[Cross-posted from Tumblr]
I think--when Margie first starts hanging around/living in Raf's flat, one of the things that kinda strikes him as strange is that she's weirdly skittish--as in she startles very easily. There are many times where he just turns a corner, or opens a door to enter a room that she happens to be in, and the sudden sight of him makes her leap an inch off the ground before recovering with a defusing little laugh at herself and asking something like "Whatcha lookin' for?" or "Everything alright?" So he's had to start making noise or chatting to himself when ever he navigates the apartment just so that Margie always knows when he's approaching.
Another thing is that she's reluctant to wear her headphones on both ears, leaving one ear open to hear her environment. And even then, she often stops what she's doing to ask if he was calling for her. Even if he's in a completely different room, she'll often abandon what she was working on--to walk over and check in, making sure that she was just mishearing things and that she wasn't 'ignoring' him if he was, in fact, yelling her name from across the apartment. Every time, he assures her that if he needed her for anything, he would just walk over to her--not shout her name from the other room. Especially since he knows she's often got her headphones on. Like--that'd be insane.
Additionally, she seems to have a sixth sense that allows her to detect his bad moods, no matter how well he's able to mask it. Regardless of how he acts, if he's in a poor mood, Margie's reaction is to make herself sparse, small, and quiet. Similarly, she always gets really restless and uncomfortable if she sees him cleaning--immediately asking if there's anything she can help with, and apologizing to/withdrawing quietly from him when he says 'no'.
Initially, his instinct was to kinda take it personally. No matter how accommodating or patient he was, she continued to behave like she was walking on eggshells around him. As though just having him around automatically put her on edge. But when he asked about it, she'd just shrug and say that she's always been easily startled and that she's not scared of him or anything--he's been nothing but great, it's just the way she is! It's funny, it's fine. And to be fair, she is otherwise very outwardly chill and doesn't give off much in the way of high-strung vibes. Which kinda makes her extremely situational jumpiness all the more jarring to him.
Bringing it up with his therapist, she suggested to him that Margie's hypervigilant behavior at home was likely influence by her home environment growing up. Though she avoids saying it outright, her educated speculation implies that abuse is a common contributing factor to these kinds of behaviors. He chews on this a bit.
Until this point, Raf hadn't asked Margie about her upbringing or anything relating to her past--primarily because he's never wanted to open himself up to that same line of questioning from her. And honestly, Margie didn't need to be asked about her family or her life growing up. She always shared random tidbits about her family and her experiences--and they were all usually quite positive. She seemed very fond of her siblings and her parents, and shared her good opinions of them. But this kinda...bothered him enough to ask. No mincing words about it just a, "Hey, did your parents ever like...hit you or something when you were a kid?" To which Margie, somewhat abhorred, responded, "N-no? What? Why?" and Raf just kinda repeats to her what his therapist had speculated.
Eventually, Margie admits that like--yeah, she was super inattentive growing up and so her mom or dad would often have to scream her name from the kitchen or whatever just to get her attention. And by then, they had already tried calling her calmly like 5 times--so they'd be super pissed by the time she finally came to see what they wanted. And it was usually something like--she had forgotten to put her dishes away, or she left some food out on the counter and the dog got into it. They'd get frustrated, make a show of cleaning her mess for her, tell her that she's not "retarded" and that she needs to stop acting like she is. Stuff like that. But like--everyone's parents yell when they're angry. That's normal.
To which Raf is like. "Nnn...no. I've never had a parent or any care taker yell at me growing up." And Margie provides a nervous little laugh before impulsively jesting, "Ohokay, but you'd have probably preferred that over whatever they did do to you." Which provokes an, "It's not a competition" response from Raf before Margie explains, "Right but like--even as a kid, I knew they weren't yelling at me to be mean. It was always super obvious to me that they loved me, like--I never doubted that. They yelled because they were frustrated and scared that I was growing into someone who was lazy and spoiled and unable to take care of myself. And like--to their credit--they both came from actual wildly abusive families. Dad's dad beat the shit outta him as a kid and died of drug overdose. Mom's dad neglected her and died of alcohol abuse. Apparently my aunts on my dad's side are all cuckoo crazy--I dunno! I never knew any of them. My parents wanted to keep us away from all that stuff, so they had absolutely no help with raising us. I don't think they deserve to be accused of being abusive; they were doing the best the knew how to. I dunno about like...Europe or whatever, but at least here...parents yell at their kids all the time. You ever watch Malcom in the Middle? Like--it's extremely normal."
Putting Margie on the defensive wrt her family is absolutely not Raf's goal in this conversation, and so he pretty much drops it there. But he scoots real close to her, hands on her shoulders, looks her squarely in the eyes, and resolutely tells her that he'll never raise his voice at her, will never belittle or insult her, will never "clean things angrily" at her, will never yell to get her attention, none of that. And--he knows that talk is cheap, that these little promises aren't going to stop her from leaping a foot in the air when she suddenly sees him, or from hearing some phantom angrily yelling her name from the other side of the apartment, or from feeling like she's being being punished when he decides to tidy up around the house without bothering her for help or whatever. But she can relax about it. She can wear her headphones on both ears. She doesn't have to check in to make sure he wasn't calling her name. She doesn't have to stand at attention anytime he enters the room. If she can try and ignore the impulse, he promises she won't be punished for it. She can, please, relax. Margie responds to this with a polite smile, an enthusiastic nod and a short "okay, cool, thanks!" thumbs up, swiftly disengages, b-lines to her room and cries like a bitch for reasons she still doesn't really understand, haha.