He says freak like he did out in the woods earlier, like it's a compliment or a point of pride. She should balk at the thought, but instead, Chrissy does smile. It's faint and tremulous, its effect probably dulled somewhat by the fact that she sniffles at the same time and uses the cuff of one of her hoodie sleeves to dry the few tears that have spilled down her cheeks, but at least it's there.

Really, she doesn't understand any of this. He barely knows her, and yet not for the first time, he's going out of his way to try to make her feel better — this time, over something that does very much feel like her fault, even if she couldn't have known how everything would end. Stranger still, he's succeeding, at least as much as it would be possible for anyone to right now. She's not sure if he's right about her having always been meant to be a freak, but she's not sure he's wrong, either. If she's honest with herself, as somewhere deep, deep down, she has to be, so much of her life has been dictated by other people's expectations that she doesn't know who she would be — who she is — without that pressure overhead.

"You make that sound like a good thing," she says, not a disagreement, just an observation. Whether or not it is, or she is, is something she's going to have to figure out later, much too daunting when there's so much else to take in. "But I guess... the way things have been didn't work out so well for me anyway."