Before he could speak, Charlie turned back to him. “After that night, I had to get away,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, and her face was strained, her features seeming harsher than before. “I had to leave everything behind, John. Everything. My whole life has been haunted by what happened here, and the last couple of years … even before that, too. It’s just been my whole life.” She met his eyes briefly, then looked away, blinking rapidly like she was holding back tears. “I wanted be somebody different; I had to or I’d go insane. I know it’s a cliché to think you can change your life if you change your hair and your clothes”—she gave an ironic half smile and flipped her long hair over her shoulder—“but I couldn’t be your Charlie forever, that naïve little girl, scared of her own shadow; living in a shadow. Honestly, I don’t even know what you saw in that girl—selfish, scatterbrained, pathetic.” She said the last word so caustically that she almost shook with it, a sour look coming over her face as if loathing for her past self had overwhelmed her.

“I never thought you were any of those things,” John said quietly, and looked down. He ran his fork along the rim of his plate, not knowing what to say. He made himself look up; Charlie’s face had softened, and now she seemed anxious.

“But it’s still me.” She shrugged, her voice breaking. He couldn’t answer; he didn’t know where to start. Charlie bit her lip. “You still think it, don’t you?” she said after a moment. John shifted uncomfortably in his seat, ashamed, but Charlie pressed on.

“John, please, I don’t understand. If you think I’m not me, then … what do you think? Who can you possibly think I am?” She looked utterly bewildered, and again John felt himself wavering.

“I think—” He gestured graspingly at the air, catching nothing. “Charlie, what I saw—!” he exclaimed, then stopped short, remembering they were in public. He glanced around, but no one was looking at them: the restaurant was not busy, but everyone there was occupied, the guests talking to the people they came with, the staff talking among themselves. “I saw you die,” he said, lowering his voice. “When you walked into that diner the next day, Charlie, I wanted to believe it was true—I still want to believe it, but I—I saw you die,” he finished helplessly. Charlie shook her head slowly.

“I’m telling you that I’m alive, how can that not be enough? If you want to believe me, why don’t you?” The pain in her voice sent a pang of guilt through him, but he met her eyes calmly.

“Because I’d rather know the truth than believe something just because it would make me happy.”