[Of course she does - and of course, she does so without thinking. Her eyes are dry, her tears are gone, but she makes her decision based on feeling rather than logic nevertheless. And it doesn't feel wrong. It feels perfect. Effortless.]
[It takes a moment before she realizes what she's done, before she understands that the more-or-less cylindrical shape between her palms is a pencil, before she recognizes the sight, feel, smell of it, before all the sense memories of school come back to her, before she can even begin to understand what he means. But when she looks up at him, when she meets his eyes, there is comprehension there.]
[He didn't have to say a word.]
[It would be easy to snap the pencil in half. She doesn't do that, either. Instead, she gets up and carefully puts it on the desk with the rest of her writing utensils and then stands beside her bed, leaving the teddy bear sitting back against the wall on top of the comforter. Her chest moves with her breathing, slow and steady.]
Labels, [she says,] and assumptions.
You keep teaching me the same things. I keep missing them.
[She isn't berating herself, exactly. Just realizing a truth and putting it out in the open, where it belongs. Maybe learning something about herself, a little self-knowledge, a quiet revelation.]
[ Spam ]
[Of course she does - and of course, she does so without thinking. Her eyes are dry, her tears are gone, but she makes her decision based on feeling rather than logic nevertheless. And it doesn't feel wrong. It feels perfect. Effortless.]
[It takes a moment before she realizes what she's done, before she understands that the more-or-less cylindrical shape between her palms is a pencil, before she recognizes the sight, feel, smell of it, before all the sense memories of school come back to her, before she can even begin to understand what he means. But when she looks up at him, when she meets his eyes, there is comprehension there.]
[He didn't have to say a word.]
[It would be easy to snap the pencil in half. She doesn't do that, either. Instead, she gets up and carefully puts it on the desk with the rest of her writing utensils and then stands beside her bed, leaving the teddy bear sitting back against the wall on top of the comforter. Her chest moves with her breathing, slow and steady.]
Labels, [she says,] and assumptions.
You keep teaching me the same things. I keep missing them.
[She isn't berating herself, exactly. Just realizing a truth and putting it out in the open, where it belongs. Maybe learning something about herself, a little self-knowledge, a quiet revelation.]