[Ren's apartment.]
Ren had easily read as many books as Hannah had. They'd been his saving grace stuck in fancy boarding schools where he'd never entirely fit in. He'd learned how to hide behind those books, because staying quiet, reading all the time, these things kept him from having to make friends with boys who were more English than he was, who belonged there, who weren't just there because of their parents money, but also their own titles, things that they would be granted automatically. And they hadn't had magic, most importantly, and so they could find common ground in the weight of shared expectations, but never completely, and it was easier to find a book, and to be known as quiet than to be known. And having read them he didn't disagree. It sounded ideal, and deep down, he craved it, but it also sounded like an ideal- something he didn't think was going to exist for him.
"I don't know how to do that," he told her, because that seemed really true. He had told Louis some things, he'd tried to be more open about who he'd been once upon a time, but he knew he hadn't told him nearly everything, and there was also the fact that sometimes who he was felt like a malleable thing, shifting between who he wanted to try to be, and who he tended to be when he didn't try so hard. He'd tried to be that person with Louis, because he'd assumed Louis would like that person better, everyone usually did. And he didn't know what to say to the idea that Louis might have liked the other him better, largely because there was still this question in his mind of who that person was, even, although he supposed Hannah had gotten a glimpse of him. He squeezed her fingers back, but didn't shift his position.
"Halloween, I was this magician that was trying to take over the world, Hannah, and it wasn't me, but it also felt more like me than I sometimes feel day-to-day, and I'm not certain I like what that says about me." When he tried to think about who the real Ren was, he felt like he only had glimpses, moments when he felt most himself, and so much of the rest of it felt like a performance. It was ideas and words and lines and bits - not anything he felt as if he could solidly relate to another person. He'd been hoping that he could figure that out here in Repose, and instead, he just felt as if he were not any further than he'd been before.
"Who am I to you?" It felt like a strange question to ask, but it seemed important.