Re: [Orchard: Bea & Holly]
He didn't know her enough to know she was trying to modulate her voice and keep it chill, but he always did that. He didn't know what the version of him that had lived here was like, not beyond things Noah had said and things he picked up from around town, but he kinda did wonder sometimes if that guy had been reserved or gregarious. It was strange, you know, knowing that a version of him had existed here, and that everyone seemed intent on believing that he was him. He kinda felt like Travis in that moment, because Travis always questioned his other reality. Holly had never questioned that he was who he was, but he was kinda there right at this moment.
"I don't need you to pretend anything. Look, I'm serious when I tell you that I remember what I remember, and it isn't what you remember. I ended up in the woods here, wandering, and the military picked me up and grilled me for, like, three days," he said, and he was trying to be as honest with her as he could be, because she deserved it. He raked a hand through his long hair, and he stopped walking when she did. He tried to soften his voice, but he mostly sounded more deadpan than usual. "Noah says your Holly died like a year ago. I even talked to someone who knew him from work, this guy named Adrian, and he said the same thing." Calmly. "I'm not dead."
He was standing there, right? Also, not dead. He didn't bring the divorce up again. "I didn't know you in my timeline. I didn't go to school with you. I don't know why or where you were there." He paused for a second. "Where I'm from, my mom died when I was a kid. I know she's alive here, and I know she has a drinking problem. Do you see her at all?" It seemed like a safe thing to move to after talking about her dead husband, and he was really sorry that guy was dead. It would probably solve a lot of problems if he wasn't dead.