "You're worse, aren't you?" She chuckles slow and low, and some epiphany casts a shadow over her eyes.