"Me? Oh yeah, no question," Veronica is quick to say with a scoff, an exaggerated flip of her hand and shrug of one shoulder as if to broadcast both that she is completely fine and completely full of shit. "I'm young and resilient, after all."

And it had been her own doing, outing herself. She only wishes it had made her feel even a little better to confess. In retrospect, she's beginning to see that this thing will probably always be with her, a knot in her chest that diminishes but never completely dissolves.