"I wouldn't put a knife in your back," Veronica says, quieter than a moment before, and then slants her gaze away with bite to her bottom lip. There's no reason to not just come out and tell her whole sob story, except that it will probably just support everything Cougar's trying to tell her.

"My boyfriend tried to kill me," she says, looking back to him with a shrug, her eyes betraying the smoothness of the gesture. "Twice. It wasn't exactly fun, but I'm not wanting to live my life in a bubble, either. If I do that, he's still got control over me, right? And fuck him. He doesn't get to dictate how I live."