As ever, in keeping with what seems to have become a pattern, he takes what she's been agonizing over and makes it sound so simple, even optimistic. It may not do anything to change how terrifying Chrissy finds it, all this vast, empty space in front of her, the possibility of making different choices for herself but knowing that, to do so, she would be implicitly acknowledging, at least to herself, how stifled and unhappy she was before. For that alone, she would find herself overwhelmed. She spent a lifetime trying to be the person everyone thought she was and wanted her to be, but she doesn't know who might be underneath all that, or even how to figure it out.

Scary or not, though, there's reassurance just in hearing him say so. She smiles a little again, shy but warm, as she reaches for her glass to have another sip of iced tea.

"I wish we'd started hanging out sooner," she admits, self-deprecating even as she does. "Is that weird?" Weird or not, she does know that it would have been social suicide, never mind what she would have had to deal with at home. The more time she spends with him, though, the more she thinks it would have been worth it. "That's probably weird."