[she stays there and lets him get it out, because god knows every word he's saying is something that she's thought at least some variation of in her time living alongside A2. when he apologizes, she slowly shakes her head.]
Don't worry about it. I didn't want it either, you know?
[back home, zee, her old boss... he'd wanted her to get therapy. she'd wanted to get therapy with him. but she'd never gotten the chance; she'd just procrastinated it the whole time, and then shit got weird about two years ago, and then six months ago she'd ended up here. so the advice she gives, she knows it's bad. she knows it's not going to be very useful unless it's applied the right way. but she's got just enough of a hangover and just enough skin in this game to think it's a good idea anyway.]
If it helps, you can think of it like trauma. Like when this happened? [she reaches up and lifts her eyepatch. there's no scarring under it, at least, but she does have an almost solid black glass eye underneath the patch. once she's sure he's gotten a look, she flips the eyepatch back down.] There was a hell of an adjustment period. Everything I did was a reminder that my life was different now, you know? Whether I was missing stuff when I went to pick it up or... [a shaky breath.] Or having nightmares of what happened when I lost it, night after night for weeks.
And it was the same thing when A2 moved in, you know? [switch the topic.] She got to my legs first, so I had to re-learn how to walk with legs that didn't quite sync up with the rest of my body yet. When she replaced my heart, I thought I was dying. I don't have a heartbeat anymore, so sometimes my brain still gets confused by that.
I guess what I'm getting at is, like. No matter how good I'm handling it now? It took a lot of work, a lot of getting used to it, and a lot of leaning on people until I was ready to accept it. [and she brings it back to the opening statement, and she does it with familiar weight to the words.] It's traumatic. All of it. Nobody let me apologize for being traumatized, and I'm not gonna let you do it either, dude.
no subject
Don't worry about it. I didn't want it either, you know?
[back home, zee, her old boss... he'd wanted her to get therapy. she'd wanted to get therapy with him. but she'd never gotten the chance; she'd just procrastinated it the whole time, and then shit got weird about two years ago, and then six months ago she'd ended up here. so the advice she gives, she knows it's bad. she knows it's not going to be very useful unless it's applied the right way. but she's got just enough of a hangover and just enough skin in this game to think it's a good idea anyway.]
If it helps, you can think of it like trauma. Like when this happened? [she reaches up and lifts her eyepatch. there's no scarring under it, at least, but she does have an almost solid black glass eye underneath the patch. once she's sure he's gotten a look, she flips the eyepatch back down.] There was a hell of an adjustment period. Everything I did was a reminder that my life was different now, you know? Whether I was missing stuff when I went to pick it up or... [a shaky breath.] Or having nightmares of what happened when I lost it, night after night for weeks.
And it was the same thing when A2 moved in, you know? [switch the topic.] She got to my legs first, so I had to re-learn how to walk with legs that didn't quite sync up with the rest of my body yet. When she replaced my heart, I thought I was dying. I don't have a heartbeat anymore, so sometimes my brain still gets confused by that.
I guess what I'm getting at is, like. No matter how good I'm handling it now? It took a lot of work, a lot of getting used to it, and a lot of leaning on people until I was ready to accept it. [and she brings it back to the opening statement, and she does it with familiar weight to the words.] It's traumatic. All of it. Nobody let me apologize for being traumatized, and I'm not gonna let you do it either, dude.