felinis :sometimes I think about what Rita must feel now that she has friends.
Rita grew up alone. She was always alone. Even in moments where she wasn't alone, she was still emotionally alone. She doesn't know what friendship is supposed to be like outside of the common vernacular because that requires experience. She doesn't know what fun is supposed to be because when she really stops and thinks at night alone in a room she can't really say what she does for fun.
She does things she enjoys but she wouldn't call that fun. Fun implies leisure and technically it's just that she enjoys her work and blastia. She enjoys reading and yes you could call it fun but is it? Fun feels like it should be used for something stronger… Something better. People ask her if she loves her work and she'll say 'I wouldn't know what do without it' and it's not a lie. She wouldn't. She's empty. Hollow. And nobody has ever understood that part of her existence.
They see a prodigy and think that in the genius mind that a kid has the answers to solving her own depression that she's buried so deep to not feel it when really sometimes she just sits there wondering if her life is a waste. She's hollow… She's hollow and no one has ever noticed it. No one has ever noted that while Rita can hold a conversation and be sociable amongst all her prickliness that she spent most of her life working. That she doesn't go out because she's not sure how to go out alone.
That she's never sure what to do when asked to hang out because she's not sure what fun is. What do people do for fun? She always asks that Estelle lead because even though Estelle has never had friends before she knows fun. She knows activities.
Rita has nothing. Rita is a dead fish who doesn't understand what people talk about or do. Who struggles to understand other people despite herself. Karol will ask her advice on talking with girls when he has no options and Rita will ignore him because she doesn't have an answer. When she thinks about it too long tears will start to gather despite how much she wants to scream and pull out her hair for such a thing. And she'll push it back out because in company she feels what must be fun among the loneliness so if she buries it there then she doesn't have to acknowledge the hollowness in her.
She loves her friends. She really loves them. She loves them so fucking much but she also hates them because when she's alone now she's aware of the emptiness that is her existence. That her heart is a hole devoid of the emotions she feels like she should have. She wants to hate them for that. To hate them for making her realize that inside her heart is a burn of how few memories she has that aren't the monotony of her working and doing as she always did. They remind her that so much of her life was spent in a cage of her own making. They scream at her with their words she is empty and she thinks how much she can't stand that.
That she can't stand that she doesn't understand the idea of fun or friendship like people who grew up with others. She wants to! She imitates it and has fun with Estelle and the others. She smiles softly and thinks in the moment that is fun but the moment she's alone the euphoria fades. The joy of company…
Reading is no longer fun when she can't share it… Meals are sad once you realize how much nicer they are in company. Hugs are wonderful once you know what they can do. Words, smiles, just not feeling like you'll forget the day because the most that happened was minor progress on your work. She cries about loneliness now and she hates that Estelle has brought her to that… But she loves her for it.
She loves that Estelle makes her days feel memorable… She loves that… She loves that in every last single one of them. And that's why she hates them.
It's easy to live alone when you don't know friendship. It's easy because you don't know it. It's once you do know it living alone becomes impossible. Because much like how you can't really tell yourself a joke, fun is nigh impossible alone.