[ It's surreal. It's one of the awful things that happened to her, sure, but it's... there's a strangeness to feeling the way Jaime has that spike of anger, the resentment. The things that hurt her happened so long ago, and maybe she was never able to forgive those people, and maybe they'd never tried to make amends to her — and all the supports she'd been given were too transitory, too fragile. It had always wound up feeling, in the end, that there was no point to letting herself feel hurt; it wouldn't change anything. In the grand scheme of things, whatever happened to her wouldn't matter, because nobody would stick around long enough for anything like consequences.
You deserved better. Jaime's not the first person to have said it, but it remains a strange thing to hear. ]
... I mean, it was different. I couldn't tell what people were feeling just by being around them. I didn't have that sense, yet. It was just the touch-stuff. [ Like his recipe cards. Like the little carved rabbit he gave her. ] We were on a trip. In Egypt. It was a little, um, vacation we'd planned, a while before, for just the three of us. He'd been acting weird, of course, and wouldn't talk about it... it felt easier to corner him there. He was the kind of person that... wouldn't talk about things, even if you tried to bring it up, if he had any way to avoid it. So I had to... use my power, to prove it.
I made up some story about needing practice, and gave him some totems, and asked him about different things while he held them. Like, his sister, his job, his colleagues in the City. His spouse, his childhood friends. His son. ... His daughter.
[ ... ]
... He didn't realize what I was doing until it was done with. He knew about it, but he didn't really understand. He had all these details, but couldn't sort out which things were important, and which things weren't. We had a lot of arguments, after that, about things, but—[—leaning as they are together, he'll feel the way she tries to shrug her shoulder, as if to dismiss the subject—]—he ended up exPorting about a month later, anyway.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 03:17 am (UTC)[ It's surreal. It's one of the awful things that happened to her, sure, but it's... there's a strangeness to feeling the way Jaime has that spike of anger, the resentment. The things that hurt her happened so long ago, and maybe she was never able to forgive those people, and maybe they'd never tried to make amends to her — and all the supports she'd been given were too transitory, too fragile. It had always wound up feeling, in the end, that there was no point to letting herself feel hurt; it wouldn't change anything. In the grand scheme of things, whatever happened to her wouldn't matter, because nobody would stick around long enough for anything like consequences.
You deserved better. Jaime's not the first person to have said it, but it remains a strange thing to hear. ]
... I mean, it was different. I couldn't tell what people were feeling just by being around them. I didn't have that sense, yet. It was just the touch-stuff. [ Like his recipe cards. Like the little carved rabbit he gave her. ] We were on a trip. In Egypt. It was a little, um, vacation we'd planned, a while before, for just the three of us. He'd been acting weird, of course, and wouldn't talk about it... it felt easier to corner him there. He was the kind of person that... wouldn't talk about things, even if you tried to bring it up, if he had any way to avoid it. So I had to... use my power, to prove it.
I made up some story about needing practice, and gave him some totems, and asked him about different things while he held them. Like, his sister, his job, his colleagues in the City. His spouse, his childhood friends. His son. ... His daughter.
[ ... ]
... He didn't realize what I was doing until it was done with. He knew about it, but he didn't really understand. He had all these details, but couldn't sort out which things were important, and which things weren't. We had a lot of arguments, after that, about things, but—[—leaning as they are together, he'll feel the way she tries to shrug her shoulder, as if to dismiss the subject—]—he ended up exPorting about a month later, anyway.