one death: tragedy / a million a statistic / incommensurate

[roc_on]

Beila gives Dao space. He is extremely right that she's not the best person to be sad about his dead serial killer friend with and that seems to be his principal occupation, so - space.

Comments

[roc_on]

"Yeah. ...which kind of bothers me."

[thinklikethis]

"...What do you mean?"

[roc_on]

"I dunno, I just - don't really understand you, and maybe you don't really understand me, and I'm not sure we have a way to fix that?"

[thinklikethis]

"Do we need to? Like, is that a thing that needs to be fixed?"

[roc_on]

"It's not the end of the world if we don't or anything but it might keep bothering me."

[thinklikethis]

"Well... I don't know what to do about that," he says.

[roc_on]

"Me either."

[thinklikethis]

"I guess I don't know... why you want to know what being me is like? Being me kinda sucks."

[roc_on]

"I like understanding things. Even things that suck. And I'm your girlfriend, I was expecting at some point I'd - know more about you on a deeper level than I've managed? I don't know if that was a realistic expectation or if I'm just being impatient or what."

[thinklikethis]

"I mean... if there's something you want me to explain, I can try? I'm just not sure it's going to work. I feel like... there are a lot of experiences in my life that you don't share, and most of them are bad experiences, and I don't know how to explain what they're like to somebody who, like, doesn't really have a 'hate yourself' setting as far as I can tell."

[roc_on]

"I... don't have that lever, no..."

[thinklikethis]

"Yeah. So. I have one and it sucks and I don't really know how to explain how it works in a way that makes sense when you don't have one."

[roc_on]

"I don't like assuming that my boyfriend is fundamentally never going to make sense to me."

[thinklikethis]

"I... guess I can see how that wouldn't be the greatest thing, yeah..."

[roc_on]

"Do I make sense to you? Or seem like I might eventually...?"

[thinklikethis]

"I mean, mostly, yeah?"

[roc_on]

"Mm?"

[thinklikethis]

"...The way you work is really different from the way I work but it makes sense when I try to figure it out, it's just hard to wrap my head around sometimes because you're so... I guess 'lucky'? All these problems that I have and you don't, like hating myself and being afraid of myself and, and weird serial killer feelings."

[roc_on]

The ice in Beila's smoothie has melted too much. She refreezes it. "Well, I guess that's something..."

[thinklikethis]

Shrug. Sigh.

[roc_on]

"If somebody'd asked me before I met you, 'hey, there's this guy you could date, he's good company and kinks conveniently and he's cute but you will never get how his brain works,' I would've probably said 'no thanks'."

[thinklikethis]

"Uh," says Dao.

[roc_on]

"Probably shouldn't've said that out loud."

[thinklikethis]

"Well. I guess that depends," he says. "If this is the kind of thing where I need to figure out how to explain how my brain works or you'll break up with me, then it seems like a good idea for me to know that."

[roc_on]

"I mean, I don't want to phrase it as an ultimatum like that, that would be awful, I'm just - wondering if - this is it, this is the level of romantic intimacy the two of us are capable of."