Andy followed that pointed look, and flicked back and forth between Nicky and the waitress: she'd eat, but at best it would be perfunctory. She'd had breakfast, and hadn't been eaten overly regularly for the past few weeks at any rate. The bagel wouldn't kill her, it was just extra calories. Maybe she'd stop losing weight here.
"No one really...knew," she said softly. "Israeli military--you can be out, officially, it's fine...but people still say things." Andy hadn't wanted to draw undue attention to Quynh, already a known outsider given her position. Nationalist militaries were insular to begin with, and her unit had been more so than most, a tight-knit group. But why exactly she was telling a stranger any of this was a mystery, though Andy didn't want to examine it. It felt too good, too normal to be speaking to someone who knew.
Someone else who broke the rules they'd all learned growing up: boys fell for girls, fighting was bad, love lasted forever. Andy suspected Nicky knew those falsehoods even better than she herself did. "Does it stop feeling like...this? Eventually?" she asked: surviving in the civilian world, chaotic as it was and alone, felt like those protracted deafening-ringing moments after a flashbang went off, or having to learn how to operate again missing a dominant hand. It was proving difficult indeed for Andy.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-10-01 02:19 am (UTC)"No one really...knew," she said softly. "Israeli military--you can be out, officially, it's fine...but people still say things." Andy hadn't wanted to draw undue attention to Quynh, already a known outsider given her position. Nationalist militaries were insular to begin with, and her unit had been more so than most, a tight-knit group. But why exactly she was telling a stranger any of this was a mystery, though Andy didn't want to examine it. It felt too good, too normal to be speaking to someone who knew.
Someone else who broke the rules they'd all learned growing up: boys fell for girls, fighting was bad, love lasted forever. Andy suspected Nicky knew those falsehoods even better than she herself did. "Does it stop feeling like...this? Eventually?" she asked: surviving in the civilian world, chaotic as it was and alone, felt like those protracted deafening-ringing moments after a flashbang went off, or having to learn how to operate again missing a dominant hand. It was proving difficult indeed for Andy.