[ There's only silence in response to that. Julie has a lot of conflicting feelings about it all now. She'd never had a real choice -- it was either Flagg or the store. But she'd liked it, still does. Maybe there was stuff she had to look the other way on, but her life in Vegas had been good, as good as she could have hoped for in that world. And it probably would have lasted much longer if not for some fucking old woman who didn't have the decency to just die when everyone else did.
It wasn't real. It was a lie, a lie that she was special, a lie that he cared, a lie that it was what she deserved, but she'd had it, and what was the alternative, exactly? Why were so many people punished for taking the only opportunity they had? It had to have all meant something, but Julie can't figure out what.
She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, turning that over in her head too. It's hard for Julie to believe that people care about her just because of who she is, instead of what she can provide for them. It's always been her survival mechanism, becoming whatever it is that people need in a bid to make them take care of her. She can't understand why it's different here, why she had to die and be brought to a different world to have that. ]
I know. [ She says it quietly, maybe a bit uncomfortably. The way it comes out when someone was not really raised in an openly affectionate environment. ] It's just... I can handle it all when I don't have to think about it. I can pretend we've always been here, that this place makes sense. It's easier. But when I have to remember it...
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It wasn't real. It was a lie, a lie that she was special, a lie that he cared, a lie that it was what she deserved, but she'd had it, and what was the alternative, exactly? Why were so many people punished for taking the only opportunity they had? It had to have all meant something, but Julie can't figure out what.
She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, turning that over in her head too. It's hard for Julie to believe that people care about her just because of who she is, instead of what she can provide for them. It's always been her survival mechanism, becoming whatever it is that people need in a bid to make them take care of her. She can't understand why it's different here, why she had to die and be brought to a different world to have that. ]
I know. [ She says it quietly, maybe a bit uncomfortably. The way it comes out when someone was not really raised in an openly affectionate environment. ] It's just... I can handle it all when I don't have to think about it. I can pretend we've always been here, that this place makes sense. It's easier. But when I have to remember it...