“You don’t get it,” I said, and my voice went weak on ‘get’ in a way that made me think it would crack. I didn’t want to be weak. I wanted to be angry, so I spoke with more fervor, more harshness in my voice. “The fact that you’re here, that you wanted to talk to me, it shows you don’t get it. You invade my thoughts every few minutes. You altered me as a person, on multiple levels. Everything I do now, everything I touch, everything I eat, it’s stained with—with you. You intruded that deeply, that thoroughly, and the very fact you think you can talk to me is screwed up. It’s another intrusion, your words in my ears. Whatever you think you’re doing—this isn’t helping.”

“After this is done with, I think you’d thank me.”

Heavy words. I was pretty sure she’d said the same thing way back then.

Something in my expression seemed to communicate that.

Her expression was forlorn, lost. Fuck her. She asked, “What am I supposed to do? If I let this happen then you’re never going to forgive me.”

“I was never, ever going to forgive you in the first place, even before this meeting,” I spat out the words, and the pent up emotions found some release in those words, anger etching the sounds more and more. I was aware of my team in my peripheral vision, and my voice softened a bit. The Warrior Monk. What would Jessica want? I didn’t have an answer, so I asked a question instead, with no anger in my voice. Only the disappointment equivalent to an entire childhood of friendship, loyalty, trust and respect being dashed to the rocks, infusing quiet words as much as anger had infused the loud. “How do you not get that?”

She didn’t have a response to that. Her creature looked between her devastated expression and ‘me’—the projected image of me.

“I could ask you to,” Goddess told me. “Forgive her.”

“No,” Amy said, as I shook my head.

The standing-on-a-ledge feeling lurched inside of me at the idea.

Goddess reached out to fix a lock of brown hair that the rain had pressed down to Amy’s ear. I moved my shoulders, shifting my weight on my feet—I wanted to squirm free of skin and awareness to not be a part of this.

Goddess asked, “What am I going to do with you, Amy?”

I stared at Lookout’s workstations, at the other monitors, the email feeds, desperate for something that would give me an excuse to not be here, a distraction or a daydream.

“It might be better if I handle things from here on out,” Capricorn murmured in my ear.

“Yeah. A lot better,” I murmured back. “Thank you.”