[She bites her lip. Sometimes he asks her questions like it's the simplest thing to know the answers. She knows he doesn't really think that, but - that's how it sounds.]

[She chews back and forth, scratching lightly at the fake fur on the bear's arms. She likes the fakeness of it. That it was never alive.]

I don't know if I can. But I know that right now, I don't want to. It . . . didn't always feel bad.

[When she was tiny, she was quiet and scalpel-sharp. The safest place was at home. Then home was the least safe place, and now she doesn't have a home at all.]

[She looks up at Ben, brows furrowed in genuine confusion.]

But I also - I don't think that, after what happened . . . I don't think it'll ever be the same. I want it to be the same, Ben, and it's not - that I want to stop, it's that I can't start again. Ever.