Questions & Answers

[Jory Addison]

"Because he told me he had to be drunk to touch me," Jory whispered, that tiny voice returning. And it hurt me. Lyric had told him after they had done so much, after Jory had started feeling so good about it all. He went to back away again, but he had found a wall and there was nowhere behind him to go.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Well that wasn't a shocker, after all, Lyric had said approximately the same thing to her when they'd been in the Room of Requirement. Quinn looked up the half foot to actually look at Jory, as something occurred to her. "He touched you too?" It made more sense to her now that he might want to know, but she didn't make any connections regarding sexuality, since until about half an hour ago she had no knowledge of what sex was, or how society segregated it between certain groupings. "But if he touched me now, that means that you must have been over, for a while, and if you aren't friends anymore, why do you care?"

[Jory Addison]

"I didn't even know he liked girls!" Jory said, looking up, hurt and anger washing over him. "He told me he was like me and he was my first and then he told me he could only touch me drunk! And then you said...you said..." They hadn't gotten drunk, they had had pumpkin juice. It wasn't fair! He turned to leave, fully intending to go to his dorm and binge on chocolate.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn really looked confused at that statement, "what does it matter if he like girls?" She was completely baffled, but continued anyways, "he's allowed to like boys so, why can't he like girls too?" It made logical sense that people could associate with more people than just one type, that was what gay rights was about wasn't it, having the freedom to choose? If Lyric wanted to like boys, girls, or both what did that matter to anyone else but him. "He said that he couldn't touch me either, at least not sober." He had said that it was possible sober, so she'd hold out hope for that.

[Jory Addison]

"He told me after!" Jory said. After he had already felt like he was special and Lyric liked being with him he had been told it was all a lie. It didn't count if Lyric was drunk when they were together! She didn't understand, how else could she not see how it could hurt to know that the one he had trusted had betrayed him like that? He shook his head and started taking quick steps to the door.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn shook her head, "so what? He told you when he felt it. He obviously felt something for you if he touched you at all." She was in utter disbelief, "do you even understand what that's like, knowing that no matter what you do, you carry something like that with you everywhere, if affects everything you do." He couldn't understand to be acting like this, Lyric must have cared in order for him to have touched Jory at all, like he must have felt something for her, something she wanted to find out more about.

[Jory Addison]

"I tried to understand and I couldn't and he just got mad at me!" Jory turned to look at Quinn. He didn't know things about the world and apparently there was something very wrong with that. He wanted to understand and be able to help Lyric, but he didn't know how to. "You can't just defend him like that, he was a jerk!"

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn stared at him again, dumbfounded, "why can't I defend him? You said you're his friend, but that then you weren't and probably never were, because he didn't want to touch you, how is that him being a jerk? And how can you justify your self-righteous attitude that says just because you want to understand that you should be allowed to, it's more complicated than that, life is more complicated then that. If you've been lucky enough not to find out about the insidious evils in this world, then rather than railing for your inability to understand, you should be thankful, and just try to appreciate what you have while you have it." She was almost out of breath from the tirade, but her desire to set the worlds wrongs right, and show people the darkness, especially extended to people who didn't seem to be able to see that a world outside of themselves existed, those people were the most dangerous.

[Jory Addison]

Jory felt his eyes burning and forced himself to look away. "I tried to appreciate what I had! I loved being with Lyric, but then he told me he had just been drunk when we had sex, it was all a lie!" He hated this girl, this girl who looked down on him and refused to even attempt to see what he was trying to say. "Why should I be treated like crap because of how I grew up?" He wanted to learn, but he couldn't do it on his own, was it that wrong to want to understand?

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "listen to what you just said, and imagine what that sounds like to a person who has been abused." She'd try and educate him, she'd try, she wanted everyone to have the opportunity to learn, but this felt like hitting a brick wall. "Because we are telling you to look at the world, and see that it isn't sunshine and roses, does not mean we hate you, or want to hurt you."

"It's because you insist on telling us that you are the offended one, when there are people who don't eat, or receive hugs, or know love, or even what it means to have sex, they are the ones who should be offended that you cannot put their feelings before your own. We hurt, we want love, but we cannot find it, and being told we are dysfunctional by people who have never gone a day without food, or a hug, and who have always known love, makes you sound exactly like the people who cannot understand why men can love other men."

It also made him sound immature, as he addressed a girl, who's entire life had been lived under the thumb of another, who had scars that her clothing conveniently hid, and who had scars, memories and nightmares that were much worse that what someone might see on the outside. Quinn was sure it wasn't a lie on Lyric's part, Lyric must have felt something to touch him, to have sex with him, it had to be more, and the fact that Jory was literally throwing the rug over it, probably hurt more than Lyric could express, and it would become a new transgression in his book of tallies against the world.

[Jory Addison]

"Stop talking to me like I'm stupid!" Jory said, his voice raising in frustration. If he had known that she felt like she was talking to a wall, he may have screamed, because she was being just as idiotic as he was. She was refusing to understand that he wanted to learn and to know and to help but was unable to. Wasn't that just as much a handicap as being abused? Jory didn't, couldn't, think like that, though if he had been able to wrap his mind around the idea that it was his own abuse then perhaps he could have helped her understand him.

As it was, he just felt frustrated tears fill his eyes and he turned to the door, refusing to blink and allow them to fall. Did insulting him and making him feel stupid really help any? He was feeling more and more worthless as the term wore on. First Eros, then Lyric, and now this girl he had just met... He almost wished he could just go home and forget about all of this.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn sighed, noting a brief shimmer of something in Jory's eyes as he turned away, "you aren't stupid Jory," she said softly, hesitantly walking up to him, and reaching out a timid hand to touch his back, barely. "You just aren't allowing yourself to see from our eyes. It's not something you can learn unless you have been abused, you can only empathize with us." She sighed as she bit her lip, "I'm sorry if I made you upset, or hurt your feelings, I didn't mean to make you feel stupid, just to try and help you understand where Lyric is coming from."

[Jory Addison]

"No!" Jory jerked away from her and turned again, his back to the door. "You're not listening! You're not even listening to you! At least I'm trying to understand, you're just acting like I'm an idiot and not listening to me," he said. "Why do you want me to understand when you won't try to listen to me?" He glared, or attempted to glare, through the wetness he could feel in the corners of his eyes, then turned to leave.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn blinked at that, "I am listening to you, I heard you say that you cared about Lyric, and in the same breath you told me your were never friends because he must have lied to you all along. I'm telling you he didn't." She shrugged then, "but if you don't want to hear as I tell you everything that you need to fix things with Lyric, then I won't continue. Believe me, I understand Lyric and I would like to grow on what happened with him. Whether it takes him a year or ten years to learn how to touch me sober."

[Jory Addison]

"Being able to repeat what I said doesn't mean you know what I'm saying," Jory said, shaking his head. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself, only removing one long enough to open the door in front of him. He wasn't going to stay here and try to talk to Quinn when it was obvious she wasn't anywhere close to helping, whatever the pretty words she tried to spew about understanding the pain of the world. It wasn't the world he cared about, he didn't want to understand the world.