“Umm... well, you know, club contract,” Ellie said. She flushed her toilet and came out of the stall to see Hilary washing her hands, but looking at Ellie in the mirror.

“Yeah, but you never do those, so it’s kind of a big deal, right?”

“Kind of a really big deal to me,” Ellie admitted, moving to the sink.

Hilary leaned against the sink she’d been using, watching Ellie as she chewed her lower lip, and Ellie suddenly knew what was coming. She’d told Angel and the others who had hung out after the self-defense class to tell rest of their friends in the group what had happened to her. Probably Jessica had told Hilary.

She’d given them permission because she didn’t really want to have to go over it again and again and again, and she’d known it would probably happen eventually if she kept hanging out with all of them. The topic would come up, they’d want to know why she was so skittish - hell, they’d mostly already guessed - and she’d just wanted to get the telling over with. Better they do it for her.

“Is it because of what happened to you?” Hilary asked in a low voice, full of sympathy. “My high school boyfriend tried to push me a lot faster than I was ready to go and I had to shove him off me and practically knee him in the balls to make him stop. It was hard to trust another guy for a while after that.”

While, in some ways, it was almost nice to know she wasn’t alone, it also killed Ellie that every single one of these other women had a story to tell. One which could never be guessed just by looking at them or seeing how they behaved. It was good not to feel so alone, which was not what her experience had been before this, and to see how they were all in normal, happy, healthy relationships now... but she also felt really sad and angry that they’d all had some kind of shitty experience. There just wasn’t any winning with her emotions.

“Yeah, that’s some of it,” she said, grabbing some paper towels to dry off her hands. Hilary reached out to take her hand as she tossed the paper towels in the trash, giving it a squeeze, and Ellie’s heart stuttered a little at the blatant gesture of support. She smiled at the other woman, around the lump growing in her throat. “I’ve also just never had a normal relationship after that. Well, not that that relationship was normal, I hope. I tried in college, but the only guy who was really willing to put up with all my issues... well, after a while he started getting frustrated with me and… yeah. I haven’t even tried since then. I have no idea what I’m doing.”