Determined to ignore the damning butterflies at the sound and the resonating look on Hannah’s face, she shakes her head. “It’s just a backpack. And Abbie picked out the design.”

Hannah ignores her deflection and steps closer. Close enough that Caroline can smell the subtle, floral perfume she’d worn for her meeting. “It’s not just a backpack.”

Oh, damn. As Hannah reaches out to take the backpack, she feels the flutter at the smile Hannah gives her. Really, she’s been getting the flutter less now that she actively pulls herself away from it. Proof that her recovery steps really can work!

She hopes the slight step she takes back is subtle.

Hannah bites her lip as her grip on the backpack tightens and she holds it closer to herself. Her voice dips to just above a whisper as she admits, “I’ve been on edge all day. I meant what I said, about… some things I just have to do on my own. But more than that – being back on campus, classes starting later this week…” She clears her throat, the look of uncertainty and vulnerability flashing over her face in a look that cuts right through Caroline. “It’s all sort of a reminder that I haven’t been in college for a decade. Things have changed; I could see how it all changed even today, before classes even started. There’s a chance I could –”

“There’s no chance of you failing,” she interrupts, her voice strong. So strong, because she can feel that truth in her bones.

Hannah sighs and the weight of it feels heavy from here. It takes everything in her not to step back into Hannah’s orbit and offer the hug that she just knows Hannah would sink into and take comfort from. The comfort she wants to give.

“You don’t know that,” Hannah points out, biting her lip as she closes her eyes. “I feel like I’m juggling a thousand things and this is… I need this.”

“So, you’ll do it. You will. You’re one of the smartest, most self-sufficient women I know. And you can do this.” She can hear her own conviction and she knows that the fire burning behind her words is borne of just that – the belief she has built into her core that Hannah can do anything.

Because in a recovery program for her feelings for this woman or not, she will never back down on that.

Hannah clearly still doesn’t share that belief, but it’s her eyes that smile more than anything else at Caroline in that moment. Softness and warmth emanate from them as she squeezes the backpack before hanging it up on the hook on the wall. “Thank you. For saying that. And for believing it.”