Vulnerability was never Jade's comfort zone, either. Usually it was her dealing with other people's problems, or when people did ask about her own strifes, she tried to play them off like it's no big deal.

But how do you play off something like that?

"It's fine," she lies, like a line she's rehearsed a thousand times. "Ancient history."

History that's felt, that reaches and stings even when her eyes are closed. Jade is self-aware enough to know that time is meaningless when it comes to these things that haunt her in sleep, and ghosts when she's awake. It's fine, it happened a long time ago. Certainly I'm over it by now, right?

A single, joyless laugh escapes as she glances down at the water. She saw something, too. But she has no room for criticism when her hands are hardly clean, either.

"I'm sorry, too. Looks like they weren't just full of hot air when talking about how 'mystical' these springs are."