[The bummer about her chopsticks being pens (and having dismissed getting sick) is that she can't bite down with her teeth in an effort to destroy them like they symbolize her feelings. That would make ink go everywhere, and this ink wasn't like squid ink. Or was it? No, it couldn't be, even if she doesn't know what the different would be, except that one might be edible. Ryder makes a mental note to read about squids when she gets home and sleeps off the trauma of having a conversation. Even if he's smiling that weird, charming smile of his...]

Y-you think -- s'dumb.

[He thinks she's dumb... A truly pathetic, useless creature -- and she can't say he's wrong. Ryder glues her gaze to her meal, letting her stomach have a minute to decide whether it's going to roll over and die anytime soon, or if it can go on through the shame and let her eat.

She's just not trying hard enough. She just needs to smile more. She should think more positively, and then she'll see that it was easy, actually. Her way was wrong. She was wrong.

Ryder sighs, nudging different bits of her food to separate it. She couldn't be a chameleon like him, if it was that "easy".]

...I know s'not nnnormal.

[It isn't like she doesn't want to have more than one person she can stomach being close to, or who wants to listen to her. It really sucks that the closest to that she feels is the occasional, sometime anonymous, kudos on her fics. Praise without a face she could reread whenever she wanted because she spat out something a little clever or tender despite not being either.]

...Sh-she's in, um, a different state, anyway. Um... Sometimes -- want...someone with you. R-right...?

[Is that at least normal? Will that make her understandable?]