That is a thing I have thought about since: that the people closest to a betrayal often see it before the person it happens to, and carry the weight of the knowing, and have no permission to speak.

That nurse held my whole ruined situation in her hands for the length of one held breath, and could do nothing with it but change the subject and wait for the man with the tablet to arrive.

I have wished, many times, that I could find her and tell her it turned out all right.

She was the first person to look at me with pity that morning, and she had no way of knowing she was looking at the last woman in that hospital who would need it.

Chapter 4 — Miss Ashcombe, Room 202