who Wren and MK what visits. when recently! where Promises Rehabilitation Center. warning angst, curses, talking about dark stuff. the usual~
The bus ride to Malibu felt endless and long, but there wasn't enough money for a plane, and Luke needed the car for school and work. Wren spent most of the trip looking out the grimy window thinking about the last time she'd come out to California to see MK - no, to look for MK. She didn't want to remember.
Wren didn't hate hospitals as much as she did once upon a time, and she very much expected Promises to look like a hospital. Enough time had passed since she'd been hurt, since anyone she loved had been hurt, that the anticipation that came with the medicinal smells and white hallways didn't trigger memories as quickly as it did. These days, hospitals made her think of death, made her think of Silver. But MK wasn't dying, and Promises was probably very nice. That didn't mean Wren wasn't nervous about going, because of course she was. She and MK didn't have many good things to say to each other lately, but that didn't mean Wren didn't still love the redhead. She wanted nothing more than for MK to be happy, and she wanted to see her, even if it wasn't easy.
And, in the end, Promises looked nothing like a hospital. Maybe Wren should have expected that MK would end up in a rehab center that looked more like a hotel than anything else. The paparazzi was kept far from the doors, and Wren was sure she saw some actors wandering the halls. But she wasn't the starry-eyed girl she had been once, and she was just worried about her friend.
A nurse led Wren to MK's room, and Wren thanked her politely before knocking and pushing at the door. Wren fit in, strangely enough, in a sleek white dress and camel pumps, the last of a dwindling designer wardrobe that had found its way to consignment with the increasing money difficulties that were plaguing her and Luke. But she looked like all the other wealthy visitors wandering the halls just then, and she had the ridiculous thought that she was glad not to embarrass MK while she was there.
And layered on top of it all, was Wren's simmering anger at Adam. He'd done so many things she had fought herself to forgive in the past year, and she still had her own lingering anger at MK too, but nothing could ever make the fact that he'd put a suit before the welfare of the woman he was supposed to love okay. She didn't care what the suit was made of, and she didn't care how important it was. MK had to be more important to him, and if she wasn't, then Adam wasn't the right person for the redhead.
But Wren knew MK wouldn't want to hear that, and she was determined not to fight while she was visiting. Despite MK assuring her that she didn't need to bring anything, Wren still had a stuffed bear with her, soft and white with a pink bow, and she held it out as soon as she entered the room.
Over the past couple of weeks, the blogs speculated what exactly happened to MK Robinson, former actress/model and now professional wrecked mess. How her star had exploded into a million messy pieces scattered across the Mojave desert. Before, her exploits were entertaining, but now they were borderlining on pathetic, but the public still watched with bated breath in some sort of sick schadenfreude. That, and everyone enjoyed a good trainwreck, or, at the very least they couldn’t look away. They enjoyed a delicious breakdown, especially one captured and documented for the entire world to consume. Especially when it came out of nowhere. Especially when it happened to the pretty, the wealthy, the lucky. Years from now, the people will recount how she quickly crumbled underneath the Las Vegas lights, but for now, the internet lit up with theories on why she’d become the newest Lindsay Lohan.
Of course, no one knew the real story, didn’t care to find out why MK was such a mess. Seattle was a patchy backstory at best, only little whispers of what she did there and who she was involved with. They knew her connection to Wren Maheu, though they didn’t understand why, but no one knew about her boy, her vigilante. A story for the ages, a tragedy of love lost, and not one person was the wiser. Not to mention her last stint in California, with Alexander, or everything that had happened because of that goddamn hotel. No one knew, which was a shame, because that would only make the whole thing juicier.
Promises was a bit of an oasis for the richie-rich types searching for rehabilitation luxury. The paparazzi located MK about two days into her stay, when a fellow struggling addict let it “slip” to the media. Her publicist, newly appointed and headdesking that he’d gotten this client, quickly swept much of the details underneath the rug, and released a statement about MK’s real commitment to getting clean and better. That wasn’t true at all, of course, because the redhead didn’t think she had a problem. No, this was a little vacation at best, maybe a week or two to reset herself, but there was no goddamn way she was staying the full 30+ days in rehab. No matter how nice the place was. It definitely wasn’t like the women’s correctional facility she, Wren, and Iris found themselves in post-Gus. Still, that didn’t make this any easier, or any less lonely. She wished Adam could be there with her 24/7, but she would be back in Vegas soon enough. Sooner than anyone thought.
She was allowed to leave the campus, and she was allowed visitors though, which brought Wren to her room that day. When the door swung open, MK was sitting cross-legged on her bed, busying herself on her iPad, playing some asinine game that let her zone out enough that she wouldn’t focus on her demons then. Because, oh, she was still withdrawing, and her fingers itched for a drink or a fix or something to take the edge off. But, she wasn’t addicted. Just taking a little break to make everyone happy.
“Hi,” the redhead said finally, placing the tablet on the side table. There was no second set of things, no second bed, because after that leak to TMZ and co., her publicist arranged for a private room. She rolled her eyes at Wren, a small crooked smile crawling up her face. “You seriously didn’t have to,” she chided, though she did reach out to take the tiny bear and placed it with her pillows. MK still looked like a wreck, with purple bags underneath her eyes, scars littering her arm, and a thinness that looked strange on her in her loosely hanging sundress. The redhead patted the spot next to her on the bed. “How was your ride?”
Wren hadn't seen much of MK recently.
Even when the redhead had been staying with her and Luke, Wren had hardly been home. Gotham had happened, and Selina had almost died, and she'd been working more hours before that. She knew it was wrong. She knew she should have been there to help MK. And if she had, she might have realized just how far MK had fallen. But she hadn't realized, or maybe she just hadn't wanted to see it. But now she couldn't avoid it, not when it was staring her in the face. MK was scarily thin, and the scars on her arms made Wren think of Luke, strangely enough, of how far he'd come from doing that very thing to deal with his pain. The dark circles beneath the redhead's eyes made Wren hurt, and she could only stand there and stare a moment. In comparison, Wren looked good, healthy, and even happy. The Pit only affected her mind, and even that wasn't in a terrible way. She felt guilty standing there, and she wondered when she'd become so selfish, so tied up in her own life, that she let things get this bad for someone she cared about so very much.
"Hi," Wren finally managed, and she walked up to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress without hesitating. It was a far cry from what she would have done the year prior, when she'd been too scared to even visit MK in the hospital. But things had changed since then. She had changed. "I wanted to see you," she said, thinking MK meant she shouldn't have come, not that she shouldn't have carried a bear seven hours on a Greyhound. "The ride was interesting," she said truthfully. "I ran away from everything on a bus so many times, and it felt weird to get on one, but to not be fleeing." There was a shrug of her shoulders, and then a little guilty twitch of the lip she worried with her teeth. "How are you feeling?" she asked, and she wondered if they were getting MK psychiatric help. She really, really hoped so. And she had no idea MK intended to leave early. She thought, maybe foolishly, that MK meant it this time. That, since Adam was helping her, she'd stay and see it through.
“I’m glad you’re here, beautiful,” the redhead said with a quick smile before she began picking at a loose strand on her comforter as she waited for Wren to join her on the bed. Unlike Wren, the redhead hadn’t balked from physical contact for quite some time. Since a little after her escape from Alexander. All she wanted was someone to curl their arms around her and tell her that they actually cared. She wished she could make Adam come here and crawl into bed with her until she felt like the world wasn’t spinning anymore. Until it felt like not everyone and everything was against her. She smiled with a soft roll of her eyes. “I always hated buses. They’re too damn slow. Are you sure you don’t want to fly back? I can pay for your flight, kitten.” She shrugged, jealous of how good Wren looked when she was clearly falling apart at the seams, even if she didn’t want to admit just that. “I’m fine. I got some color here, see?” She rolled her arms around in front of Wren, careful to not draw attention to those marks even if neither could avoid them for their lives.
Wren wasn't easy with hugs; MK had always been better at that than she was. Gus had helped, but it was different to hug a tiny boy, and she and MK had been at outs for so very long. But this was too much like old times, like Seattle, like simpler days. She kicked off her pumps, and she crawled up the bed, nudging MK over the tiniest bit, so she could lie beside her, like they'd done in a hospital room half a decade ago. She turned on her side, so she could see her friend, and she lightly tugged on a strand of MK's bright red hair. "The bus was nice," she said, and it wasn't a lie precisely. "Okay, the bus itself wasn't nice, but the time to think was. We keep hurrying from one thing to the next in Las Vegas, and this forced me to slow down." When MK rolled her arms, Wren just gave her a sad look. The marks were impossible to miss, even if Wren wanted to. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many things she felt she needed to say, but she didn't want to make anything worse, so she held her tongue. "Tell me what you and Adam are going to do once you get out of here," she said instead, trying to turn MK's thoughts to positive things instead.
“I’m glad you got some quiet time,” the redhead said, even if she didn’t seem totally sincere about it. She had such a good life in Las Vegas; what would she need a break from? MK collapsed on the bed just as Wren looked like she was getting comfortable, and she shifted over to give the blonde enough room to shuffle next to her on the bed. It reminded her of all those years ago in Seattle, and while Wren didn’t seem afraid of hospitals anymore (even if Promises was the furthest thing from a hospital either girl had been in), the smell of antiseptic and the screech of rubber shoes on the white floors made the redhead sick to her stomach still. Which was why she was thankful that Promises was more spa than health recovery center because she would have bolted the second she arrived if it wasn’t. But here, she could essentially get away with murder compared to other rehabilitation centers. She turned on her side as well and smiled, ignoring that sad look in her best friend’s eyes. She’d seen the scars before. Why was she still upset about them? A shrugged answered the posed question at first, then MK realized that probably wouldn’t be sufficient enough. “I dunno yet. But he promised that he’ll stick around to help me. He still loves me even after all of this.”
Wren noted the insincerity, but she didn't let herself get upset about it. She knew MK wouldn't understand her problems, even if she went on about them. The fact that Gus was across the country, with a man that had always hated her, and the fact that the little boy kept getting shifted around and left behind. The fact that there just wasn't enough money, and that Luke was scared of seeing Thomas again. The fact that everything could go wrong, and that Luke could fall back onto killing again. The fact that she still thought New York was better for her son than Las Vegas was. She couldn't talk about any of those things, so she just gave MK a reassuring smile. She forced herself to think a few seconds before replying to MK's comment about Adam, too, because the Pit was still green and bright in her veins, and it made her be more honest than she should. It was a real effort not to say what she thought, that MK's relationship with Adam was starting to feel very, very unhealthy, which was saying something coming from Wren. "He's never stopped loving you," she agreed, because she did know that. Adam loved MK. She just wasn't sure Adam's love was anything worth having, even if Luke tended to side with Adam, to see his side of things. "I ran into Sebastian," she said instead, because Nell was a shared topic, and one that wasn't either of them. "They're buying a house together, him and Nell. I bet you and Adam will be next," she said, and she very, very much hoped it was true. Stability would be really good for MK.
MK hadn’t been sensitive to Wren’s problems in months upon months because she didn’t think the blonde could even compare with her own never-ending list of heartache and pain. Sure, Wren had problems before she arrived in Vegas and even in the desert city; MK knew that. But, she didn’t know about all the doubts and pain plaguing her best friend’s life. The redhead just saw her settled with the love of her life and a baby boy and a house in the suburbs, and she equated that with pure, unadulterated happiness. With joy and luck and everything she would never have. How was it that she and Luke could work through their problems and get married? Or Nell and Sebastian could stitch themselves up, too? It was utterly unfair, but then again MK was used to life being unfair at this point. She didn’t know Sebastian was back in town again, or if she did she completely forgot, and that little nugget of knowledge earned Wren two raised eyebrows. “Oh? I didn’t know that?” she said, obviously curious and lost about it all. Clearly it was all more serious than she realized. “Good for them, yeah.” Still, she shook her head with a small, sad smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Adam and I aren’t really real estate types. He loves his apartment too much anyway.”
"He looked happy," Wren said of Sebastian, because it was the truth. She'd been jealous of it, of how carefree he seemed, how happy to be embarking on the adventure of buying a house with someone he loved. She always felt like she had so many responsibilities, like she was forced to be so much more grown up than any of her friends. She was happy when she was with Luke, but when they were apart, she worried so very much. But she just touched a hand to MK's red hair, and she smiled. "Apartment then," she said. "You're going to move back in with him?" Because she still remembered the state of MK's suite, the disrepair and disarray. The old smell of booze, and the white powder, and the marks on MK's arms. She remembered, and she didn't want MK going back to that. She hadn't done very much to help when MK had lived with her briefly, that was true, and she still had trouble looking at her friend without imagining her in Luke's arms, but none of that changed the fact that she wanted more for her. "I love you. I want you to be happy, and healthy, and living the life you want to live with the man you love." She said, and she meant it. If she could will it into being, she would, but she didn't have that power. Life was too fragile; Silver had taught her that, and MK was just reinforcing it.
MK rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt. “Of course he’s happy. Do you realize who he’s with? Anyone would be happy to be with Nell. He’s lucky to even have her breathing the same air after he broke her heart like that.” Duh. She still didn’t like Sebastian, especially after Dell had broken her Nelly’s heart, too. She didn’t trust anyone around her baby girl anymore, even if Nell claimed the man changed for the better. “He should be thanking his damn lucky stars that she gave him a second chance,” she continued, not even considering the fact that she was on the forth or fifth chance with some people. MK shrugged, looking over her friend’s shoulder at the framed picture on the desk, holding a photo of MK and Adam from the night they exchanged ‘I love you’s in the dark, quiet club. The happiest they had been or would be in months. Pure happiness without the taint of everyone else digging in. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it yet? But, I hope so. I just--I want to be able to crawl into bed with him every night.” It’ll keep me sane, she left out, but it was implied. She flashed Wren a smile, too. “I love you, too. I miss you, you know.” She reached over and brushed some blonde hair out of her face. “I miss you a lot.”
Wren had kinder feelings about Sebastian. They'd only been together a few months, back when Wren ran away from Seattle and her feelings for Luke, but he'd been kind to her. He hadn't stood up to his family for her, and when they'd found out what she did for a living, he'd left her because they said he had to. But she still understood that, and she still considered him a friend. She'd never been really close to Nell; she'd always been Luke's friend, really. Wren just listened, quiet, as MK talked about what she wanted out of her relationship. It sounded so very simple, and she understood how something that simple could make everything okay. More than anything, she wanted MK to have someone to help her through this, someone to help, and to love her, and to make her stronger. Maybe she shouldn't have expected someone else to make things okay for MK. Maybe she should have expected MK to do it for herself. But everyone had hard times, and everyone was weak sometimes, and loving meant being there during those times. She smiled a little when MK brushed the blonde hair back. "I miss you too. We'll do better after. We're all grown up now, and I think that means we have to work harder to make time." And it did, really. Life plowed on these days, and it was hard to keep up and make time, but it was important. "You'll move in with Adam, and you'll rest up, and he'll settle into his new work, and he'll be there to crawl into bed with every night," she repeated, as if that could make it so. She knew she wasn't supposed to meddle, but she couldn't help a tiny smile. "And if he doesn't do right by you, he'll have me to deal with."
After losing so much, after losing her boy and her sanity and almost her own life, MK had a harsher outlook on so many things she once brushed off as simply as a breath. Before Las Vegas, things used to roll off her back, but now, everything stuck to her and created a new wound, even things that weren’t particularly about her. Like the overwhelming sharp green jealousy she felt towards Luke and Wren. They were so lucky, and they didn’t even realize it, did they? Or, rather, they realized it too much, totally wrapped up in each other and not concerned when everything was crumbling around them. She didn’t want to have to put in the effort to be friends. Wasn’t it supposed to be easy? This was why she kept her distance from people when she was younger, kept herself detached enough to not let emotions get involved, and she kind of regretted stopping all of that these days. What did it get her? Nothing permanent, no one who really promised to stay close because something deep down in her feared they would all disappear again. The drugs, those were the only thing that were constant and reliable. That could ease away her pain better than anything else could.
But, she nodded to appease Wren, thinking at least wanting a better friendship with her might be enough. With a slight shrug, she murmured, “I hope so.” It was all she could do. Hope and pray (if she believed in a higher power, which she didn’t) because who knew what Adam would do when she came back. She beamed over at the blonde and took her hand with hers. She missed this. Being close enough to her to just hold her hand. “It’s okay, I’ll be out of here real soon. There’s only so much art therapy I can take.”
If Wren thought MK needed much, much more than art therapy, she kept it to herself. If she thought MK needed help dealing with the things that made her drink, more than she needed help with the drink and drugs themselves, she kept that to herself too. She'd promised Luke recently that she would meddle less, and she really did intend to try. Nothing good came from it anyway. She hadn't been able to help MK. Quite the opposite, really. When it came right down to it, she was responsible for all of this. Briggs and Alexander, they had been her problems, and MK had just been dragged along for the ride, then dragged down into waters no normal mind could handle. Wren knew she wasn't normal that way. She knew the things she'd done early in her life had broken her. She'd gone to a shrink once, early, who had written sociopath on her file. Nothing had ever come of that, but it left Wren with a better understanding of her own mind. MK was normal, healthy, sweet and good once; she'd been broken, and all Wren could do was hope she could be knitted back together. And she could see the hate lingering in MK's eyes; that had been there for the past year, and Wren was a little used to it now. "I'm supposed to be reassuring you, not the other way around," she said to the redhead, fingers squeezing MK's fragile hand back. "What is the therapy here? Group? Stuff like that?" She wrinkled her nose. She really hated group therapy.
MK had never been to real therapy, and the closest thing she had in her past was a guidance counselor in sophomore year of high school who had grown concerned when she spotted hidden bruises on the little redhead’s body. Ms. Carney had wanted to help the girl so badly, brought her in to needle her about where the marks were from, and MK did open up to her. But, it only bit her in the ass. Ms. Carney had tried to report the thing to CPS, and when her dad caught wind of it, oh, had he fucking flipped. So, she had a natural distrust of therapists after that, something that carried on into her adulthood. It was also that innate hatred for being bossed around and loathing of authority she’d always had, too. She rolled her eyes hard at the mention of therapy, pulling a face. “They have me talking to a shrink.” Talking, which didn’t mean communicating. The therapist had tried his best to dig into the former model’s psyche, but nothing had cracked since her arrival, which frustrated him to no end. “They haven’t forced me into group therapy yet, but I think they think my roomie and I are BFFs so they’ll keep that going for a while. She’s a CEO of some tech company,” she added of the woman she was bunking with, thumb pointing over Wren and across to the other queen sized bed on the other side of the room. “It’s a lot about support and stuff.” But, that didn’t mean she planned on staying the entire time. So far from that.
Wren understood that dislike of shrinks. She didn't have problems with authority (quite the reverse), but she hated explaining her own mind to people who didn't understand. People expected broken things, where nothing was broken, and they made her question her own sanity all the time. But she was glad MK was talking to someone, even if that roll of eyes made it clear enough that MK wasn't actually talking. As for the woman who stayed in the empty bed, Wren knew better than to think MK opened up easily. And support and stuff sounded good, but it all left Wren looking concerned. "Do you think this is helping?" she finally asked, and she expected MK to either agree or explode. But she needed to ask. Maybe it was meddling, but she needed to ask.
In anticipation of a possible bad response, Wren curled up to a sitting position, and then she stood and padded to the water pitcher and cups on the nightstand. She poured herself some water and, after taking a sip, gave MK a questioning look. A do you want some? without words. She wanted to ask where Adam was, if he'd taken time off work so he could be nearby, but she worried about that too. And she finally realized that she had absolutely no idea what to say, not when she was trying so hard to avoid making MK mad. It reminded her of how things had been with Luke in New York, and her expression went a little worried, and a little shuttered.
“Do I think it’s helping?” MK asked with a raised eyebrow and a defiant look. Good Jesus, was she serious? Wren was right in getting up, slow and steady as if backing away from a snarling tiger. The whole time at Promises, she hadn’t felt the anger and hurt that permeated every moment of her life since Seattle, since Las Vegas, but being asked stupid questions like that certainly didn’t help matters. “No I don’t think it’s helping.” The redhead sat up suddenly, fixing a dumbfounded look on the blonde. “Seriously? You think locking me away and making me talk to some stranger is going to make this all okay? Fuck no it isn’t! It fucking isn’t. And I know he doesn’t care. He’s a stranger, why would he fucking care? The people I thought loved me can barely muster up anything anymore. Why would some random shrink give half a shit?” She breathed an unimpressed noise through her nose. “They’re lucky they let me leave this place or else I’d’ve been out of here so fucking quick. It’s pointless. I can fix myself.”
Wren had experience with a great many things in her life, but she'd never been very close to someone with a drinking problem. She wasn't used to the feeling of constant expectation, that waiting for something to explode, and she didn't recognize it for what it was. Well, she didn't recognize it until MK sat up suddenly. Wren put her cup down slowly, buying time, trying to think. She didn't want to make things worse; that wasn't why she'd come. But, now that she had made things worse, she didn't know how to to diffuse the situation, either. "I think a good doctor can help you with the things you've been through," she said, soft and steady. "And I think being somewhere you can't hurt yourself is important, just until you can do it on your own." She paused, then added quickly, "and you'll be on your own two feet again in no time, MK." She shook her head then, a slow and sad shake of blonde. "The people who love you want you healthy and happy, and we know that what we've tried hasn't worked very well. I know I haven't been there as much as I should have been," she added, forever the self-blamer. The comment about being able to leave worried her in a way it hadn't previously, when MK had mentioned this place was lax. "MK, don't you want to get better? You have to work with them, let them help, so you don't ever have to come back to a place like this."
MK waved a dismissive hand. See? She knew Wren didn’t understand. Didn’t understand how it felt, didn’t understand what it was like to be her. The redhead didn’t begrudge Wren of her own pain; on the contrary, she knew only a fraction of all the pain Wren had gone through. But, MK didn’t think anyone, anyone in the entire world could understand her particular brand of pain. “Please, you’re serious?” MK stared at Wren unblinking, tired and just done, and in that moment, she wished she hadn’t woken up from her unconscious state into this living hell. Nothing was going to change, and everyone was going to keep badgering her until they thought they got their way with her. “I’m just doing this because Adam wants me to. The whole thing was just an accident. I’ll be fine once I get out of here and can go back home. Wherever home’s gonna be.” She didn’t know that yet, but she could figure it allout soon enough. She shot Wren a pointed look, then rolled her eyes, and then flopped her head on the bed again.
Wren stared at the bed, and she stared at the redhead, and she tried to will herself to remain quiet, to pretend, to be polite and okay. But the Pit made it so hard. Some days it was easier, but it was never easy, and she couldn't wait for the day when every last drop of honesty was gone. "MK, you haven't been okay for a really long time. You need help so that you can get better. You overdosed. You cut yourself all the time. And you've had a drinking problem even before the drugs and cutting started. Adam believes you. He believes you're going to try this time." And she sounded a little helpless there, because she was finally realizing there was absolutely nothing they could do, not if MK didn't want it herself. She shook her head head sadly. "You're going to lose him if you don't try." She paused, because, no, that wasn't the important part. "You're going to kill yourself."
The redhead tilted her head to the side with dipped down lips, as if inspecting some unfamiliar alien just landed on Earth. She didn’t quite get it. How could Wren blame her for all of this? “So you’re saying it’s my fault?” she asked, monotone and eyes dulled as she caught Wren’s gaze. “My fault.” Her voice cracked then, and she licked her lips and rubbed a hand against her collarbone until the skin there turned red and raw, until it stung. There were fingernail scrapes there, little angry lines because she needed something to take off the edge. “Fine, it’s all my fault,” she continued, quiver in her voice as her lip trembled. “You took a long fucking trip just to come blame me.”
Wren sighed a shaking sigh. "No. I just want you to get better, MK. I want you to get better. I want you to be happy. I don't want you to leave, and for you to end up here again. I don't want you to end up dead the next time." Her voice was breaking then, cracking. "Please try," she pleaded, not caring if she was getting sloppy, not if MK listened, not if something changed. "Please, just try."
MK glared. “I don’t need to try. It’s not me who needs to try. Why am I the only one who needs to put the effort it? It’s not fucking fair that I’m the one who has to change. Why doesn’t anyone else have to? Fuck that.” She heaved a jagged sigh and tugged on the ends of her red hair, a little surprised that no one had stormed in after hearing the raised voices. Weren’t these places totally against that? She’d seen people getting sedated earlier this week. Oh, maybe she could get sedated. Sedation was okay. Or god, a taste of anything. There had to be some fucked up orderlie who wouldn’t mind slipping her something.
"No one else can stop drinking for you, or stop doing drugs, or stop cutting," Wren said, quiet, and watching as MK tugged on her hair with a worried look on her face. She backed away, backed toward the door, quiet steps, slow steps. She'd made it worse; she knew she had. But she didn't know how or why. "I just want you to be okay," she repeated, sounding lost. Less meddling, she reminded herself. Less meddling. She couldn't help MK. Pretending everything was okay didn't help, and being honest didn't help. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and she knew she wouldn't forget what it looked like to see the redhead pulling at her hair like that. She'd tell Adam she made it worse. That was her last thought before spinning out of the room, another whispered, "I'm sorry," as she pushed the door open and fled into the hallway.