It's not something he hears from people often, that they feel lucky to have him around. Joel says it often, they say it to each other, but it feels strange to hear it from someone else simply because he doesn't really know what he's done to warrant the words. He doesn't think he's doing anything extraordinary, just doing his best to be here for his friend; but then, maybe that is something extraordinary in itself. He hadn't had anyone to sit next to him and hold his hand after his mother and brother had died; he hadn't had anyone to remind him everything would be okay or that it really hadn't been his fault even when sometimes all the gossip would convince even him that maybe he really is to blame.
Raleigh calls him a good person, and it makes something in his chest start to ache because he hopes that she's right. He's never strived to be particularly good or kind or anything that might draw people to him in a way that someone like Raleigh or Coop draw people, he's always just tried to be. The thought that maybe he helps people now, that he has people who are willing to help him in the same way, makes his eyes start to well up, and he has to duck his head so that Raleigh doesn't see.
He manages to swallow down the lump forming in his throat so the silence that's settled between them doesn't stretch on for too long, and he smooths down a wrinkle in his cardigan before finally answering softly, "Anyone who wouldn't believe you isn't worth your time." He knows that from experience, has been stared down by people he and his mother both would help in the library all the time, has been threatened by former classmates and pushed around by strangers and sneered at by police officers; he knows what it's like to feel like he's completely alone, to start to feel like maybe it is better that way because at least if he's alone, there's nobody left to show him how little they think he's worth.
He doesn't think that anymore, of course. One reason for that is the same reason he looks forward to getting up in the morning, another is beside him on this couch. He's not alone anymore and sometimes he has nightmares about having to choose, about losing everything all over again, but when he wakes up to Joel's arms around him, it makes him remember that he can't spend the rest of his life worrying. He doesn't want Raleigh to spend another second worrying that people will think she'd a terrible person, and he knows that's not something he can change with a snap of his fingers, but he can at least make sure she knows he doesn't think it.
"I'm lucky, too," he tells her, "because someone like you decided that she wanted to befriend someone like me. I was nobody's good company, not for a long time, and sometimes it would make me wonder terrible things about myself. But how bad can I really be when one of the most kind-hearted people I know is willing to be a fixture in my life?"
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Raleigh calls him a good person, and it makes something in his chest start to ache because he hopes that she's right. He's never strived to be particularly good or kind or anything that might draw people to him in a way that someone like Raleigh or Coop draw people, he's always just tried to be. The thought that maybe he helps people now, that he has people who are willing to help him in the same way, makes his eyes start to well up, and he has to duck his head so that Raleigh doesn't see.
He manages to swallow down the lump forming in his throat so the silence that's settled between them doesn't stretch on for too long, and he smooths down a wrinkle in his cardigan before finally answering softly, "Anyone who wouldn't believe you isn't worth your time." He knows that from experience, has been stared down by people he and his mother both would help in the library all the time, has been threatened by former classmates and pushed around by strangers and sneered at by police officers; he knows what it's like to feel like he's completely alone, to start to feel like maybe it is better that way because at least if he's alone, there's nobody left to show him how little they think he's worth.
He doesn't think that anymore, of course. One reason for that is the same reason he looks forward to getting up in the morning, another is beside him on this couch. He's not alone anymore and sometimes he has nightmares about having to choose, about losing everything all over again, but when he wakes up to Joel's arms around him, it makes him remember that he can't spend the rest of his life worrying. He doesn't want Raleigh to spend another second worrying that people will think she'd a terrible person, and he knows that's not something he can change with a snap of his fingers, but he can at least make sure she knows he doesn't think it.
"I'm lucky, too," he tells her, "because someone like you decided that she wanted to befriend someone like me. I was nobody's good company, not for a long time, and sometimes it would make me wonder terrible things about myself. But how bad can I really be when one of the most kind-hearted people I know is willing to be a fixture in my life?"