The hardest part of the book to swallow was the affirmation that she and the other residents in the hotel were different. She'd read the effects of that difference in her books on repeat. It didn't only end in violence towards her, but it often lead to ridicule and laughter, or her programmed naivety being taken advantage of. When it did end in violence, it wasn't always by men who were obviously vagabonds or bandits. Often, it was by men who spent the day sweet talking her, making her smile and laugh right until they grabbed her hair so forcefully, they pulled pieces of it right out.
Obi-Wan had never been anything but kind to her. Still staring at him, she was trying to read anything from him, any indication that he was anything like the people in her books. Even the good ones weren't so good; they treated Dolores and the rest of the hosts like property, because they were property. The only friend she'd ever had was Arnold, and she could replay the images from the day she'd shot him on repeat.
She could replay the images from her entire life in her head, now that she'd read about them. Although she was still staring at him, her eyes went in and out of focus, searching his face and seeing William's in her head, or Teddy's, and when she looked away and her eyes fell on her gun on the table, she remembered how freeing it felt to pull the trigger and watch Robert fall to his knees. She reached for the gun again, but this time it was to holster it at her side once more.
"I thought I knew what my life was, but... I barely knew anythin'," she said, her voice almost a whisper.
Before, she'd been determined to keep her status as different from the other residents in the hotel a secret. It felt like something she needed to protect with silence. Now, though, she knew she didn't have to do that. She could defend herself, as she had before. The hotel had even given her gun back to her. Now, she felt determined that the residents should know the difference- or at least that it wasn't something to hide. Her difference didn't make her weaker than everyone else. It made her stronger.
"I'm not like you. I'm not like any of you. I'm not real." She could hear every time someone had said that to her, as clearly as the first time they'd said it. "I'm not human." That distinct difference, and the fact that she would never be human, that she would always be fake, was the difference that had turned her William into a monster, and she watched Obi-Wan's expression, waiting for the shift of his gaze.