[ TT ] You have a gift for talking to inanimate objects . Alongside many perks , it makes you an excellent thief ... but you only steal things that want to be stolen .

It ’ s hard not to fidget. 
 
 
 I feel the way I think people with voices in their heads feel, trying not to hear them, trying to resist the urge to cover up their ears and scream, to do anything to get the noise out. Like people, there are those who are polite, who are quiet. But then there are others who must be heard, whose entire existence is being heard. 
 
 
 Announcements over the intercoms are always laced with secrets. *He ’ s telling you this with his hand down his pants, can you imagine what it does there? * Strangers become intimate partners during first conversations. *He cries at night. He cries at night holding me around his neck, too cowardly to pull me tighter*. 
 
 
 I don ’ t like to listen, most the time. And I know enough to know that anyone and anything can be a liar. 
 
 
 But you were different, in front of me, murmuring quietly to yourself while the people who owned you continued to talk. You spoke of the ocean, of the wind and all the things you wished you ’ d been, the places you wished you ’ d seen. You liked it best in the room upstairs, the one with the blue walls and the balloons painted on the closet door. You spoke to me, quietly, under the din of laughter and my delayed responses, and told me how much you hated yourself now that you ’ d been resigned to this. Then, tentatively, you asked me so kindly, to please, take you away. 
 
 
 I considered it. I promise you I did, staring at your ornate trappings. I thought about what it would cost to take you from there, about the people who would be hurt should I make that decision. 
 
 
 And there were moments. I had my chances, and each time they left the room I felt your disappointment mounting. 
 
 
 But when it was time to leave, I could not. I said my goodbyes, and one of those goodbyes was meant for you. 
 
 
 Later on the street, I did not regret my decision. I could have been anything, I decided. A detective listening to bones, bringing murderers to justice. I could have been anything, and so could you. But here we both were, endlessly wondering about what wouldn ’ t be. 
 
 
 How unfair it seemed to me, in that moment, that I ’ d left you behind. I didn ’ t want to be able to make those sorts of choices. For the rest of the night I was plagued by the knowledge that what was once a person, someone whom I could have known, now sat in a jar, begging for release. 

