Re: [Ren's apartment.]
Hannah didn't want ideal. Amy had never possessed ideal. Ideal wasn't something that had happened in Amy's life, and Hannah found she didn't yearn for it. Maybe she could've, would've. Maybe, at first, it was all she'd wanted, to be normal. But, more and more, she wanted to be herself, and she wanted to be herself, free and safe, and so she understood a little bit, maybe. She understood what it was to be different, to have secrets. She understood. And she knew what it was to hide who you were. But, too, she knew that no one could do that with everyone. Even she couldn't, and she knew Ren couldn't. Even if he wanted to be something different, to be a different character upon the pages of his book, he was still who he was.
"I think it's something you have to learn," she said of being open, of being oneself. She liked to think she could do it with the right person. She hadn't found that person yet, but she wanted to believe they existed. Someone she could tell, that hadn't found out through other means, and who still looked at her as they had before she said the words. That hadn't happened yet, but she understood that anything else she built was built on clouds. "I think if we don't show the people we love who we are, who we really are, then our relationships are built on air. They have no real foundation, because those people we pretend to be, they don't really exist," she said, her voice soft and her slur prominent. Drunk, sober, she believed what she was saying.
He mentioned Halloween, and she was drawn back to that bonfire and the person that hadn't wanted to befriend her. It made her think of Christmas, and the Santa that hadn't gifted her anything. Hannah wasn't doing real well with people recently, and she had to blink and shake the thoughts from her head. He was talking about Halloween, and she shook her head again. "It says you're a strong person, because you don't actually end the world or try to take it over. You have all these powers, and you're scared to use them. A bad person would just do it, Ren. They'd give in and use it to their advantage," she said, sure and sure and sure, and then his question came, and she was surprised.
She was quiet, considering, and maybe the silence dragged and drew itself out, but she wanted to think before she spoke. It felt important. "You're my friend. You're someone I care about, and you're someone who cares about me. Why?"