"That's fair, agreed Beau, who felt kind of bad now about letting her pessimistic tendencies take over since there really was no way to construe Karolina's reaction as anything but sincere. "It's just, you know, information like that is good leverage for certain types of people. Mostly the ones I know." In her own teenage years, also so very long ago.

She spun the apple around in her fingers, took a bite, and made a sound that implied the apple was pretty good, actually.

"But if this is a confidential, no-judgment zone? Yeah. That's pretty cool."