I start to point out the milk mustache, but something in her tone arrests me mid-syllable. She huddles in her sweatshirt, gripping her mug with both hands, appearing suddenly much younger. For an instant, fear pierces my heart: she’s going to tell me something terrible—she’s pregnant or she’s in some kind of trouble. Crash—the illicit boyfriend who wound up infecting her and, subsequently, her brother with the virus—is long gone, banished from Rorie’s life with the finality of a despot ordering an execution. He’s okay—he barely got sick—but as far as I know, Rorie never spoke to him again after she recovered from her illness, too stricken with horror at the consequences of her little rebellion to bring herself to see the boy whose face personified her worst failure. For a long time she didn’t date at all, but for a lively girl like Rorie, there’s always another Crash waiting in the wings. She’d cycled through a few of them, but I’d thought none of them had stuck.

“What is it, Roar?” I ask.

She’s staring at the ground as if it holds some immense magnetic appeal, but after a visible effort, she brings her eyes up to meet mine. The expression on her face burns me; it’s the same look she gave me when she told me to give the drug to Beau, the expression I thought would be the last one I’d ever see from her. It’s a reflection of such intensity and shame I know immediately what she’s trying to do.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice slows and thickens, becoming almost unrecognizable. “I’m sorry I went out. I’m sorry for what I did to Beau.”

In a flash I’m on her, gathering her into my arms, rocking her head against my chest. “You do not have to apologize,” I tell her. “You were young and frustrated and lonely, and you made one bad decision. Everybody does dumb stuff at that age. I know you’re sorry; I’ve always known. You don’t have to say it.”

“I want to say it.” Her face is contorted. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

It’s true; I have known of the depth of Rorie’s remorse from the instant the EMTs arrived to place Beau in the ambulance. I saw it flash through her, confusion giving way to terrible, irrevocable knowledge, itself followed by the realization that her remorse for such a sin was too weighty to put into words and was therefore a useless, damning emotion. How do you apologize for breaking a rule when the result of your action is catastrophic?