“That doesn’t make it better.” Even in the light she couldn’t get warm. “I just wanted to … make things better. For you. Him. Us! I thought, if we were friends, even if,” she flushed, “even if, he never loved me back, then it would be better. He would understand. I don’t even know what I did wro—well, okay, burning the door down was a little much.”Tony snorted a wry, humorless laugh, one hand raising to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Ya think?” His head fell forward, face in his hand. “Why couldn’t you have just waited until I gave you the go ahead?” he asked after a moment of tense silence.
Summer hesitated a long time before answering. “It started to feel like I was lying to him. Like … if we didn’t know each other, it was false. I’m not saying this right.” She looked down into her hands, desperately trying to find the right words. “Did you know, he didn’t know I was the other person until after he’d threatened to kill himself and run away from me? When I first started talking to him, he didn’t even know it was me, and he still — he,” she shook her head, “wanted to ignore my very existence. And I can’t — I couldn’t — I’m not made that way. To pretend everything is alright. I wanted — I was selfish, I thought I could win him over and we could be a real trio.”