They say you see things, watch people and notice the little things going on in their lives. But it’s not that at all. Everyone notices things; they see those little movements, unconscious touches, hear the changes in a person’s voices and the way their face can light up or crumble. Everyone sees. They look closer, raise an eyebrow, make some small comment to their friends and then put it out of their minds. That’s the difference between you and them: they forget, and that’s something that you will never do.

It seems like all you need to read people is a good memory. You learn the facts from the stories they tell and remember how they look when they tell them. The little quirk of the lip when they’re happy, the crease in the centre of their forehead when they frown; its all so easy to remember and catalogue into your own little memory bank of everyone you know. From then on its just recall, adding up the little things to see what’s going on under the surface. It makes it difficult to understand when others seem to forget, because to you this information is always there, plain as day.

So when Carmen totally flips about Jenny bringing Moira home, you can’t bring yourself to be sympathetic. You add it all up in you brain: the hurt from Carmen, the adventure to try out something new, all the questions she’d still had about her sexuality last year. Hell, the last girl she’d expressed any interest in was that butch on the cruise. So no, it’s no surprise at all. And even if it was, its Jenny’s life, Jenny’s house, and no-one else’s business.

But then, to Carmen, Jenny never really was that important, and she probably never took the time to learn about her life. Not in the same way that she sought the answers from you. Its not that she doesn’t care about Jenny, its just that Carm is a little too wrapped up in herself sometimes to see past the things she wants and learn to understand the people around her.

Still, it hurts that she doesn’t understand you either.

If she did, she would have known that her blatant disgust at Moira, and later Max, had hurt you deeply. Apparently it was easy for her to forget what you’d told her about your life on Santa Monica. How it wasn’t just something you did, but was who you were for a very long time.