made in His image.

failure. you try. it's all you ever do. but it's never good enough. you always have and always will attempt to reach for something that even you know you will never obtain, even just for one second of validation. but you will never reach it, and success will always be just out of your reach.

he tries not to slip into what jane half-affectionately calls his preacher thing. he knows dane doesn't like it. he thinks it's fake, mark thinks. dane has a tendency to bring up deep conversations like they're no big deal, and mark has a tendency to turn everything into a deep conversation, and that combination oftentimes leads them here, back to back, mark's head resting where dane's shoulders meet. lydia's not around to listen, but it's easier (easier to form sentences, words, thoughts) when mark doesn't have to look at him. "i don't think you have a role. i don't think anyone does. we can do whatever we want, technically."

i actually think he also has a lot of bitterness about the role he's in re: being Such A Good Kid as well. like during his meltdown, he tears into lydia (head counselor at promise)--"you've already read my letters, why don't you tell everyone?" and "if you want me to discuss my father, just say so"; i think because he's pretty obfuscatory, he gets put off when other people do it to him lol

"i wouldn't consider myself anything like that. i just have a good memory." it's something people expect him to feel pride over, but it's just a fact of his life, no more worthy of ego than anything else he was born with. he learned humility at the same time he learned to speak. "i'm really not any more intelligent than anyone else is, i just remember things i read."

he doesn't get embarrassed very easily. he's cognizant that this is something that would make people look at him in that way they do, drawing those glances he's gotten since he was five years old and reading the king james version. he carries crushes with less embarrassment than he's probably supposed to, his affection for the world and the people in it curled around his shoulders, until he thinks about them for longer than he thinks he should. speaking aloud about them doesn't spark embarrassment, but it does spark shame. "not embarrassing, i just don't have anything particularly exciting to share. you sound like you do, though."

of course he watched the interview -- he scrolls back through it in his mind, looks for any moment he could imagine someone viewing negatively, but his ability to empathize can only go so far. je'von's got any audience wrapped around his finger, present company included. "i thought it went really well. the rest of your interviews must be really impressive, then."

"i will." he's been here longer than almost everyone else, long enough to know that everyone who's ever left aged out before they were deemed ready. if that holds true, dane's not due out for another couple years, but still before mark. he doesn't think either of them intend to be here when they turn eighteen, but he tries not to feel the future's feelings before their time. "i miss everyone when they leave. you're all really great people."