My room feels like a foreign land with a few familiar objects scattered around. The "suite" is really more of a slightly-larger-than-standard hotel room, with a half-wall dividing a small sitting area-couch, TV, mini-fridge-from the bedroom. My tablet is charging on the coffee table and my suitcase is on the floor of the bedroom, the top flap hanging open. I was only here a few minutes before Elise called to tell me the car was picking us up.

Thinking of Elise prompts me to check my reflection in the mirror above the couch to make sure she hasn't smeared lipstick all over my mouth-that would be tough to explain-and then I pop the deadbolt on the adjoining room door and knock on the door to Amanda's room. She has to flip the deadbolt on her side to let me in. And I'm hoping convincing her to do that will be an easier task than talking my way in from the hall.

"It's me," I say. "I'm in here alone. The door to the hall is shut, and no one else has a key."

After a long pause, I hear the sounds of the deadbolt scraping back on her side and she cracks open the door to look up at me. Her hair is pulled into a sloppy ponytail now, with loose strands damp and curling around the edges of her face, as if she just splashed water on her cheeks. Her eyes are swollen and red, leaving no doubt as to her earlier tears.

"Except for a select number of groupies, but I assure you they're carefully screened," I add, to make her laugh. Though it wasn't exactly untrue in the past.

She gives me a wary smile, opening the door a little wider. "I can't tell if you're joking."

"Always," I say. I hold out the tray with a dramatic flourish. "Dinner is served."

She looks at the tray with both longing and reluctance.

"I wanted to open the door, you know," she says fiercely, but makes no move to take the food. "For room service, I mean."

It clicks then: she wants the burger, but she's holding off, some part of her punishing herself for not being able to do more.

My stomach, detecting the scent of freshly cooked meat nearby, is not so indecisive and gives an embarrassingly loud growl. "Well, it's here now, so eat up," I say firmly, pushing the tray toward her.

Amanda steps back, making space for me to enter her room.

I hesitate on the threshold.

"Come on." She waves me forward. "Sounds like you need to eat too."

"I can live without eating protein bars, thanks."

She smiles wryly. "Good thing. I don't actually have any."

I point at her with my free hand. "I knew it."

She shrugs, dismissing the accusation. "I'll share. You can have most of the fries, but half the burger is mine."

I move past her and stop just inside the room, which is pretty similar to the bedroom part of my suite, only with two double beds instead of one king. A leather chair on wheels sits abandoned in the corner, the accompanying round table wedged firmly against the door on the opposite side of the room.

It must have taken some serious effort to drag that table into place. Serious effort or serious panic.

It also presents a problem because now I have no idea what to do with the tray. Her bag is on top of the dresser, and the only other flat surfaces in the room are beds.

She takes the tray from me, puts it down on the edge of the farther bed, and sits without hesitation. After lifting the lid on the plate, she promptly divides the hamburger into two ragged but mostly equal halves.

After a moment, she glances up at me with an expectant expression, so I sit across from her, which puts the tray and plenty of space between us.

She peels back the bun on her half of the burger and lays out a tidy row of french fries in the layer of ketchup on the patty.

"What are you doing?" I ask, half intrigued and half revolted.

She raises her eyebrows. "Eating?"

"No, I mean with the fry ... construction."

"I like the taste," she says with a shrug. "It all goes to the same place anyway."

I make an exaggerated face. "Yeah, if you can get it there."

She rolls her eyes, her mouth quirked in a small smile.

Taking my half of the burger, I make a point of eating a bite of it alone and then returning for a french fry.

Shaking her head, she puts the bun on her burger and digs in.

It's quiet for a few moments, and it's probably the most relaxed either of us has been all day.

But I have to ask: "Why did you lie?"

She goes still. "What?"

"Why not just tell me what happened with room service?"

Amanda puts her burger down and fidgets with the edge of the plastic wrap covering her water glass before answering. "I don't want this to be my whole life, you know?" She looks up at me. "The more people who have to coddle me, the more it feels like this is going to be forever. I'm going to be ninety and still messed up." She lets out a frustrated breath. "And I'm doing everything I can, even some off-the-wall stuff," she adds pointedly, gesturing to the room around us. "But it never feels like enough. And talking about it, telling people what's wrong, I've been doing that for literally years. It doesn't help. They're just words."

The angry desperation in her voice strikes a chord in me.

Sometimes the hardest thing to live with is knowing that you can't do anything. You can only push the wheels so far, make so many changes, but control is ultimately out of your hands.

At that point, really, all you can do is whatever you can to keep yourself from going crazy. I understand that, maybe too well.

I swallow a bite of hamburger and clear my throat. "You know how to throw a punch?"

She regards me steadily for a moment, her dark eyes seeming even darker against her pale skin. A redhead with brown eyes-it's a combination I haven't seen often.

Then she says, "Therapist number three," and returns to eating her strange burger concoction.

"What?"

"That was his suggestion. Self-defense classes," she says with a bit of a sneer.

"Well, yeah. What's wrong with that?" I ask.

She wipes her mouth with a corner of the napkin. "Nothing. If you don't melt down every time a stranger touches you," she says.

I put down my half of the burger on the plate. "I'm not talking about judo or a masked guy full-on attacking you in a darkened hallway."

She shudders.

"I just mean a decent punch, without breaking your fingers." If she feels she's got a shot at defending herself in a bad situation, maybe that would help. Plus, hitting something-or someone, in my experience-usually helps vent a little steam.

"Sorry, they don't teach that in PE." She pauses. "Or, if they did, I was absent that year," she says dryly, the corner of her mouth turning up.

It's that smile that pushes me into a decision. She is trying so hard not to be a victim to all the fallout, but from the outside, it looks like one of those losing battles, an endless game of Whac-a-Mole. I know that feeling.

Yet she's still capable of finding humor in all of this. Okay, really dark humor, but still.

I wipe my hands on my jeans and get off the bed. "Come on. Stand up."

Amanda narrows her eyes at me.

"I won't grab you or come at you-promise." I hold my hand palm up, like I'm swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

After a long second, she nods and puts down her burger/fry combo.

As she slides off the bed to stand, I shrug out of my jacket and toss it onto the other bed. Amanda tracks it with her gaze, a faint pink blush rising in her face and neck, which I don't understand. I'm still fully dressed.

"Face me," I instruct.

She does, and we're toe to toe, about two feet apart, an invisible line dividing us.

"Step back with your right leg," I say, doing the same myself. "Your other right," I add when she moves her left.

Glaring at me, she makes the change.

"Now angle your body at forty-five degrees, but keep facing me," I say.

She frowns.

"Ninety degrees would have you facing the wall, so half of that," I offer, trying to help.

"I understand basic math, thanks," she says. "I'm trying to figure out how to both turn away from you and face you at the same time."

I watch her struggle to mimic my position, not quite getting it.

"Can I help you?" I ask eventually.

After a split second of hesitation, she nods.

She sways slightly as I cross the invisible line into her space, but she doesn't step away. I stand behind her, careful to keep several inches of distance. The nectarine smell of her hair is much stronger, this close to her.

"Forty-five degrees, aim your toes and hips that way." I point to the corner diagonal to us.

She shifts in the right direction. But it's still not enough.

"Can I touch you?" I ask in the best brisk tone I have. It sounds crazy intimate to ask that and it's not at all what I mean, but I'm determined not to make her jump away from me again.

The pink in her face deepens, but she nods.

"Touching your waist," I say, then I wait until she nods before moving my hands toward her.

Her breath catches audibly when I make contact, but she doesn't flinch.

I keep my grasp light, guiding rather than grabbing her hips. Her skin is warm through the fabric, and I can feel the points of her bones beneath my fingers. She really is too thin.

She lets out a shaky breath, and some of the tension eases out of her body.

"Now your shoulders." I wait until she nods again, and then I settle my hands carefully on the rounded tops of her arms, angling her toward where I would be standing.

Then I cross back to my side of the line.

"This makes you a smaller target," I explain, waving a hand at her now-turned body. "It's harder for someone to land a direct hit because there's less surface area within reach. And by facing forward, you can keep both eyes on your opponent."

She cocks her head to the side in curiosity. "How do you know all of this?"

"They hired a trainer for that kickboxing scene in the second season of Starlight," I admit.

She stares at me blankly.

"The shirtless scene that launched a thousand GIFs?" I prompt with an internal wince at the term. I didn't name it that. But that's apparently what the scene is known as.

"I stopped watching after season one," Amanda says.

"Ouch." I clutch my chest in mock pain. "Well, at least you missed the zombies. Wish I could say the same."

"I like beginnings," she says with a shrug. "First books, first movies, first seasons. Everything's a possibility, you know? Once they start making choices and narrowing things down to a specific storyline, it's less fun."

I never thought about it that way, but yeah, I can see her point.

"In any case, they brought this guy, Jason, on set to teach me kickboxing, and I liked it so I kept going for a while." Until I got caught up in being an idiot instead. "I figured Brody was supposed to have been around for a hundred years, so he should probably be pretty good at boxing, if that was his thing."

"You take it seriously," she says with some surprise. "Knowing your character." She pauses. "Acting."

I set my jaw against the by-now-automatic surge of frustration. I know she doesn't mean it the way everybody else does, like it's so shocking that I want to be good at something. She doesn't know me, doesn't know how often I run into this particular attitude. To be fair, though, I can't blame her or anyone else. My behavior for a while pretty much guaranteed that people would think the worst of me: superficial, self-destructive, stupid.

Sometimes, though, it feels like no matter how far I've come from that version of me, it's never quite far enough.

But all I say to Amanda is, "Yeah, I do."

Then I gesture to her in a beckoning motion. "Okay, make a fist."

She balls up her hands and holds them up for presentation.

I circle her wrists with my hands, one in each, and I can feel her pulse thrumming against my fingers. "Always keep your thumb on the outside of your fist. Otherwise you'll end up with a broken thumb if you connect."

I make the adjustments, moving her fingers closer together, one fist at a time. "Now, when you hit, aim with these knuckles." I lightly touch the bones on the top of her fist. "You're going to extend your arm, but don't lock your elbow. Like this."

I pull carefully on her left wrist, as if she's driving a punch at me. Her sleeve rides up slightly with the movement, and that's when I feel the band of raised and rough skin beneath my fingertips. It's a scar about a half-inch wide in a perfect circle all the way around, right at the bones where her hand connects to her arm.

My gaze snaps to Amanda's in question before I can stop myself.