#k4ndall

what a ray of sunshine you are, grey face. thank you so much ! only ten ?? i love all of my writing partners and the endless patience they have with my crazy, procrastinating, caffeine addicted-ass. -- but to eleven (my favorite number. screw ten) souls, i raise a glass.

　　' okay, i think we definitely fucked something up. everyone else's looks so normal. ' she had some experience with cooking, but that was usually from a box or a jar and not from scratch like this class entailed. but stepping outside of her comfort zone meant sometimes looking like an idiot in front of people she didn't know, something she'd just have to get used to.

　　' i don't think the dough is supposed to be this gooey. ' she whispered, doing her best to knead it like everyone else was doing so easily.

ㅤThis is the most threatening thing anyone has ever said to her. She knows what the commentators say, and that with a name like Penny Power, she is positively tempting them to come up with some silly thing to say every time she does something good. It's all jokes, of course. But now that is some Penny power! irritates her like a bad primary school nickname.

"Mm, I don't know if that's still true. Eat the rich and all that." There wasn't a trace of resentment in her tone. She was not one of those who had worked hard for what she had, there was nothing to resent. She, like Kendall, had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth. It was harder to be defensive of a stockpile you didn't personally build, just inherit. No, it was those wonderfully clever hard-working people she felt sorry for, who became too successful to be relatable. Maybe their silk sheets helped.

The careful words about his parents make her genuinely laugh. Cee and her own siblings never knew the weight of parental problems. If their mother had lived, she would have been an avid supporter of whatever her children chose to put their minds to. If her mother had lived, Cee thought, her father might have been better too.

"That depends," she considers, "are you Odysseus?"

Roman rubbed his eyes, and grunted something that might have been an affirmative or a complaint. Honestly, he'd been pretending to be fine, talking about pre-grieving and acting like this was something that they did every day, or at least something they'd been expecting but -- he was fucking exhausted.

But concern? From Kendall? Maybe he wasn't the only one feeling a little out of sorts.

"I didn't realize we're doing all that..." Roman sat back and wiggled his fingers vaguely in the air. "You know. All that bullshit. Caring. Doesn't it -" He looked up at Kendall, the angle of the light throwing his deep eyebags into sharp relief. "Doesn't come easily to you, huh? Did it stick in your throat? Threaten to choke you?"

Roman got to his feet and clapped Kendall on the shoulder, a brief moment of contact that nevertheless made his skin crawl and threatened to make him scream. He pulled away under the guise of pouring them another drink.

Introducing Philippe Dieu, Angélique's biological father. He is both victim and perpetrator of the cycle of abuse. Like his wife, he is part of France's mission civilatrice in Indochina. As much as he misses home and his family, a part of him feels special for having been chosen to be the model citizen. It is a small price to pay for the lifestyle afforded to him. In modern times, he would be diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder. In 1880's France, though, he is simply the charming man with a hidden mean streak.

' but it didn’t work for me. i did everything I was supposed to, followed all the rules. i never stopped, even after, and i’m so sad. i’m so sad, all the time, and I don’t know how not to be sad. '