Jo can't remember what she said then. It was probably bullshit and pissing on the fire despite already being on fire. She hated being decked in the face unprepared, and nothing had stopped her shorter than that since getting here. Until earlier. Until going from just first knowing t, to just first living it. Even tatter edged and unconnected as it is.

She looks over at the bullshit response he'd give—patently him. A deflection without much effort even thrown into it. That sadness like a shape she doesn't quite know how to touch. Whether she's supposed t, insteadd she leaves it at leaning in only a little at that one point where they're touching, not even designing to comment on his.

"I didn't think that it wasn't fair or it couldn't be true." She knew what she signed up her whole heart and soul, and life to before she was in double digits. She knew what the end always would be from the beginning. "I thought-"

Jo licked her lips. Because it's stupid, itis, and it feels like reaching, even at honesty, how reckless you could get with time. With hope. "We weren't supposed to be a replay of our dads. Another chapter in that same bloody history."

Her gaze had settled on the white lines and edges of her father's initials inside her right wrist.
"That we were supposed to be different. Do better."