"Are you okay?" Luke's deep voice vibrates from the pantry door.

Cobie quickly wipes her tears with the back of her hand. "Yeah."

"You're crying?" Luke's question feels more like a confirmation of her state of emotion. Before she has a chance to reply, Luke is already in front of her, towering over her. "What happened?"

Cobie looks down, hiding her tears from him. "I don't know if I should talk about it."

"Why not? It will help you get it off your chest, at least, and maybe help you think more clearly afterward."

Cobie covers her eyes with one hand, sobbing quietly while her other hand holds her elbow in place. Luke hurries to his room and comes back with a box of tissues in hand. He stands there before her, waiting patiently until she stops weeping.

"I screwed up. Big time. I thought I did what I had to do to keep my little sister from harm. But instead, I broke her." Luke doesn't reply but he intently fixes his gaze on her, a sign that he's listening. "I was so relieved that she and her boyfriend, the guy, Harry, finally broke up for good. I never agreed with the idea of them dating in the first place because of how he is."

"Is he bad news for her?"

"Yeah. No. I'm sorry. My mind is all over the place right now. I might sound a bit confusing to you."

"I can follow you perfectly. Don't worry."

"I mean, they're just so different. Harry is an outgoing person, lowkey liberal, smart, ambitious, and well, he can be quite a handful. While my sister is" —Cobie bites her inner cheek— "quite dependent, insecure, and often nervous with changes."

"I see. The opposite attraction."

"Yeah, that's the words for their situation." She nods. "And we know the opposite attraction just won't last, in most cases. I just couldn't see how they were going to stay together in the long term. And the fact Harry was pretty famous at our uni, made my sister even more nervous to be his girlfriend. She experienced backlash and intimidation from other girls, and Harry wasn't there enough to have her back. He always wanted Rose to be independent and able to stand for herself."

"And it became too much for your sister?"

Cobie nods and sighs in defeat. "Yeah. And I didn't help her at all. This is actually the part I regret the most. I encouraged her to be that way because of my anxiety about dealing with a guy like Harry. I made Rose live my fear and see the world from my point of view when she had her battle to fight, her own story to write."

Cobie picks a few pieces of tissues from Luke's hand and blows her nose. "I swear I just wanted to protect her from boys like Harry. I mean, he's a good guy but the way he handled Rose was just not the way my mom and I would do her. Rose is too fragile for that. She received shitty treatment from our dad when she was a child, and she doesn't deserve to go through another hell when she's older, you know? At least that was what I thought. But now I can see that my protection doesn't help her toughen up, and it bites me back."

"Are you saying it's your fault that they broke up?"

Cobie nods. "Long story short, I held back information about me and Harry in the past, or even the drunk call last Friday just because I didn't want to make her worried. She found out and hell broke loose. She's hating me now." Tears escape her eyes again. "I just didn't want her to go through the things I did."

Luke doesn't respond for a few seconds, seemingly having a problem processing her reply. "What happened to you back then, Cobie? If you don't mind me asking."

Cobie crosses her arms over her chest, still fixing her gaze on the floor. "I went through public humiliation when I was in high school. I got knocked up, and everyone thought I was a whore."

If Luke was having trouble understanding Cobie's words earlier, Luke is now immobile. He doesn't even give a sign he's breathing at the moment. The analog clock above Cobie's head has never been this noisy since the day she started working in this office.

"I was a naive girl, but at the same time, I was broken inside. Our father was bipolar, and things got uglier every day. To protect us, Mom decided to bring us with her and moved to a small town, somewhere he couldn't find us. It was during my high school years.

"Long story short, any kind of attention from boys felt like an oasis to me. It was a quick fix to fill the hollow that our father left for us. And I met this boy, the popular guy at school. I fell hard and went way too far with him, but of course, I was just one of his toys. When he finally met another girl, he ditched me without bathing his eyelashes. Little did we know, I was pregnant with his baby. He denied it, of course, and things got very ugly after that point."

Luke sucks in his breath, rubs his face, and groans. "How old were you again?"

"Almost seventeen." She brings her hands backward and traps them between her lower back and the wall.

"Your kid lives with you now?"

"I lost it weeks after I found out. It was just a series of nightmares in my life."

"Gosh, Cobie. How did you...you were just a kid! Did you report him or go to counseling?"

Cobie shakes her head. "What to report? I wasn't even raped. I hid it from my mom and my sister for a while, living in denial and convincing myself it never really happened. I was so afraid, so alone, but I just kept going with my life. Luckily, the news about our father dying made us move back here."

"I'm sorry for what you've been going through, Cobie."

Cobie forces a smile and shrugs. "It happened a decade ago, Luke. It's in the past but I learned the hard way not to trust any guy easily. I mean, Harry is not bad but he reminds me a lot of my ex." She closes her eyes for the next word that is about to roll off her tongue. "And I clouded my sister's judgment with my prejudice against popular guys like him. So yeah, it's my fault that they broke up."

"You couldn't help it."

"I could have. I could have done things differently from the very beginning."

"I think you're a bit too hard on yourself, Cobie. Look at you now, you've been so brave and moving forward after that horrendous moment. Your situation could've been worse than this. Way worse."

"I wouldn't say I'm being brave. I let my sister carry my baggage and my mistake. I'm a coward just like our dad. And now she hates me because of that and I deserve it."

"Hey, hey, listen," Luke says, holding both her shoulders with his hands, pinning her firmly against the wall. He lowers himself so that his face is level with hers. "You're being unfair to yourself right now. You've been through terrible situations when you were young, and it took away your trust in others. And you. Can't. Help. It. You need to deal with that first. Make peace with that."

"I don't know how." Cobie's voice comes out as a whisper.

"By talking about your feelings out loud with people you trust. Your sister, your mom, your friends. You've been holding it inside and that doesn't make it go away. You need to acknowledge every single one of them. I can also refer you to someone if you want to talk to a professional." Luke lightly brushes her bangs and tucks them behind her ears. "Just give it some thoughts, okay? You don't have to answer it now."

"Okay." Cobie bobs her head weakly. Mom has occasionally brought this up too, that she should consider seeing someone, but of course, Cobie always believed time would fix everything. Mom. She snaps her head to check on the time. "I need to go home. My mom must be waiting for me now."

"I'll drive you."

"It's fine, Luke. I can just catch a train."

"Don't argue with me, Evans."

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