Oh boy that's a tough one. Noel blows out air, thinking.
"Well, uh... there's rememberin' it for that reason, and then there's rememberin' it to hurt yourself. It's figuring out which kind of remembering you're doing that's the, the trick." And he realises he's assuming a lot about a kid he doesn't know, and adds: "Maybe you already got that fact figured out, I- I dunno."
Well, if he looks at Edwin when sharing that last addition, he'll find the kid giving him puppy eyes to rival the actual dogs in the room. No, Noel, he had not gotten that fact figured out, he didn't even know that was a fact in the offing.
Oh boy, that look. It's so earnest, and it makes him feel like he's actually helped some, and makes him want to help more. It breaks his heart, sometimes, that he'll never get a look like that from a child of his own. He loves Charlie, don't get him wrong, but that doesn't mean he never tried to do things the way you're supposed to, or that he doesn't long after... you know. Children. A wedding. A white picket fence. It is what it is.
He gives the boy an encouraging smile, a warm one, while he fiddles with his own section of the yarn.
Edwin finally looks down at the closest kitten again. He touches its ears as delicately as he knows how, to watch the way they bend with barely any pressure.
"I... It's so-- It's so complicated all the time. Being... accountable and remembering what I used to be and remembering what he did, but not... not hating myself for things he did and remembering that I'm me because I didn't want to be him, that I chose to be something different, and also not forgetting the things I did wrong figuring that out, because I don't want to do them again."
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"Well, uh... there's rememberin' it for that reason, and then there's rememberin' it to hurt yourself. It's figuring out which kind of remembering you're doing that's the, the trick." And he realises he's assuming a lot about a kid he doesn't know, and adds: "Maybe you already got that fact figured out, I- I dunno."
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He gives the boy an encouraging smile, a warm one, while he fiddles with his own section of the yarn.
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"I... It's so-- It's so complicated all the time. Being... accountable and remembering what I used to be and remembering what he did, but not... not hating myself for things he did and remembering that I'm me because I didn't want to be him, that I chose to be something different, and also not forgetting the things I did wrong figuring that out, because I don't want to do them again."