Ellie falls silent, existing in this weird place where she just doesn't know how to handle it. They share the kind of pain few others will ever really get, and Abby's the source of Ellie's side of it. Different pieces of the same fractured circle.

By all rights they should have each other, but they don't. Their choices made sure of it.

Ellie sets a hand heavily on top of her journal, protective of her hurts, but after a few seconds her fingers relax, and she leans her hip against the desk, looking down at her fingers.

She has something of her tongue and it's digging a hole in her, too heartbreaking to say, too venomous to keep inside.

"I thought killing you would fix me," Ellie says quietly.