The minute shifts in his feelings didn't pass her by even if he didn't say anything about them. With her being this close, it was impossible for her not to notice, not to feel them, and not to immediately want to fix it. Such was just her way. He might not have realized it, but in a way, he was doing exactly what she needed, pulling her out of her own head, making her not dwell. It was a coping mechanism, designed to keep her sane. So long as she was dealing with other people and their baggage, she was safe from having to deal with her own.
"Yes, they can, if they want to," or at least so she believed. "And if you let them." That was perhaps the hardest part of the statement for her. Tracey had literally been forced to knock down the walls she built for her own protection. Maybe she'd be better off if she could manage to put them back up. Except she'd lived that life already, lived the closed off way, and found that it was not only unfulfilling, it was friggin' lonely. Violet didn't like lonely. Born in a household that became twice the size of most with a contingent of eight people, she didn't understand personal space or privacy or boundaries until she was thrown out. Then she'd built a box around herself until a chain smoking health nut drug facilitator decided he wanted all of her and that was it. "But that's hard."
Jesus how many languages did a person really need? The idea of speaking that many different things just made her feel a little dizzy. "I got Spanish and English and my English isn't even that good most of the time." Even after speaking it for 20 years, Violet didn't read very well in English. Her Spanish was better, but not by much. This was what happened when you only went to school intermittantly and then dropped out at an early age, you get a shitty education. Violet had to shake her head at the memory, pushing it away. So what...she'd survived. As long as she was still surviving, what difference did it really make?