For more than a few minutes, Claire was quiet, not because she didn't know how to respond, but because she had to find the will to form the words, the details of the experience. Too fresh, but to help ABC, she needed her to understand it.
"It wasn't just about hurting me, or about physically hurting anyone," she said softly, then reached for her sister's hand for both a show of support and in needing it herself as well. "What he did – it hurt me, but he did so much more that wasn't just slicing and stuff. He hurt Mary too, because she had to watch. He wouldn't have stopped hurting you as long as there was someone else there to be hurt in another way, as long as he could dig around in your head and hurt you that way too. It's not just physical hurt, it's getting in people's heads and hearts and making pain that's all in your mind."
Her voice dropped softer still. "He'd have made you hurt, Claire. He made me feel pain constantly, even when he left me alone long enough that I should have healed everything, and that's not how I work. He'd have found a way to make you feel it there, on that table, even if you never felt it anywhere else after that."
Sucking in a shaky breath, she pushed her hair back with her other hand, pulling the comforter tighter around her. "So you can pretty much just stop with the selfish stuff, okay? I don't think you're selfish and I don't think anyone else does either, but who cares if they do? They don't have to live with what you live with, they don't have to know what not feeling pain is like and wonder if feeling good stuff – the way a dog's tongue on your nose feels, or the way the breeze feels on your face – might go away someday too because of what he did to you."