"She isn't thinking normally. She looked like a total stranger to me, but… She and John won't be coming back together like this."
Elena had stayed inside Cissel's room for three whole hours, a marathon of pleading, reasoning, and searching for the girl she once called a sister.
Yet, when she finally stepped back out to meet Luke in the hallway, she looked more confused and frustrated than when she had entered. Her eyes were red-rimmed, not just from sadness, but from the sheer exhaustion of hitting a wall of absolute stubborness.
"That means there is no hope of getting the two of them back together," Luke sighed powerlessly. He leaned his head back against the corridor wall, the sound echoing in the empty hall. He knew it was a weak hope to cling to from the start, but he hated seeing John, the friend who had carried them all on his back, this dejected and down.
