[ Someday, her therapist had told her, Someday you're going to need to open up about this. To be fair to whoever you choose to pursue physical relations with. It had sounded so... clinical. And back then she'd just nodded, because what else could she do but that.

It's so much harder in real life, like all the other things that you deal with. ]

I was... [ She's not ashamed of it. It doesn't define her. She is more than that night in Central Park. More than the therapy sessions that had let her talk it out. But sometimes, when you keep a secret for too long, it's hard as hell to let it out.

She turns away, her back now to Tommy as she pulls her knees up to her chest. ]

You know the, uh, [ she starts, her voice a little tenuous in it's pitch ] the sucky thing about me fantasizing about you and me and... and making out is that I [ she swallows, like the words are stuck in her throat ] I always forget to factor in the possibility that I could freeze up because some jerk r... some jerk jumped me in Central Park a couple of years back.

[ She's not ashamed, dammit. But she's built herself back up it's hard to look back sometimes. ]