[There's nothing like a self-destructive mind to take a meaning and warp it until it suits, until it reaffirms the worthlessness that's already become pattern to it. Chase can follow the process as if it's visible in synaptic flashes across her face.]

You go out and make yourself convenient to half the city. [He's not blind.] It's remarkably obliging. And you get them to confirm exactly what you're good for. Which is exactly why I had no intention of having sex with you.

[It's why he'd resisted the dubious charms of her younger self, and why this odd back and forth between them had come to blows and kisses more than once, but no further.]

There's nothing wrong with you except not being somebody else. And the only one in this place who knows that, is you.