“Everyone will hurt you,” she said.
“But are you worth it?” I asked bitterly, and while chewing my lower lip for nerves. “Worth hurting for?”
Her eyes skittered away. And from her own sleeve, tentatively–a question–she removed a hand that was even more disfigured than mine, bruised and welted with a range of marks: old scabs and new, and with a stump in the fourth position–no finger.
“I don’t know,” she said.
City. River. Tree. 