Discover more from the immense wave
Adam is supposedly sober but clearly not recovered from anything. He withholds basically everything, especially affection. He is eager to mock and ridicule, especially Hannah, probably because Hannah cares about him. He shows love only when he feels like Hannah is pulling away from him, and even then it’s not love—it’s a performance of its facsimile. He gets angry when Hannah acts in ways that are commensurate with his behavior instead of giving him a generously-sized benefit of the doubt. He gets angry, also, when his actions have consequences. He can’t entertain anybody else’s point of view. He is self-righteous and impetuous; he has half-formed ideas he declares as final verdicts. He is childish and selfish and mean. He does not have boundaries and therefore does not respect those of others; he is incapable of being present without suffocating those around him. The closest he can get to giving someone space is disappearing entirely and without explanation; the closest thing he has to boundaries are fences he puts up abruptly when he has lost sole control of a situation. He is smart but not smart enough to do anything about it. He is a big ball of shame packed so densely the only thing he can do to forget that fact is swim in even more shame. He is gross and sad and lovable and confusing and pathetic, and we all know someone just like him.