He flops down on his back in the snow, still avoiding the chance of eye contact. Popp likes to present his past in a certain kind of light, and he is a guy who has exciting adventures in a bright world full of monsters and heroes... There just happens to be a very dull prelude to all of that.
"Well... that's good - you definitely wouldn't have deserved getting hit! I was kind of a handful as a kid, though, and I wasn't even willing to put in the work to make him proud of me. I just wanted him to like me because I was his son."
He's trying to sound light-hearted about it, like it's stupid that it could still bother him. There's a fragility to the lightness that Rosie can probably identify, because she has much more experience at what he is doing here.
In a similar vein, he suspects she might feel a little better about having this in common because this is also how he feels, it really sucks but it also feels better not being alone and also, there's no way to say that you're grateful for this out loud without coming off like a huge asshole! Even Popp wouldn't say that!
"...He never played it all slow and purposeful like that guy, though, he'd just get madder and madder and then boil over all at once. Sometimes I'd mouth off just to get it over with. I hated working at the shop, so I was always in a bad mood, too. I ran off for good the very day I found out about something I actually wanted to do with my life."
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"Well... that's good - you definitely wouldn't have deserved getting hit! I was kind of a handful as a kid, though, and I wasn't even willing to put in the work to make him proud of me. I just wanted him to like me because I was his son."
He's trying to sound light-hearted about it, like it's stupid that it could still bother him. There's a fragility to the lightness that Rosie can probably identify, because she has much more experience at what he is doing here.
In a similar vein, he suspects she might feel a little better about having this in common because this is also how he feels, it really sucks but it also feels better not being alone and also, there's no way to say that you're grateful for this out loud without coming off like a huge asshole! Even Popp wouldn't say that!
"...He never played it all slow and purposeful like that guy, though, he'd just get madder and madder and then boil over all at once. Sometimes I'd mouth off just to get it over with. I hated working at the shop, so I was always in a bad mood, too. I ran off for good the very day I found out about something I actually wanted to do with my life."