“Really?”
Zach smiled softly at that, and shifting as he did to move into a squatting position. It put him closer to eye level with her – she had to be what, seven? eight? only, and it made it feel more like a conversation now that he wasn’t towering over her.
“So what’s he like normally then? Is he… not a happy person?”
He was being nosy. He was prying. Rebecca had every right to refuse to answer. But… Zach was curious. What she said implied a change in his behavior, that he had made a difference, and that just couldn’t be true. He was just a bitter ex-soldier dealing with PTSD. Hardly anything about that would result in a person that could make someone else happy.
“He’s tried to be happy a lot in the past, but I could tell he wasn’t. His happy faces looked like ouches.”
“That all changed when he met you though. His happy faces don’t look like ouches anymore.”
She stumbled over her words a lot, she had only really learned to talk somewhat properly recently, still absently using her hands to gesture and sign as she talked. But she looked at the tile floor, fiddling with the hem of her dress before looking back at the other.
“Can I braid your hair one day?”
Back in the Game 