“Every single word.

And I want you to hear me, because I mean this exactly as I say it: even if the entire town stands against us, even if the whole world lines up on the other side, I believe you, and I am not going anywhere.

You do not have to convince me.

You never did.

I believe you.”

She broke then, and cried in a different way than she had before — not the crying of fear, but the crying of a person who, after a very long time alone, has finally been believed.

I have thought many times since about how much power lived in those three small words, and how little they cost me, and how few people had been willing to spend them on her. I believe you. It is the cheapest gift in the world, and one of the rarest, and for Vivienne, that morning, it was very nearly everything.