Re: [The grills: Castor & Pollux]
"Everything we do is a choice, but I don't think it's that simple. We choose things, eeny, meeny, miny, moe, and we do it to the best of our abilities. We do things because we think they're right, or because they're right for us, and we put our choices out into the world, and if that was all there was to it then it would be like you say. But that isn't all there is to it. Other people pick our choices up in their hands, and they make our choices theirs. Intent goes out the window and goodbye, and whatever we did becomes theirs to interpret. Maybe we meant to be kind, but they take it as something mean. Maybe we meant to be funny, but it makes them sad. Maybe something that wasn't meant to be evil is twisty-turned until it's terrible. What we meant doesn't matter anymore, and it's been given away. Are we responsible if something we did out of good is taken as bad?" It was philosophical, but Hannah didn't see philosophy in her own words. She saw things she'd learned, truths, and they were small and tiny things to her. They were things to be discussed as the sun went down and over pineapples.
But, books! Hannah loved the words between spines and nestled in pages. "I'm Cathy, too," she added, leaning toward him and whisper, whisper conspiratorial. Her twinkle-bright smile said she knew he didn't like Cathy as much as he liked Anne Shirley, but that was okay. Hannah knew she was an acquired taste, and she'd learned that days and weeks and months ago. "You can be a round peg too, but only if you convince me of it." She was teasing, but there was a glint of truth in it. "You seem so very fitting. Like you fit in the world we live in," she said, speaking with her usual candor.
Hannah didn't mind eye contact. She stared and looked and was entirely focused on the man sipping his beer beside her. Her beer bottle was at her side and forgotten in favor of the conversation, and she nudged his foot with her bare toes when he became serious. The tap of toes interrupted the retrieval of his cigarettes, and then he was cooking the kabobs and she was watching. "Not hiding is hard. People can reject us if we crack our spines and put our words out there for everyone to see. Or, and sometimes this is worst, people can misinterpret us. I say I'm yellow, and someone I meet might think I'm blue, and it's really hard to make them understand that, to me, I'm yellow." It was pretty language, but the meaning was there in brush strokes. "I think everyone hides at least a little bit," she countered. "Don't you hide, at least a little bit?"
Books were always good to go back to, and the train rounded the track and returned to the station. She climbed off the bench and hopped onto the grass, and she glanced down at the kabobs as they sizzled over the coals. The world wavered in the heat, and she always liked the distortion. "The first book I read was Pride & Prejudice. I don't know why it was that one, but it was, and I mostly kept reading because I was really annoyed by some of the characters inside it." She tipped her head, ear to shoulder and curiosity close, close. "Why are you here?" she asked, and she wasn't afraid to ask. "Not here, with me. But here, in Repose."