Re: Derek's place: Derek/Marta
Changing herself was what she'd been trying to do for a while now, in one way or another. When she was younger, trying to change herself into someone more self-assured and who didn't care what other people thought - someone that could stand up for herself and take the shit that life had sent her way. Brash and bold and loud - that was who she'd made herself into. And that had been good, for a few years. But then life tried to turn her into a mother, and she couldn't make that change as easily. She couldn't make it at all, in her mind, and she'd run from it. Run and changed again, but into someone that continually chose the wrong path. Turning toward hurt and pain and then trying to lose the pain again, though it all came due to her own choices. And now, she'd traveled far enough to start to escape that, but her next steps were toward something that was completely unknown to her. She didn't know who to be anymore. "I don't know how," she finally admitted. "Who to be."
It was hard, sometimes, talking to Derek and understanding the other woman. Not because the words were too hard, but because the feeling and meaning behind them was so foreign. It was obvious that Derek had lived a very different life to the one that Marta had known, and sometimes it was like they'd come from entirely different planets, with how little Marta understood. Made even more difficult when her own mind put in its worthless two cents, interpreting things in ways that made her mind jerk in reaction before she forcibly reined it back again (a process that was ongoing and that she hadn't yet mastered). Like the way that not anyone having her didn't mean no one having her. She sat a moment with the difference of it and the the knee-jerk reaction it caused. Fighting the undertow of what others would call self-hatred - the voice that said if anyone wanted her for anything, she should agree. The voice that was memory, saying she was good for only one thing, asking why she would try for anything else...
Derek changing the subject was welcome. She'd meant to ask questions about the other woman - to learn more about the person who was employer, landlord, roommate? And after her conversation with Hannah, she was wondering if Derek might also count as a friend. (And a tiny, quiet part of her mind questioned the thought of something more...) But everything stopped short at the mention of hunting. "What?"