[ She can think of dozens of reasons it would never go that smoothly in real life. The truth of the matter is that trauma isn't undone by simple kindness, especially childhood trauma. And losing your entire youth to poverty isn't fixed by having money as an adult. Resentment and pain fester underneath the bandage of surface fixes, and missing time is the only thing money can't buy. Bonds made at young ages are different from those made as adults. Dysfunction is the natural state of things.
But she doesn't say any of that. It wouldn't do any good, and anyway, she doubts that either Kyle or herself will suddenly be discovering hidden siblings any time soon.
She tilts her head a bit, considering. ] I think I'm glad I never had any brothers or sisters. My life woulda been a lot harder if there was someone else I had to take care of. I'm from a tiny town and I had a lotta family, but I still kinda raised myself up. My parents worked a lot. I don't think anyone else shoulda gone through it with me.
[ And a sibling would have been just another person to lose to Captain Trips. Few, if any, of the immune were related to each other; from what everyone could tell, immunity wasn't a guaranteed genetic trait. People lost their children, their parents, their grandparents. Entire family trees felled to a single branch in just weeks. And Julie doesn't know whether any babies had been born after the superflu. There were pregnant survivors, but who knew what would happen when the babies took their first breaths? It was probably a 99% chance of death just like everyone else born before. ]
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But she doesn't say any of that. It wouldn't do any good, and anyway, she doubts that either Kyle or herself will suddenly be discovering hidden siblings any time soon.
She tilts her head a bit, considering. ] I think I'm glad I never had any brothers or sisters. My life woulda been a lot harder if there was someone else I had to take care of. I'm from a tiny town and I had a lotta family, but I still kinda raised myself up. My parents worked a lot. I don't think anyone else shoulda gone through it with me.
[ And a sibling would have been just another person to lose to Captain Trips. Few, if any, of the immune were related to each other; from what everyone could tell, immunity wasn't a guaranteed genetic trait. People lost their children, their parents, their grandparents. Entire family trees felled to a single branch in just weeks. And Julie doesn't know whether any babies had been born after the superflu. There were pregnant survivors, but who knew what would happen when the babies took their first breaths? It was probably a 99% chance of death just like everyone else born before. ]