The pushes grow softer as the conversation seems to take that shadowed turn. It seems appropriate, with the sun gradually slipping into that quieter shade of late afternoon, tinging the trees with honeyed gold and russet tones. The sun will be up tomorrow, Effy can see that these days and more clearly than she ever has before, and so she folds into the conversation, hand wrapping around the chain and pressing her cheek against it, cool to the touch. Today, her life is like a storybook to her eyes, and all she needs to do is read from the pages. It's a distance that she appreciates, even as the voice in the back of her mind asks how long it'll stay, how long until the next breakdown.

She ignores that voice entirely.

"Stood in the middle of a highway," she tells him now, and she remembers the burning of tears at the corner of her eyes more than the oncoming headlights, the whiz of cars by her side. She remembers the rending of her heart, rather than the slip of death and fear. "Asked the world to make me scared again. And... someone saved me."

Effy doesn't bother to mention Cook's name. Sometimes, she wonders if he cares to remember that night at all.