itinere | Thinking hard (OTA)

Having made herself to home in both the dreams of Derek and Adam had left Venus feeling both disjointed and thoughtful. Such horror and such darkness, inflicted by other people. Not by chance or fate, but by human beings. It makes her so angry.

Perhaps it is that this place collects very damaged people.

On one of her days off from the health club, before she takes Derek his lunch, she walks. No longer in high heels, but in comfortable walking shoes (cute little pink Keds that please Venus when she looks down at them), she walk. There's just that hint of the coming fall and winter in the air.

Venus trades in optimism. She has to. The world is too dark otherwise. She finds herself sitting on the merry-go-round and thinks of the profundity of hope. Of what it means. Of the power of it. Even if it isn't real, if it's imagined. The idea of hope. "Ask not what this place can do for you," she whispers to herself, letting the words get lost in the breeze, "but what we can do for this place." And the damaged, beautiful people in it.

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"You can't possibly," she tells him. And it's not a reprimand. The words are said gently. Kindly. "I think ... well, I think, sweetheart, that you are your worst enemy."

That could sound trite, but for Venus's sincerity. "I think ... well, I would offer, anyway, that you aren't always able to see yourself as clearly as some of us can. Would you mind ... can I tell you what I see when I look at you?"

She asks permission, because she doesn't want to make him feel defensive or nervous or anything else. She just loves this boy, is all.

Adam knows he's his own worst enemy. Deep down, he knows that. But in the day to day he tends to think a lot of what he's always been told and what he's compounded upon what he's been told has to be right. People always have that voice in their heads, a conscience. Adam's voice inn his head happens to be Robert Parrish's... which is never good for him.

It's hard when you want love and acceptance from your worst enemy. It's even harder when that enemy is a parent.

His look is cautious and uncertain as he mulls over whether he should allow it or not. He's never been very good at accepting compliments except when Ronan hurls them at him combined with insults. And even then... it's hard. But he feels like he owes Venus this after what he put her through in his nightmare. So he presses his lips together and nods.

That's nice that he agreed; Venus would not have judged him had he declined.

"Well," he says. "When I see you, I see someone who is kinder to others than to himself. I see someone who accepts people who ... well, who aren't exactly what society would deem as normal." Which means herself, of course. "And I see someone who is going to make a big difference in the world, here or where you're from. You aren't just going to exist, sweetheart. You are going to change lives. You've already changed mine, you see," she tells him, and she means it too. "You've enriched my life and made it fuller and better than it would have been otherwise. I'm so very glad for that, you see. I need all the wonderful people I can get in my life and here you are."

By the way, Adam owes her nothing and has nothing to apologize for.

Her words are hard for Adam to fully accept. But he thinks she knows that. Adam isn't used to being complimented in any way shape or form. He's only recently started accepting that some people believe in him, people like Ronan, and that some people actually want him around, his friends from Henrietta and Venus.

At first it's like there's an invisible wall and the words roll around him without actually impacting him. But then she makes it personal. He's changed her life? Enriched her life? Fuller and better. She makes it sound like he's done something good. But hadn't he just put her through his own nightmare knowing she's experienced similar things?

"I don't understand." He says, watching her carefully, like the wounded animal he is, an animal that is so tentative about trusting anyone and yet knows he has to learn to. Are those tears in his eyes? He stubbornly holds them back. Venus thinks he's a wonderful person. She has no idea how truly despicable he is.

But Adam does understand: Venus knows he does. He just can't accept what she's saying just yet and that's all right because that just means she'll keep saying those things until he does and can. She's got, as long as she's here, all the time in the world.

"When I first met you," she says, "that late night right here in this spot, why it was easy to know just what I was, just what I had been doing. And you could have said terrible things. You could have simply ignored me.

"But you didn't," she reminds him. "When this strange freak creature walked up to you, you talked to her like she was a human being and I'm so glad for that."

He didn't force her into his nightmare; why, she happened into it. And he had let her hold him and that is still one of her most precious memories. She matters to him. And that is worth so very much to her.

"And from that night, why ... you've been such a good friend to me. You've never once seemed to judge me and you've never said a harsh word to me. That makes you special. So very special."

That first night he knew exactly what Venus was and what she'd been doing. Anyone else from his group might not have gotten it. But Adam did. He grew up in that world where those kinds of things happened. Some of his parents fights had even been about Robert being out with someone else. Suspicions. Maybe they were true. Maybe they weren't.

But why would Robert ever want to come home to this? To his bitch wife and his worthless son?

Venus thinks he's special. And for a moment, Adam lets himself feel special from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. Venus sees him. Venus thinks he's special. He is not unknowable. He is knowable by a very few.

"You've always been nice to me." He says with a shrug. But it also implies that not very many people have been nice to Adam Parrish. Venus stands out in that way. Adam craves niceness without pity. Kindness is different coming from Venus than it is coming from Gansey.

"I will always be nice to you, sweetheart. You have my word on that," she tells him quietly. "You matter and you are worth all the good things."

Just briefly, she touches his cheek and then lets her hand drop. "I think," she then says with a low laugh, "that I might be showing my age and saying that going around in circles isn't doing my head any good at all. Do you mind if I move to the edge?"

It's a promise that Adam isn't sure anyone but Venus could keep. She just doesn't seem to have a cruel bone in her body. She seems like she could be fiercely protective of people, but not in an outright cruel way, more so in an appropriately reactive sort of way.

"You matter too." He says, wondering if that means as much to Venus as it does to him.

When she says she needs to move, he quickly shakes his head. No, he doesn't mind. He'll move to the edge with her and finish up his sandwich there. "When the fair was in town, here, I mean, I got to go for the first time. It was all free... somehow. But some of the rides made me feel sick too. Ronan made me ride them anyway."

And in spite of the sick, it was so much fun anyway. Being there with Ronan, doing things with Ronan. "I liked the ferris wheel the best... and the house of mirrors." The house of mirrors was only fun because he and Ronan had played hide and seek in it. Adam teased Ronan into eventually tackling him and kissing him. It was probably the most fun Adam has ever let himself have.

"That Ferris Wheel was fun, wasn't it?" she says, feet happily on the ground again. Her head will stop feeling swampy in a second, she's sure. "Derek and I went on that as well."

And he'd kissed her high up in the sky and it had been so nice. "Are you glad that Ronan made you ride all those rides? If I was feeling a little low, I'm not so sure I would feel so generous," she teases about herself. She does, though, reach over to give Adam's knee a squeeze. She does matter and it matters that Adam thinks so. That matters.

Thinking hard (OTA)

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