"Those two fields are very close in America," Malcolm observes. "I don't know if your world ended before or after the kids in cages at the border debacle but you wouldn't have been short of work."
"I know the feeling," Malcolm tells her. "Not on an apocalyptic scale, obviously, but... things I wanted as a child just... slipped away after I found out what my father was. Whoever that boy could have been never had a chance after one event changed everything. When Jesus told me about your world, I just thought... imagine that but... for literally everyone."
The raise of an eyebrow is about all the warning he's likely to get.
"Actually, you don't," she says, stopping abruptly in the aisle to face him. Her voice is tense but calm, and very, very even.
"Just like I don't know how it feels to be abused like that by someone you should have been able to trust. You can't imagine it. Even if I stood here and told you every detail about it you still couldn't fucking imagine it, because you weren't there. You didn't lose everyone you know. You didn't walk until your feet were raw, you didn't starve until you were eating pine bark for days, you didn't lose feeling in parts of your hands because they froze, just to name a few things. And, quite honestly, fuck you for trying to bridge it over to being the same."
God she hates this. She hates all of this. And every time she thinks maybe she misses the old world enough to try to remember how to be that person again, she runs facefirst into a wall that's invisible, apparently, for everyone else.
She shakes her head, and turns to go back the way they came.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"But Dallas."
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It feels like it happened to someone else.
"Immigration."
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There are no human rights, no countries, no governments where she's from. No laws, and no rooms in which to argue them.
She shrugs. "That girl is only a little less dead than the rest."
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"Actually, you don't," she says, stopping abruptly in the aisle to face him. Her voice is tense but calm, and very, very even.
"Just like I don't know how it feels to be abused like that by someone you should have been able to trust. You can't imagine it. Even if I stood here and told you every detail about it you still couldn't fucking imagine it, because you weren't there. You didn't lose everyone you know. You didn't walk until your feet were raw, you didn't starve until you were eating pine bark for days, you didn't lose feeling in parts of your hands because they froze, just to name a few things. And, quite honestly, fuck you for trying to bridge it over to being the same."
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“That’s not what I was trying to do. But. I’m sorry for it anyway, because that’s how it affected you, regardless of what I intended,” he replies.
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God she hates this. She hates all of this. And every time she thinks maybe she misses the old world enough to try to remember how to be that person again, she runs facefirst into a wall that's invisible, apparently, for everyone else.
She shakes her head, and turns to go back the way they came.
"Fuck it."
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“…Are you hanging up on me now?” he asks.
He’s really asking, because it seems like it would be rude to go after her if she just wants away.
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But just in case: "I'm done."
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