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It’s weird. The stuff you don’t think about.
Sometimes Damien wonders if it’s because his life doesn’t really require thinking that he misses things from time to time. He’s learned that he can think something all day long, repeat it over and over to himself in his head or outside of it until the words stop meaning anything, and it doesn’t do much. In the end it’s all about the heart. His ability really doesn’t care what he thinks, or wants to think.
Which is funny in the ironic way that you laugh at to keep from crying. He can want to want something all day long, but at the end of the day, the only person his ability doesn’t touch is him. He can chase that wanting around in circles: wanting to want to be better, to not make someone stop what they’re doing and acknowledge him, to not influence someone so he can have a normal conversation for once. He can tell himself he wants it and try to grit his teeth and bear the discomfort because supposedly it’s good for him, and after all this time he’s willing to try it. To try anything. Even if it hurts. But at that first squirm of discomfort or feeling of awkwardness the people and world around him mold to accommodate it. To make space for all those messy feelings that pour out of him like an infection, changing everything they touch.
He hates how open it makes him feel sometimes; when a stranger turns to him with sympathetic eyes or offers empty words of comfort because he wanted them to. He hates that blank look in their eyes. That look of vague confusion after they’ve said it.
And he hates that it took him so long to figure out it was happening. That he was so desperately lonely that he was willing to turn to literally anyone, and so they turned back and told him everything he wanted to hear.
It happened first when he was sixteen and had just left home. This sweet-looking old woman in a bookstore was the first who expressed random sympathy. He’d gone into the store on a whim, hands in his pockets, probably looking suspicious as hell because he was so jumpy. It had been a long time since he’d been around so many people and even longer since he’d set foot in an actual store.
The only reason he’d ventured in at all had been because reading was one of the few things he actually liked to do, even before he got his ability. After, it had become one of the only things that didn’t change.
Damien was pretty sure it was the only thing that kept him sane at home after the electricity cut out. He’d read every book in that house twice over and when he’d seen the front window of the store it was the promise of comfort that drew him in. The fact that the store was mostly empty was what gave him the courage to actually step inside.
He was trying to ignore everyone from the moment he entered. Which meant that everyone pretty much ignored him. It wasn’t until he got distracted that it happened. Damien still couldn’t be sure if that was the reason the old woman suddenly took notice of him, or if it was the sight of the family nearby trying to affectionately wrangle their kids that made his stomach hurt. But she was suddenly next to him, all white hair and a big pink cardigan.
She put a hand on his shoulder, which made him jump, and took it off almost immediately. He should have realized what was happening when she put it back as she spoke to him, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze. He can’t even remember exactly what she said, but he knows it was exactly what he wanted to hear. Because why wouldn’t it be? Even so, when he quickly excused himself and hurried out of the store afterwards because he was tearing up, it didn’t even cross his mind that his ability was what did it.
He just didn’t think about it.
In some defense of his younger self, it wasn’t like it happened often. For the most part he was buried in self-loathing, or fear, or was just trying to stay away from people. He hadn’t even considered wanting to make people forget about talking to him yet, and even then, there were only so many times that could be done before someone noticed something weird was happening. So for the most part he tried to avoid being noticed unless he had to. It was just that occasionally a person would take notice of him and would say something nice.
Usually the exchange was short because they would leave once the glaring sincerity made him the slightest bit uncomfortable. And he assumed that that was what his ability was doing in those situations. Cutting these well-intentioned strangers short because encountering kindness felt like touching a hot stove. He never thought that the entire interaction might be his fault until a little over two years later.
It was raining outside. Had been all day. It was dark, and cold, and he was too far from the hotel he was staying at to have any desire to walk the distance. He was just sort of wandering the aisles in a random grocery store, killing time, and feeling nostalgic. In the soup aisle, of all places.
It was an unfortunate combination of the weather and circumstance reminding him about how, on days like this with terrible weather, his mom used to make soup and bread. Real bread; the kind you could tear with your hands. He’d always wanted to help make it, but she’d always told him he had to wait until he was a little older. She probably just didn’t want him messing up the kitchen and assumed he’d lose interest with time. But the fact that he’d never had a chance to find out had his throat feeling tight.
Soaked and shivering, wanting his mom in the soup aisle of a grocery store. Truly a new kind of pathetic.
He was rubbing his face with his hands and telling himself to get a grip when the guy who had walked into the aisle with him turned to stare at him. Brows furrowed, worried frown, nothing behind the eyes. It was the first time Damien noticed how creepy it looked. And unlike the woman in the bookstore, he remembered exactly what he said to him.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your parents. They shouldn’t have left you.”
Damien felt like someone had thrown a cold bucket of water over him. He was so shocked that for a moment he didn’t think anything at all: his mind came to a screeching halt and his heart pounded and idiot that he was, he actually asked, “What did you say?”
Dutifully as a parrot, he repeated it. Same words, same exact cadence. It was downright haunting and before Damien even realized he was moving, he found himself back on the sidewalk outside.
He didn’t even go back to the hotel. He just walked for what must have been hours because by the time he found a different place to sleep the rain had let up. He spent all that time running over every other interaction like that he’d ever had, thinking in circles, trying to convince himself that it couldn’t have been true. Not every single person who said something to him could have been doing it just because he wanted them to. But the more he turned it over, the more it started to make sense. The more it hurt. The more he started to feel the full scope of just how alone he was and that there really was nobody who cared about him because he didn’t make them.
It's funny. He thought, as he crawled into the bed fully dressed and still shivering, half-laughing with tears stinging his eyes. The things you don’t think about.