❝...❞ (voice)

[peopletalktome]

[A deep breath, and here we go...]

Well [pause] it seems like a great deal about pain has been discussed already, and it's hard to hit points that haven't been taken care of. I can honestly say that I don't know what to add to the melting pot of ideas and feelings already thrown into the network. Maybe that's a good thing, to think not of pain

Comments

[repeatshimself]

Glee Club, that's like....singing, right?

[peopletalktome]

It's also like dancing. [her smile is evident, even only through audio] But more of the singing so far...for this one at least.

[repeatshimself]

Oh.

Well like according to my mom, people gauge emotional pain based on levels of social acceptance, and that's why teenagers want to fit in.

That and getting tuna smashed into your hair is an experience no one ever wants to repeat.

[peopletalktome]

...please tell me you don't speak from experience with--

...did that happen to you?

[prefers_chess]

You're a teacher?

1/2

[peopletalktome]

Not exactly. I'm the school's guidance counselor.

[peopletalktome]

Well, I was.

Though that employs 'teaching' of a sort.

[prefers_chess]

Figures.

You sound like a guidance counsellor, too.

voice, private//unhackable

[makes_you_tick]

I don't think I've been through the painful situations 'everyone has been through', but you know why. I shut off all my emotions a long time ago.

I think I was running away, actually. Losing my mother hurt badly enough that I just decided to shut my emotions off entirely. I didn't even know.

...I'm glad you have a good example at your school. He sounds like he made the right choice. My mother- adopted mother- always wanted me to be an investment banker. I knew I couldn't do it, that I'd be miserable. But I was never- I never said no for good.

voice, private//unhackable

[peopletalktome]

[There are a number of reasons not to turn her back on him while she's here, and she would not even try to lie and say fear has nothing to do with that. People who come to depend on others who are unstable in any way, much less the multitude of ways Gabriel Gray has admitted to being, can become terrifying more than their implications allow for. She would rather not turn down that road if she can, and in all truth, at the deepest root of things, from all that she knows it is hard to hold him solely accountable. Just because he is the only one left to blame does not mean he is the only one who deserves it. Fathers who sell their children. Women who pretend to be mothers. By comparison, Teri seems tame and kindhearted.

In any case, she pauses before answering, a long pause, thinking and taking in his words.]

Yes, I know. [Regarding emotions.] And that's understandable. Many people would prefer to shut down than to go through...to experience...to...[she pauses again, re-focusing]...to have to be vulnerable to that again. Or even

voice, private//unhackable

[makes_you_tick]

I knew it would've never worked for me. It was what my mother thought I needed to validate my life. I did it here for awhile, actually, just to prove I could- and I was good at it, better than I imagined. But it certainly didn't make me happy.

[Now it's his turn to pause. He's not sure if he really wants to continue, but that's a good sign he should.]

Did I...ever tell you about a man named Chandra Suresh?

voice, private//unhackable

[peopletalktome]

[All this, she notes, even takes notes of, because she has no retentive memory and even though her clientele is fewer and far between here, the ones she does happen to see have a ...great deal of...history to hold onto, as is the present example. Notes are a must.]

No. That name doesn't...doesn't ring a bell.