"Do you want me to start the timer?" Ellie asked. She was serious, but she knew Dina would just roll her eyes. "Okay. Okayokayokayokay. Where...where do I start." She took a deep breath, pressing her hands against her thighs. "There's no...there's nothing...I can't..." She felt dizzy, and closed her eyes for a moment. "I know there's nothing I can say that will ever fix this. I want to say I'm sorry for breaking my promise because I am." There, that was actually surprisingly easy. "I want to tell you that I love you because I do." Also surprisingly easy, even though her mouth felt dry and she thought she might gag, the weight of her sadness and loneliness weighing so heavily on her shoulders. As she had in Abby's room, she drew her knees up to her chest, as though she could protect herself that way. "If you never wanna talk to me again after this, that's okay. I want you to know those two things." She closed her eyes tight, willing herself not to cry.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed on to phase two of what she had to say, the (in her opinion, sad and lame, but still, she thought, reasonably important) explanation. "I know we made an agreement and I broke my promise. I hate that I felt like I had no other choice. I was...I was already so scared of hurting one of you, because things were so bad, and then Tommy came and poisoned my brain even more. And I know it's not entirely Tommy's fault. I'm not--I'm not tryna pass the blame to him, I know I still had a choice. But I was vulnerable and...I felt like I couldn't stick up for myself. I'm sorry. K, that's all."