“No,” she said immediately. “No, Nay. You can’t.”
“I can.”
She shook her head harder. “They’ll know. You don’t know what it’s like out there anymore. You’re not…”
“Not what?” I asked. “Not sane enough? Not soft enough? Not tame enough to walk back into that house and pretend?”
I stepped closer and took her by the shoulders.
“You still think they might change. I don’t. That’s the difference between us. You survive by hoping. I survive by knowing exactly what monsters are.”
The bell announcing the end of visiting hours rang in the hallway.
We looked at each other, our faces so alike it used to unsettle people when we were children. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same cheekbones. But only one of us had spent ten years learning what to do with violence.
We switched quickly.
