I find the number of reviews and posts about Hench to be really interesting - so many people feel like there is something unresolved between Anna and Leviathan (and there totally is, but imo it's just not what people think is unresolved). There's definitely still some unresolved disagreement: there's some...not resentment, exactly, from Anna (resentment is a little too strong) but she's left annoyed about the whole thing, and Leviathan still needs to further address that *and* get out of his own head and trust her.
A lot of people are sad they didn't kiss at the end, or that their feelings for each other are somehow up in the air, but I think the ending fit. They do know where they stand with one another. They're just taking it (painfully) slow.
Usually a kiss is a stand in for characters A and B showing they love one another, and are on the same page. It's used as a clear neon signal of mutual interest and agreement over that interest. This usually happens when either the characters are confused over how the other feels (but the reader is appraised of how at least one feels), one character has been hiding the extent of their feelings from the other, or there's been a slow buildup of flirtatious banter and actions but nothing confirmed/out in the open.
Anna and Leviathan already know how the other feels about them. No one's been hiding it - Anna even says as such to Decohedrence. She doesn't need to speculate. She loves him, he feels the same for her, and she enjoys that. And while I can't claim to be in Leviathan's head, his attempts at an apology, his assurances he'd trust her plans from now on, and the gesture of rebuilding her office first, seem to prove he's trying to secure and maintain the relationship in the best way he knows how. I choose to believe that means he also enjoys knowing how she feels about him.
So - they do love one another, and are on the same page about it, so why no kiss? Lots of reasons, including: a track record of not really trusting people (Leviathan), heaps of physical and emotional trauma (both of them but make it a double for Leviathan), and the fact that I would bet actual real money that Leviathan is ace. They're literally just trying to figure out how to exist in the same space together with these feelings hanging out there. Things like casually touching each other, assuring the other when someone is worried (Leviathan seemed genuinely surprised when Anna said she was worried about him, and not all of that is ego), being informal with each other - this is the level they are currently trying to navigate. In the end scene Anna reaches for his hand and stops just before touching him, presumably to let him have control over that final barrier, to make the choice if he wants to be touched. If they are still navigating touching hands, they are not ready for kissing. (But I can't fucking wait until they are)
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i just wanna feel okay. i just wanna move on. i just wanna be able to go a fucking month without thinking about her. all her memory does is give me massive anxiety, and fear, and dread, and i never realize it's coming from her memory until something triggers it again.
i fucking hate this. i know i have ptsd. i have SOME form of it. idk of it's the normal one or c-ptsd or some secret third thing but i'm not exaggerating, and i'm not faking it, and i'm just so fucking tired of fighting it.
it's not even about her. last summer, i almost died. i straight-up barely made it through. and my illness has been affecting me since middle school. my first experience with seeing stars was caused by my thyroid fucking up. my heart rate has been over 200 several times. i don't know how i haven't had a fucking heart attack and keeled over yet.
it's bound to happen. but also not. we're not tied down by fate, there's no such thing. self-fulfilling prophecies yes, and butterfly's wings flap and suddenly you're on the run from the law, yes. but it's not fate, it's an intricate web of cause and effect to get you there.
what caused this in me?
no one fucking knows. i'm tired, and i'm queer, and i'm disabled, but able-passing, and i'm hurt, and traumatized, and guilty of so many things no other living soul knows about, and i'm struggling with religion again and hating myself for it, and i just want to feel okay.
i just want a day where i don't have graves. a day where i can run as fast as i want, and a day where i won't fall over for it, and a day where i can lay on my stomach and pick grass in a field where it's warm or even hot but i'm not uncomfortable, or i want to be able to play tag with my brother, or just go a single fucking day where nothing matters and i can just.... exist.
i want to be alive.
i can't see my future. i can't see where i'll be in ten years. i spent last summer wondering if i'd see 2023. i'm here, and i made it to my 20's (something i didn't think was possible when i was 14), so now, i just gotta get to my 30's, right? but... there's so much shit going on. where will i be at 30? is it even worth thinking about? surely, yes, since the future is important, but... i can't see it. i can't see it, and if i can, the only reliable thing i see is loneliness. i'm always alone, sitting on a couch, touch-starved, watching tv and not even drawing. my hand got fucked up somewhere along the way, cuz of course it was, and i can't do anything.
they say that dreams are a reflection of the subconscious. that whatever reality we don't want to face, it comes out in dreams. but if that's true, why does she keep haunting them? is she in my future?
i want to be alive. i am alive. alive, i tell you.
.....but for how long?
it feels like i'm waiting for a clock to count down, that the people who say that we only breathe a certain number of times in our lives are right and my limit's almost up. i'm going to fall asleep, and not wake up, and no one will even notice for a few days because i'm already a hermit who prefers staying inside because the sun makes me feel awful and even when i'm inside that's when i get eaten alive by just, everything.
i got this far in life by being positive. i can continue to do that. but, my positivity has also blinded me to the bad before, and pretty much every relationship i've ever had has turned sour in some way because i refused to acknowledge a person's faults or express when i was uncomfortable until i couldn't stand it anymore. i wanna lay boundaries, but not upset people. i wanna hold a friendship for more than two years without it rotting away like an old maple leaf downed in acid. i hate thinking about my past, but i also love talking about it because i always think that imparting my bad experiences will help people somehow, even if it hurts me to think about it, but i should think about it, otherwise it'll fester and come out later.
i need therapy, but i can't get it. i'm alone.
i'm alone in my head. i'm alone in this room. i'm alone in this city. i'm alone in my pain, and my struggles, and i'm alone in my life. i feel like i attract bad people and hurt the good ones. i can't maintain a good friendship unless it's online. i'm going to be all alone, by myself, with no one to really reach to when my body finally fails me and i'm left to thrash around by myself.
i need to go to bed.
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