Iâve seen a lot of people complaining about Ellieâs characterization in Season 2, particularly in relation to Dina. Theyâre upset that theyâve made Dina âthe smart one.â My loves, I will hold your hand when I tell you: Dina was always the smart one, and I will die on this hill.
Which isnât to say that Ellie isnât smartâbut when it comes to planning and forethought and logistics, Dinaâs the one. All those books at the farm on animal husbandry and shitâwho do you think was reading those? Not Ellie. And to say that Ellieâs âforgottenâ about Joel because sheâs cracking jokesâthatâs ludicrous. Grief ebbs and flows, thatâs the insidiousness of itâyou can feel almost normal, focused, on task, nearly happyâand then bamâyouâre on the floor with the wind knocked out of you. You can crack jokes one minute, and the nextâyouâre in a blind rage with a steel pipe and a dead girl in the basement of a hospital.
There are definitely things that havenât gone right this season, but I actually appreciated seeing more nuance and life in the relationship between Ellie and Dina.
Letâs talk about the ten seconds spent with the rainbows in Seattle.
Really feeling like the show missed an opportunity for important discourse about the travesty of a generation disconnected from community, representation, and identity, particularly at this moment in history where there is a very real threat that this might become a reality. There are forces moving in the world who would very much like the next generation of young people to have no idea what a rainbow stands for or that being gay is anything other than a shameful aberration of the norm.
Itâs disappointing because when I played the game, I viscerally connected with the queerness so organically present; and now the show is giving off the age old vibe of having been writtenâor at least finalizedâwithout a single queer person actually in the room.
There have been a lot of changes that have been for the better, but thereâs also been a lot of stripping down of charactersâthe absence of Dinaâs Jewish identity, the streamlining of body types, etc. Iâm committed to seeing it through and hoping that maybe I will be surprised (perhaps theyâre moving around discussions of Dinaâs Jewish identity, etc.) but thereâs definitely something lacking.
When Dina tries to sleep, it just plays itself out again, a flickering lantern nightmare cast against the backs of her eyelids. Waking up to that mangled, keening sound of Ellieâs griefâEllie, draped across Joelâs broken body, begging in a hoarse, gravel pit whisper:
Please get up.
When she thinks about it, thereâs a stone that drops into the pit of her stomach, makes her feel like her bodyâs too heavy to carryâand she canât stop thinking about it; about his body, left split open and plundered on the dusty boards. Canât stop thinking about every question he treated with dignityâhow maybe he wasnât always exactly patient, but he never made her feel stupid or small. Old men, they sometimes had this way of explaining things like they were doing her a favor, like what are you going to do with this anyway, youâre just a girl.
But not Joel. He might sigh and think about it a second, but then he would explainâlike she was entitled to the information. Like he had a responsibility to pass the information onâlike he trusted that she was capable of using it.
And she wants to remember him that way, bent over a table, showing her how to rebuild the world one bundle of wires at a time.
But she canât even remember what he said now. About the breakers.
All she can hear is screaming. All she can think of is pulling Ellie away and the animal wails of her pain as she clung to his emptied frame. And now all that sound, all that screamingâitâs like it burned something up in Ellie.
Because now Ellie isnât really making any sounds at all. And itâs all been shitty and terrible and scary, but this hollowed-out, taut-wire silence feels like the worst kind of omen and Dina canât sleep, canât eat, because she just knows, deep down in her bonesâ
She thought she knew what this was supposed to feel like.
All the books,the movies, the poemsâthey said love would feel like a lightning strikeâlike magic, like easy, like simple. Sheâd been waiting her whole life to feel it, but somehow it just never materializedânot even with Jesse. And so sheâd decided that either they were all fucking liars, or she was broken. Sheâd decided that lukewarm was the most she could ever feel. The best she could get.
But this? Itâs still not a lightning strike, no, but itâsâsomething different. Like being away for a long, long time, like walking for a hundred miles, and finally turning the corner to find that you can see itâright thereâhome. And it doesnât matter what it is to anyone else, only matters that itâs yours. That itâs your safety, your quiet, your belonging. Itâs the place where youâre seen, and no one looks away.
And suddenly, it has opened up in front of herâthe future. So close and clear that it almost hurtsâa house, with a kitchen and a garden and laundry hung on a taut wire line just outside the window; the smell of a clean breeze moving through the screen door; the low, hopeful hum of guitar strings drifting in from the porch, punctuated by the sweet, bubbling laughter of a childâ
In that moment, the lump of sheer, screaming terror in her softened, turned, became something different. Because at first the idea of a baby felt like abject chaos in her brain; impossible and unimaginable and too big to get her head around. But when she added Ellieâeverything changed. If she added Ellie, it seemed not just possible, but maybe even beautiful.
Itâs been five years and Abby should be over this by now. Thatâs what Owen really wanted to say just now, standing here in the frigid coldâshe knows it, deep down. Heâs been holding it between his teeth like a rock he just canât spit outâat any time, he could have emptied it into his palm and thrown it at her. Could have shattered her and gone on with his life.
Instead, he held onto it, let it grind away in his jaw, until everything between them tasted of stone. Until it had all gone cold and smooth and empty. Reduced to wasteland.
She knows that sheâs drowning, and that sheâs dragging everyone under with her. She can feel the descent, the slow and inevitable drift into dark, barren places. She doesnât want it. She wants the best for themâshe wants Owen to spit the stone out, wants to see him grow and change and be differentâbetterâeven if sheâs not sure she could ever change with him.
And there will be time for all that, on the other side of this. She just has to see this through. She has to finish thisâand then theyâre all free. Free of the guilt, the rage, the painâall the stones grinding between their teeth.
If she wants anything goodâshe has to see this through.
it's pretty implied that ellie never came out to joel in the proper sense. she lets him assume that she's into men, gives him the false satisfaction of "seeing" her "crush" on jesse, does not correct him. she's fairly confident in being gay in public for others to see and having others close to her know; so why not correct him? why dodge the topic?
was it out of fear? could it be that she never broached the topic despite being close to him in the early years because of the possibility of his reaction being negative? that she was afraid that out of all things that could force them apart (further apart after they split), him reacting badly to her being gay would be the worst?
what about at the dance? would she have been as wound up as she was if the moment hadn't been an encounter with a vicious homophobe? maybe she would've still snapped without this context, but why is she immediately on the defensive against joel after he sticks up for her?
what about the porch scene? why did she refute his question of dina being her girlfriend so insecurely, looking away, nervously and quietly stumbling over words? why isn't she mean about it? why doesn't she get defensive at the question? why did she lash out again when he expressed acceptance?
i think these scenes revolving around her queerness indicate it as such; that ellie never told joel for fear of a response, that she lets him think what he wants because that's the easiest way for it to be. then, when she's ready to face off against a homophobe, because that's the way things are, that's what she can expect, and joel defends her, she lashes out.
it's such a clear juxtaposition of support and hatred between joel and seth, and being faced with joel's acceptance is too much, makes her turn to the anger she'd been holding onto and reinforce what she thinks is true -- that she doesn't need him. and in the fallout, as her regret dawns on her, so too does the realization; he was protecting her, like always, without hesitation, over this thing she was always afraid he wouldn't accept her for.
in the porch scene, joel chooses his words wisely, and asks if dina is her girlfriend -- not "so you're gay?" or "why did you never tell me?" or "how long has this been a thing?" -- with such a casuality that it seems to throw her off. it's like ellie can hardly get the words out. she refutes the idea, fumbles for each following part of her response, is tense. she wasn't prepared for the question.
and when he finally asserts his support for her, in as explicit terms as he can, you can see ellie become emotional, touched for a moment but overcome, before she launches into the defensive again, exactly like at the dance scene -- meeting his kindness with hostility as a way to cope with her emotions.
and then, in response to her basically saying her life doesn't matter, he affirms that it does.
so he's now affirmed two things that ellie has doubted: that he accepts her being a lesbian, and that her life matters. a conflation of the two, in ellie's mind, may have come after; and after that, her olive branch.
and yeah, him affirming these things for her is fully in the context of his overwhelming parental love for her and her complex feelings about being the cure, but within a queer subtext, it means more. it's such a familiar thing to slink around loved ones and hide being gay/queer for fear of any type of response, and lying by omission in conversation just to keep that state of peace, of normalcy. ellie, with all her brutishness and bravery, falls into it like anyone else, because even while mad at him, she valued that response from him.
a lot of people seem to think that the approach to ellie's queerness is nonchalant, that it's just some unrelated thing about her, but i think that it holds more weight in the narrative that what is explicitly spelled out. it's subtle but it was a deliberate choice to place her queerness at the center of the confrontation. i think that's why ellie's relationship with dina took center stage in the story, and why so much time is devoted to just them -- because her being queer matters to her character, but in a way that perhaps only a queer person can see, analyze, and appreciate (without being blatant enough to anger certain other fans).
Love this takeâqueerness is absolutely a central theme to this story. I think, in particular, itâs about the way that queerness is absolutely, unquestionably organicâEllie is Ellie, and her queerness is not a product of âexposureâ to anyone elseâs queernessâshe just is who she is. She couldnât be any other way. Take away her queerness and sheâs a different character entirely. And that truly resonated with me as a queer person the first time I playedâher queerness is just there, and in most ways itâs an asset in this world, not a liability. And I think many queer people in the real world experience that moment of walking in their truth gently, hesitantly, because it does feel like a liabilityâa vulnerability. We walk in our truth with shame and guilt and smallness, build unsaid apologies into everything we do. Like, talking with a co-worker you donât know very well and thinking, yes, I got this coat from the menâs section, please donât get weird about it, Paul.
But, likeâfuck Paul. Because you have a right to feel at home in your body just as much as he does. Paul doesnât apologize for being Paul, because he canât imagine being expected to perform as anyone or anything elseâand neither should you.
And I think thatâs a huge, unspoken element in Ellieâs character. Her identity is completely, utterly unperformative in any way.
But I think she had trouble coming out to Joel for a few reasons. For one, he betrayed a deep, vulnerable value of hersâshe gave him a feeling, tried to externalize something she didnât fully understand to him. Tried to tell him how important the cure was to her, on a spiritual level. And he was not a good steward of that piece of her. So when itâs time to give him something elseâshe canât. She doesnât trust him. I donât think even she fully understands this part of her yetâisnât prepared to answer questions about why or when or whoâs the manâ and so she just doesnât say anything at all. I think she feels some conflicting thingâlike she owes it to Joel to answer questions and explain herselfâand also like she doesnât owe him shit.
And that final scene between them really does solidify Joelâs inherent goodnessâhe doesnât have any superfluous questions, no probes or demands for more than heâs entitled toâheâs not asking her to explain herself. Heâs just asking to be let in on a little bit of her joy.
Turn a little deeper into the cotton quilt your mama made in some other lifetime. Blink slow against the dimness, steep deep in the stillness as the night stretches, yawns, gives way to a blessed new morning. You are alive again.
Cold and hungry. Feel the stiffness in your bones. Feel the heavy in your flesh. The tired, the lonely, the longing. But thereâs a heart thumping under your ribsâfeel it sing, slow and steady, at the sight of sunbeams. Sunbeams, again, like every morning thatâs ever been. Sunbeamsânew every day to a heart like yours, a heart that says: sunbeams, theyâre a goddamn wonder.
Lead with itâthat steady little drum of joy. Grab hold and let it pull your feet to the old floorboards. Little heart, pattering out a plea to see the skyâwhat shade of blue today? The question is as good a reason as any to commit to another day.
Dress in the gray light. Pull on the flannels and linen and denim that will keep the cold at bay. Keep your body safe. You know whatâs at stake, kid. You know what it takesâto keep your body safe.
Breathe deep, cough against the rush of the coldâyour breath hangs in the air. Little ghosts. Water from the bucket by the window, splashed against your faceâclose to frozen, stings against your skin. Youâre awake. Youâre alive.
Pull on leather boots, hope the laces got another day in them. Walk out into the wide worldâsee the slope of the clearing you made, the way the high grass meets a wall of treesâtrees bigger than god, and maybe older, too. They hug in tight around your slice of paradise, your hard-hewn home. They form a cathedral of greenâand brown and gold and flashes of deep, dark red. Like old blood, dried in a smear under your heavy, swollen lip after your Pa had finally had enough of you.
Thereâs a quiet here so deep you can feel it in your bones. Quiet like the moment after the preacher asks for bowed heads, but before he starts praying for hell to swallow all the sinners like you. Quiet like the first girl you ever loved, in that moment after you spilled that soft, silly confession to herâbut before that foreign hardness took her face, before the slow panic and repulsion made her a stranger youâd never met. Quiet like that moment when you learned your first lesson in self-preservation: love is for other people. Better people.
Itâs a real shame, kidâthe way the world kicks around beautiful things.
But youâre alright here, ainât you? Youâre alright. You feed the bleating sheep in their little pasture, and the chickens, too, and you love that thereâs life in every inch of this place. The sheep, the sun, the seeds in the groundâthey donât give a shit who you are or what youâve done. What you look like, what you own. You give to them, they give back. Youâre alright here.
You go down to the crick for water, just as the sun starts pouring proper down into your little dip between the hills. You can feel it, warm and easy against the back of your neck. The cold canât hold you forever. Nothing can hold you forever.
The afternoon brings a visitorâa boy, a horse, an empty cart, trundling up the holler path. You split one more log, let the pieces fall, lean the ax against the same post where youâve hung your shed coat. The boy hops down from his saddle, raises a hand in greeting.
Brought your saw back.
He lifts the tool in question for you to see.
Pa sends his thanks.
You take the saw, and he dives into his bag to bring out a small parcel wrapped in a bit of an old flour sack.
Cornbread from Mama.
You thank him for returning the saw, and for the cornbread. Heâs tall and leanâmaybe a little underfed. His shoes are two sizes too small. His coatâs missing a few buttons. A boy still, pushing at the seams of what will come next. His parents canât keep up.
You ask if they need any firewood. He refuses, says his Pa wonât accept charity. You eye the empty cart his Pa sent along with him.
You tell him he can take whatever he can splitâainât charity if youâve sweat for it. By the evening, he has a full cart, and you split the cornbread with him on the porch.
And maybe itâll all count for something someday. Maybe itâll all count when hell finally swallows you up.
Before he leaves, he stops there on the creaky old steps, looks back up at you.
Pa says youâre a good, Christian man, sir. He thinks mighty high of ye. Just thought you oughta know.
Maybe itâll all count, when his Pa has to help put you in the ground someday.
When the evening comes, you retreat inside. Feed the fire, warm the place up. Cold dinner, âcause your bodyâs awful tired, kid. Your mind, too. You dig up a box of tobacco, take a pinch and pack it into a pipe you won in a game of cardsâmaybe one of the finest items you own. You sit on the porch and watch the last of the burnt bronze evening melt back into the trees. Youâre alright here.
Just as the darkness of the night swells up, you see the flicker of a lantern up yonder on the hillâa soft, yellow star moving through the trees.
Could be anyone. Could be the boy, come back for more wood. Or this could be the moment everything unravels. Could be the night they drag you behind a horse, put you in a tree, bury you as someone youâre not.
You arenât scared, but youâre readyâyou fold your fingers around the rifle leaned next to the door and wait for hell to open up and swallow the sinners like you.
A quiet knock.
You open the door.
Itâs her. The widow from over the next holler. She stands silent in the doorway, and her dark, tired eyes meet yours. Sheâs dry as a bone, but in the empty pools of shadow cast by her lantern, you could swear she was a drowning woman.
You let her step inside and you exchange pleasantries, as you always do on these visits. She asks after the book she loaned youâhave you been enjoying it? You confess you havenât had much time for reading. She offers to read a chapter or two aloud for you.
Thatâd be real nice, maâam.
But neither of you moves to retrieve the book. Her hands cling to the black linen skirts of her dress, knuckles gone white with it. You can feel the empty, howling grief that came in with her, followed her like a roving spirit. You wish you knew how to help.
She cuts the space between you in half a step and touches her lips to yours. She tastes like tears and uncertainty and so many sleepless, heartsick nights.
Itâs not proper. Itâs not the way things ought to be. Itâs not what either of you imagined, back when you were small and the world told you what your hearts should want. But no one prepares you, do they? For the weight of it all. For the sadness that creeps in between the boards, settles into your chest like a cough you canât shake. For the way the haints and hurts hollow you out, slow and steady, until you wake up one day feeling like maybe you ainât even a real person anymore.
You know sheâs just lonely. You know she misses her husband and that you ainât him. Donât wanna be him. But when she pulls off your clothes, all those layers of the dayâwhen she sinks in against you, meets your skin to hersâyou remember, for a moment, that youâre wonderfully, terribly, brilliantly human. And thatâs enough.
Later, in the deepest part of the night, she does read to you. Her voice dips and lulls through the bare little room, until you canât really distinguish the words themselvesâall you can hear is low, lush birdsong, and the content thumping of your own heart.
You sleep the sleep of the safe and relievedâheavy, deep sleepâand by the morningâ
âthe fireâs gone out.
You watch as she dresses silently in the first sunbeams of the day. As she leans in toward your dusty little mirror and pins her hair back into place. Hasty, but careful. She gathers her things, prepares to leave.
She hesitates, turns back to you in your bed. Maybe you could pretend to be asleep, butâyouâve been seen now. Thereâs no going back.
Thereâs a long, soundless moment that stretches out in the space between you. She says:
You arenât a man.
Statement or question or accusationâyou canât be sure what she means. Canât be sure that it matters. You give no response.
But underneath your motherâs quilt, your hands begin to tremble with fear.
She leans down, kisses your forehead with reverence, the way folks kiss the statues of saints. Or maybe itâs with pity, the way folks woulda kissed the corpses of those saints before they put them in the ground.
It raged through their slice of paradise with all the wrath and cold contempt of God himself. It rattled the old windows in their casings, sent the wind keening between every board and brick. The low wailing of rain against the roof woke her, and her first thought was about the fences. Let the fences hold.
A clap of thunder came, so sharp and hard she could swear she felt it in her teethâit woke the baby and his high, frightened cries cut her to the quick. Iâve got him, offered into the dark.
Soft little arms reached for her amid a tumble of scared, lonely sniffling. Itâs just rain, buddy.
The house is still and gray and quiet in a way that might have been unsettling anywhere elseâbut here, inside this tandem dream of theirs, it only felt all the more safe. For the first time in her life, she could be alone and not feel lonely, for there wasnât an inch of this place unoccupied by profound love.
She holds him, talks to him in a soothing whisper as they move through the safe gray dimness of their home. Tells him how storms canât hurt us in here. Weâre gonna be fine. Reminds him that heâs not alone. Heâll never be alone. Iâve got you.
They settle on the couch and he nods off against her shoulder. Safe. Trusting. Everything is fine.
She thinks about the fences.
When the morning comes, she walks the line. The world is wet and full and green, washed new by the coarse chaos of the night before. She follows the trail of latticed steel, searching.
The smell of damp soil and clean pine breaks, gets interrupted by something more acrid. Something like wet, fetid rot.
Up ahead, she can see it. Thereâs a tree, keeled in the storm and fallen onto the fence, causing it to bow dangerously inward, straight into the vulnerable belly of their Eden. Somethingâs caught under the weight of the fallen trunk, pressed between the damp bark and the metallic mesh beneath. A misshapen heap of something writhing soundlessly.
She moved through the sodden grass and saw more of itâ
A jacket. A length of salt-dashed stubble on the jaw. Some fold of the dark, moldering hair. She couldnât know what it was that betrayed her. Brains are built to recognize patterns, and for a moment her brain locked into enough details that seemed familiar and thoughtâ
Him.
Almost relief, for a second. Rushing up from the bottoms of her feet. Unbound, child-like reliefâyouâre not lost. Youâre not alone. Iâve got you.
And then the thing twisted its face, pulled thin lips away from gnashing, fetid teeth in a warped snarlâand the magic was gone. Not him. Never him. Never again.
A deep, labored breath rushed from her lungs, turned into a sound of sharp-edged grief that she hardly recognized. Her knees quivered and then failed altogether. The thing continued to squirm and reach for her, wearing its jacket that was almost his. Not quite. Close.
White knuckles clenched her knife, but she couldnât move an inch.
I just wanted to hear your opinion on the way the tlou fandom portrays Ellie, I have a feeling like everyone mischaracterises her (especially on tumbrl and tik tok) and makes her some kind of a fuckboy (literally Dina and Cat had to make first moves cuz she was nervous)
oh yeah they do, and i think it's kinda of a projection of how they find her hot because of her being aggressive and kill-hungry in tlou2. aggression/female rage + masc lesbian = hawt, is the logic, and i kinda get it. i can't lie, i've written her with the same motivation sometimes because it's a power fantasy.
but still it feels disingenuous to her character to just portray her as an emotionless fuckboi because it's purely based on that character arc. she's attractive, masculine, and can exhibit "alpha" behavior (weed den), sure, but she's also shy, introverted, and soft-spoken. she writes poetry and songs and frets over her crushes! i like when ellie's soft side is shown alongside her more survivalist side because it's what makes her character interesting; that she can be the type to averting her eyes from her gf shyly and moments later, focus in on bodying infected and stealthing around. that balance is where the intrigue lies.
like that one e3 teaser exemplifies this so well! ellie doubting that dina could ever like her and stating that she's not a threat to anyone else who wants her, she gets kissed, and it transitions into how dangerous of a person she is, then back again to her smiling over dina's feelings being mutual.
not only this but the games are 100% deadset on showing you how vulnerable she can be despite her rough side. like she's not an impenetrable force, she's a 19 y/o girl who just lost her dad-figure and spirals because of the mistakes she made.
to me, THAT'S ellie and THAT'S what makes her cool and interesting, not one side of her or the other.
Ellieâs one hundred percent a squishy dumb-dumb and I will die on this hill.
Sheâs perpetually anxious about dealing with people because she canât trust her own perception of social interactions (âWhat did they mean by that? What was that look for? Did she say something stupid? She probably said something stupid. Again.â) . Sheâs got a never-ending monologue somewhere in there that runs a continuous stream of informationâshe canât sleep because her brain is always alternating between an infinite refrain of that laundry detergent jingle she heard onceâand all of the worst shit sheâs ever seen or felt. âRemember that day when you were like five and you saw that mom kneel down on the sidewalk and hug her kid and it was the first time you were really, deeply aware that you were totally alone in the world? Remember how you felt kind of embarrassed, for some reason? Probably because you realized how much you wanted to be hugged. Wow, what a sad, fucked up little kid you were, damn.â
And thatâs why she lives in her own head and the idea of talking about her feelings is nothing short of nauseatingâbecause as long as no one else knows those soft, sad little details, then she can pretend they arenât there, too.
But the softness jumps out in little ways. In the little joys. The collection of comics that she shows Dina one day, her voice lush with enthusiasm and delight. Itâs in the way she touches her forehead to Shimmerâs in an attempt to say, âI see you.â Itâs in the way sheâs never failed to stop and pet a cat, even if it means spending too long trying to prove that she means no harm.
Could Ellie be a fuckboi? I guess so. Sheâs masc and aloof and emotionally withdrawn. But I think that characterization misses the absolute lynchpin that holds Ellie together as a character: she desperately wants to be loved. She wants to matter. She wants her life to have meant something, and she recognizes that our lives most often have meaning in the context of those around us. She doesnât want to end up alone.
So if you wanna characterize her as a fuckboi, remember that these are actions that are at odds with her deepest motivationsâbecause thatâs when things get interesting. When a character is going against their own best interest and finds themselves neck deep in self-destruction with no idea how to get out? Yeah, that could be interesting.
I will still maintain that Ellie is not suave or smooth. If she achieves charisma, itâs on accident. Itâs without intention. And I fully believe that Dina may have initially been drawn in by the challenge of all that gruff, aloof defensivenessâbut she stayed for the way Ellie has never missed a chance to say, âHey, Hungry, Iâm Ellie.â
Now thereâs this gaping hole in her chestâleaves her feeling both too hollow and too heavy. An anchor sitting on grief-brittled ribs. Canât push it off, canât get a full breath around itâcan only wait for it to collapse her, crush her, cleave through her clean.
Now thereâs this weight, like hot lead in her veins, gained in an exchange she couldnât control or anticipateâcanât guess the worth of a presence until youâre pinned to the floor by the weight of an absence.
Now there are these questions climbing the walls of her brainâchopped free of answers, chasing their own empty tails in feral patterns behind her eyes. Nothing meaner than a question that canât be answered.
Likeâhad he really seen her for who she wasâ
âor had she always been just a replacement?
And was it fair to have ever expected anything more?
He set the bowl of stew down onto the table in front of her.
âWorld famous,â he assured her. âEven scooped the carrots out for you.â
He dropped down into his own chair, picked up a spoon. Laughter drifted into the room from the street outsideâneighborhood punks were probably fucking around with their jack oâlanterns again. Damn kids.
âWhy?â She asked, even as she dipped into the contents of her bowl.
ââCause you donât like âem,â he answered around a generous bite of food. âDuh.â
âNo way, man,â she half-laughed. âI love carrots.â
He looked up from his bowl, and the world tilted a little on its axis. Felt like missing a step on the stairs. Like the sudden gut-punch of fear that happens when you realize you donât know where you are or whatâs going on. She loved carrots.
âOh,â he said slowly, lowering his eyes back to the bits of vegetable bobbing in his stew. Something in his chest swelled with embarrassment and guilt and that old, howling, bottomless grief. âRight. Donât know where I got that from.â
But he knew exactly where heâd gotten that from.
