Summer slipped her hand from under his. Why /now/? She blinked, and a tear rolled down her face. “I don’t — no thank you, Sir Knight.” Carefully formal. Deliberate distance. She couldn’t bear to let him — any of them — in again and be hurt again. They’d forget about her, soon enough, like always. “Can you please just let me alone to die?” she mumbled.
Percival grimaced as he placed his hand back in his own lap.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when all of it- happened. I’m sorry it happened at all. I’m sorry I didn’t stop it, you know I wish I had, you know I wish I could’ve!” He held his head in his hands. “…I, you, you’re cared for, Summer,” he looked back up at her. “I’m so sorry. I knew it was hard, and I knew you were hurt, but I didn’t know what to say, and I came up here to tell you about the picnic, and you were standing there, and I hadn’t- I hadn’t realized it was this bad, I am so, so, sorry… What can I do, what can I give you?”
“Don’t, don’t — ” she tried to stop him, but the words kept spilling out of him, and she flushed hotly, guilty and wretched. “Percival, don’t please. It’s not you, it’s me, I’m … I’m a bad person. I’m a liar, and selfish, and horrid. I don’t deserve to be here, I don’t deserve to be cared about. You can’t — I was born broken. You can’t fix me. Nobody can fix me.” She gulped, and the tears she’d been trying so hard to hold back started to slide hotly down her cheeks.
“I’m alone, and I’m supposed to /be/ alone.”