Tom doesn't tell her that back in his world, there was an evil that wore his face, his body, that ripped up his best friend and broke a little boy's bones, that he can't abide being blamed for something he didn't do and yet he knows it's impossible to forgive because it's a wound that doesn't even have permission to exist in her own psyche.

He holds her a little tighter, instead. "It's all just fear, though. Fear just the same. You've just spent so long without honest-to-God fear that you don't remember how to handle it."

She'll put herself back together, day by day, reassuring herself of her insurmountability. That's how people like them do these things, when they're hurt. They patch themselves back together, alone, and then stride out as if they aren't still bleeding.

"We're both picking fights." Which is, again, only partially true. The truth lies in the middle between them.