#i thought it was rackett but the wiki and tags on archive both say racket

[im-sure-i-love-you]

Sometimes Sasha didn’t think she was built for love. 

She’d never say it out loud, of course. Not that she’d be able to articulate it in the first place, as clumsy and awkward as she was with words. But still. Even if she managed to force out the sentence that threatened to choke her, who would listen?

Maybe that’s too harsh. 

(Sometimes Sasha forgets that she’s no longer on her own, that she has people she can talk to. But habits are hard to break and when those habits are formed because of the cruelty of someone like Barret, when they are necessary for your survival, it becomes nearly impossible. But she was trying.) 

She knew that Zolf and Hamid would certainly do their best to listen. They might even succeed. But they wouldn’t understand. And that’s all she really wanted. That’s why she, as private and inarticulate as she was, was even considering uttering that soul-bearing sentence in the first place. Sasha wanted to be understood. She wanted someone to get exactly what she was feeling and maybe, for good measure, explain it back to her, because she hadn’t a proper clue herself. 

Sometimes Sasha didn’t think she was built for love. 

If she said that to Zolf or Hamid they would think that they understood what she meant. And that was the real problem. They would twist and warp her meaning to fit whatever perception they had of her and, while they would have the best of intentions, that was so much worse than them just not understanding. 

Hamid would look at her sadly and say, “Oh Sasha,” in a way that made it clear that she was to be pitied. And then he’d probably try and give her a hug or something. Comfort her. Because this was clearly an issue with self-esteem that must be fixed with care and support. Ugh. 

Zolf would also look at her in his own sad, stoic way that might just be ten times worse than Hamid’s. Despite them knowing each other for such a short time, Zolf was like the older sibling she never had and any hint that she had caused him to feel badly would set her feeling guilty for ages afterwards. And then later, he’d probably try and talk to her about it privately but they’d both be much too awkward to discuss it properly and he’d probably say something about how she shouldn’t let her trauma define her. It would be well-intentioned, she knew, and almost sweet, if it wasn’t so completely off-base. 

Bertie on the other hand… Sasha had thought about this a lot (it was her go-to scenario to think about on sleepless nights and she had a lot of those these days) and she had come to the conclusion that Bertie’s reaction would actually be the easiest to deal with. And that was based purely on the fact that he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t try to understand. He’d just wave her off and probably, knowing him, say something awful and classist and that would be that. He wouldn’t be able to misinterpret her words, she doubted that he would even remember them five minutes later. And, for the most part, she was fine with that. In fact, it was preferable to the conclusions that Zolf and Hamid were bound to jump to. 

Sometimes Sasha didn’t think she was built for love. 

It wasn’t a sad thing. Not to her. It was a statement of fact. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Sasha Racket didn’t fall in love. It was who she was, built into the very fabric of her being. And it wasn’t because of her horrific, love-deprived childhood either. As much as the voices in her head might like to whisper that this was just one more thing that Barret had stolen from her, the idea had never sat quite right with her. The only things that Barret had brought to her life was trauma and abject misery. 

But this?

Sasha didn’t think it was all that bad. She might even go as far as saying that she liked this aspect of herself. So it couldn’t possibly have been caused by Barret then. It was hers and hers alone. That thought brought a warm feeling to her chest. 

But she knew no one else would view it with that same warmness. 

The only time that she had mentioned it to someone else was when she was twelve years old and sitting, legs dangling off the sides of a dilapidated building, next to her closest friend. Brock had only stared at her, head tilted in confusion, before saying, “Well, maybe love wasn’t built for us!” And it was a lovely sentiment, it really was. But Sasha had seen the way Brock smiled at Wendy and blushed around Jasper. He was built for love and love was built for him. Maybe more so than your average person. He wasn’t like her. Sasha remembered looking out over the horizon that day, a bitter smile on her face. Of course he didn’t understand. 

Sometimes Sasha didn’t think she was built for love. 

But it was fine! Or, at least, it became fine. Really. But it was also terribly lonely. Not in the way that she wished she would fall in love (never in the way that she wished she would fall in love). It was lonely in the way that Sasha believed was universal to every person on Earth, regardless of their ability to fall in love: she desperately wished that she had someone who understood her. Completely and with no projections or warping of meanings required. 

It got worse as she grew older. 

This, of course, was mainly due to her circumstances (mostly due to Barret). She was sent away to Upper London to live with Rakefine who, despite being a bit fancier, was every bit of a Racket as Barret was. Brock was also sent away around this time. Sasha was never sure whether this was to punish her or him. Maybe both. Probably both. Either way, she never saw Brock again. 

She missed him. Desperately. Maybe Brock didn’t understand her sentiments towards love (That was fine, she eventually rationalized with herself when her desire to see him was at its strongest. She didn’t even completely understand it) but he understood plenty of other things about her. She felt his absence like it was a gaping wound in her chest. She had never once felt broken or damaged but not having Brock by her side made her feel as if she were. 

Sometimes Sasha didn’t think she was built for love. 

But she pressed forward anyways. What other choice did she have? She met Bi Ming Gusset at the request of Rakefine (the only good thing that that horrid man ever did for her) and, with his help, finally managed to escape Barret. Suddenly things were… Well, they weren’t good. But they were going. And that was enough for Sasha. It was a much better life than she thought she could have after Brock disappeared. It was hers. 

And that’s all that really mattered. 

Eventually, she met them. Zolf and Hamid and, yes. Even fucking Bertie. From there, her life got simultaneously much, much better and much, much worse. But she wasn’t alone anymore. And that… 

That was everything. 

And Zolf and Hamid were good! Or, at least, trying to be. Sasha couldn’t really judge. She was doing the same thing. She thinks that she’s happy just as much as she’s sad or angry when she’s with them which, given her history, isn’t all that bad. 

She still doesn’t tell them though. 

Because as much as she likes to imagine that they wouldn’t understand, by not telling them she keeps the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, they will. 

She thinks that that terrifies her just as much as she desperately desires it. She’s spent so long wishing for someone to understand her. What if it isn’t as fulfilling as she wants it to be? She thinks it might break her, well and truly, if it isn’t. 

(She doesn’t tell them.)