Cora has been a really good friend to Sarah throughout all of this.

Which is a feat in and of itself, as Sarah doesn't make connections or friends often, but Teleios has been different. In more ways than one. She doesn't hate it as much as Jeremy does, but maybe she should. Her face crumples again at the way his voice sounds, and whatever was left of her resistance breaks as she closes the distance between them, throwing her arms around Jeremy to hug him very tightly to her. Her stinging eyes close against his neck as she brings him closer, her face twisted into a pained expression.

She's right here, she wants to say. But she hasn't been, has she? She just doesn't know what that means. If she hasn't been here, then where? If they're not best friends, then what? It's why whatever is familiar about Teleios is something she isn't in any hurry to figure out. It's apparently a place where they're not even friends, where they don't reach for each other. And that'll always be unthinkable.

"I'm still here," she says quietly. Maybe she's been distant, maybe she goes away sometimes, but she will always come back.

And that makes sense, too.