My hands remind me of...something terrible that happened. Someone I'll never see again. For me, when I see them, I see mistakes I made, and the promise I made to myself that I would never let that sort of mistake happen again.

[It's not that she's more lucid now than she's been before, exactly; it's more that she's had a long time to work out those particular phrases in her mind, to the point that repeating them is almost a mantra of sorts. One word easily follows another, the thoughts sliding out like they've been tossed in oil, before eventually she yawns and snuggles against him.]

I think it's all right to have parts of yourself that you don't like. That doesn't mean you have to change it, or make excuses for it.

[She looks at him, her eyes half-lidded, her dark thick lashes framing the violet of her eyes.]

You don't have to accept it as part of yourself, either. You don't have to...assimilate it, just because someone else put it there.