"I mean--" God, she doesn't want to ask. Now that she has an out, she doesn't want to ask him, but it's tumbling through her mind all the same. So he knows it already, doesn't he? She wants to know if he sees the bad things in her, the things she does wrong, whatever it is that makes her unlovable, that's caused her family to view her as an asset and not something to adore, that caused Gabriel to drop her friendship the very instant she was no longer entertaining, as soon as something more important came along in his life. She wants to know if he can see whatever it is inside of her that's bad and broken.

She takes a shaky breath. "It's not important." Nothing that she wants is ever important, she knows that. She's permitted autonomy at the whim of the people around her, and when they decide that it's inconvenient, she'll lose it again. That's just what life is, for her. Right now, she needs test subjects, animals to collect samples from, to look for a commonality. She needs a project. So she takes the steps with more enthusiasm, with more speed and certainty.