“I’ve talked until I’m dizzy, and mostly what I hear is ‘why is it such a problem for you to be normal? why can’t you just do what they want?’ But it’s … you know, eventually, you do what’s wanted of you enough times and that’s all you are, you lose what you have for yourself. I don’t want to lose myself. /This/ is the person I choose to be, even though it cuts me off from everybody.” She sighed, hands coming up to scrub against her eyes.
“Just for once it would be nice to find somebody who loves me the way I am, not the way they want be to be.” Summer gave a stiff, one-shouldered shrug, like shaking off an unseen grip, and looked back at Tony. “I’m really sorry. I’m standing here talking like my problems are anything like compared to yours, and filling your ears with my nonsense, when I should just be letting you work and getting out from underfoot.”
Tony listened intently, letting her get everything out in the open. He stood when she started back pedaling. “Hey, it’s fine. Really,” he said, hoping he sounded as convincing as he was trying to. “I honestly don’t get society’s obsession with trying to fix people. People that don’t need fixing,” he continued, a slight mix of anger and fatigue washing over his face and body language. He touched her shoulder gently, not knowing what else to do.
“Being yourself, in the long run, matters most. You’re stuck with you… Everyone else can come and go but at the end of the day…” He shrugged.
“Look at us both. Wound up in the way other people see us.” Summer’s laugh was a little broken. She laid her own hand atop Tony’s, squeezing a little.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I really want to stop thinking about all this. Can I drag you out for some food somewhere? Maybe go down the harborside and just walk for a while? We’ve rummaged around in each other’s emotions all unintentionally; maybe we could find out what the other one is like aside from all that.” A blush crept up her cheeks. “That is, if you want to spend time with a shattered character like me.”