I think it was always this way. People liked me on the surface, back home. [ There's the unspoken undercurrent there -- that they happily believed the worst of him, that they dropped him the second he'd been charged with a violent crime, that they'd turned on him and worse -- but the truth is still there.

He'd been casually and effortlessly popular enough by virtue of being intelligent, attractive, and charming enough. ]

I did get better here. I work at a bar sometimes that definitely helped.