Her brow furrows quick, the shadow drawn over her eyes, because there are more memories drudged to the surface now. The evening on the road had been numb, all frenetic movement with emotions trailing too far behind and impossible to claim, but the mention of a chair and a rope takes her elsewhere, to the cold tiled floor of a bathroom, to the feeling of futility and needing to escape. The choice had seemed so easy then, and her hands too quick to let go. She remembers the sight of red spreading over the floor, and of a pounding barely hitting the shell of her ear.

That was different, she mouths, but yanks herself away from that line of thought quickly, because it's still too soon, and there's that part of her that still can't stand who she is. Would give anything to change it. Be someone other than Effy. Elizabeth, the girl who sits on the bench by the lake, notices it for the first time, draws in boys she doesn't know at all.

"Won't happen again," she says instead, voice breaking for the difficulty there is in getting the words out, but they feel more like a promise this way. Whether she's referring to herself or Elvis doesn't matter; both will happen if one does, she thinks. She can keep herself safe if he does the same.