...Yeah. Yeah, she does know better. It's just really hard. But she has to trust Peridot, in the end. Because it's not only a fear of judgment or rejection; Peridot shouldn't have to be affected by something like this, she thinks. Peridot deserves so much better. And Lapis also knows by now that that isn't her decision to make. "Yeah," she says, and steps forward.

All right, then. Just get on with it. She closes her eyes as if to brace herself. "This is me. All of this is me. You can't pull me out of it because it's in me. And maybe it'll get better, but I can't... I'll never be someone who doesn't have this. Out of everything that's ever hurt me, this is the one I did to myself, as soon as I got the chance, and I can't take it back."

Many things have gotten better, but that specific detail bothers her more than it used to, not less. Ever since she got a little freedom, Lapis can rarely afford to look back and wish things had gone differently; the things that should have gone differently are too immense to start in on. But right now she wishes she could take this decision back, and that's new, or at least happening in a new way, and it hurts. The aftereffects ran so much farther than she ever could have guessed.

Another step forward, and rather than giving her hand to Jasper, Lapis reaches up to touch her face. (Jasper, for her part, just smiles, passive again and sorta generically smug.) "I probably know Jasper better than anyone now. And she knows me. And you saw how she ended up after this." She turns her head back to Peridot but doesn't meet her eyes. "That's in me too."