“But this isn’t new,” she says. “It isn’t specific to Fellside. It isn’t specific to anywhere.”
The words aren’t bitter.
Just factual.
“There are always people who think they get to decide where you belong,” she continues. “That doesn’t mean they’re right.”
I look down at our hands.
“I should have stopped it.”
She shakes her head immediately.
“You did stop it.”
I remember the alley. The sound of fists. The certainty that I couldn’t let them reach her.
“How do we stop it happening again?”
The question sits between us, heavier than anything else we’ve said.
She doesn’t answer immediately.
She thinks about it properly.
“We don’t,” she says finally.
The honesty of it hurts more than I expect.
She shifts slightly in the chair, leaning closer.
“But we make it harder,” she adds.
“How?”
She gestures vaguely, not at the hospital room, but at something beyond it.
“By existing,” she says. “By not disappearing. By not letting people like that decide the shape of our lives.”
Her thumb moves gently against my hand.
“And by having people who show up.”
I know who she means.
Alex.
Emma.
Chris.
Tommy.
Nick.
Rob.
They hadn’t hesitated.