the summer i was ten

[deepest_magic]

Bella is ten. School has let out; she spends one week at the beach with Renée, celebrating, and then from there Renée drives her up to Forks, and drops her off, with many hugs. Charlie picks her up, with some hugs, although not as many; it's not his way. Bella settles in for the summer. It is, if nothing else, cooler up here.

Comments

[deepest_magic]

"You are still here," agrees Bella. "And I still haven't shooed you and started reading my book again."

[neverbeatme]

"I feel so special," she says dryly.

[deepest_magic]

"You should," giggles Bella.

[neverbeatme]

She grins.

[deepest_magic]

"When you find someone who's worth your time what do you usually do with them?"

[neverbeatme]

"That depends entirely on the person," she says. "And factors such as, for example, what they like to do with their time."

[deepest_magic]

"I mostly read. Or write notes about things," says Bella. "I'm not particularly interesting company, I think. It's pretty neat living in my head, but you aren't invited. So if we're going to do anything it might be useful to know what you like to do."

[neverbeatme]

"That is why what you like to do with your time is only one factor," says she whom we shall call Elizabeth. "What's neat about living in your head?"

[deepest_magic]

"I just think I'm interesting. I like to take my thoughts apart and find what littler thoughts they're made of."

[neverbeatme]

"Nice hobby," says Elizabeth. "What does 'not invited' mean?"

[deepest_magic]

"Well, you can't read my mind. And if you could, you shouldn't."

[neverbeatme]

"But it doesn't mean you don't want to talk about it?"

[deepest_magic]

"I don't want to talk about all of it. I might talk about some of it."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, some of it like what?"

[deepest_magic]

"I dunno, no one ever wanted to know that many details about it before. If it comes up in conversation I'll tell you."

[neverbeatme]

"Okay," she says. "Do you keep a mind palace? You seem like the kind of person who might."

[deepest_magic]

Bella shakes her head. "I just write a lot. I guess I might have sort of something like that because I'm very good at finding the place where I wrote things, but I have to actually go read it to be sure of what I put there."

[neverbeatme]

"Huh," she says. "I've been using mine for a year and I haven't forgotten anything out of it yet."

[deepest_magic]

"I'm less worried about forgetting than I am about distorting," says Bella.

[neverbeatme]

"...Yeah, that's what I mean."

[deepest_magic]

"How do you know nothing in your mind palace is distorted if you don't also write it down?"

[neverbeatme]

"How do you know that what you wrote down means the exact same thing to you now that it did when you wrote it?"

[deepest_magic]

"Some of it's just facts, and the stuff that isn't I'm very thorough about taking apart."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, okay," says Elizabeth. "Your standard for 'not distorted' is that something matches what you wrote down. My standard is that it matches what's in my mind palace. Neither one of those is literally perfect, but they're both pretty good. And they probably work best at different things. I have a whole bunch of people's faces in my mind palace," she offers as an example. "I'm sure they're not as good as photos, but it means I don't forget which name goes with which."

[deepest_magic]

"That sounds useful. I'm not all that bad with names but I'm not perfect with them either," acknowledges Bella.