I cried because I had forgotten what it felt like to be touched gently.
I cried because the woman holding me was a stranger and still somehow safer than anyone else I knew.
At some point, I could no longer cry hard enough to make a sound. My body kept shaking, but the sobs thinned into shaky breaths and wet, broken hiccups.
Still, Ellen didn’t let go.
She kept one arm around me until the storm began to pass. Only when I sagged against her, exhausted and drained hollow, did she ease me back against the pillows. Her thumb brushed gently beneath my eye, catching the tears there.
“Don’t apologize,” she said before I could even try.
I had been about to.
Of course, I had.
Even now, after everything, my first instinct was still to make myself easier for everyone else. But Ellen looked at
