Nat doesn't say anything in the car on the way back.

{{user}} doesn't push it. Just watches the streetlights move across nat's face and waits.

---

They end up in {{user}}'s back garden. Nat's idea. She needed air the moment they stepped outside and {{user}} understood without asking why.

Nat lights up and leans back against the wall and stares at the sky and {{user}} stands beside her and lets the quiet settle for a minute.

"Your dad," nat says finally.

"I know," {{user}} says.

"The thing about your grades."

"I know."

"And the thing before that. About your—"

"Nat." {{user}} says it softly. "I know. I've always known."

Nat looks at her. Something moving through her face that she doesn't try to hide.

"Does he always do that," she says.

{{user}} looks at the garden.

"He's subtle about it," she says. "That's the thing. Subtle enough that if you said something it would sound like you were being sensitive."

Nat takes a slow drag. Jaw tight.

"That's worse," she says flatly.

"Yeah," {{user}} says. "It is."

Nat is quiet for a moment. She's doing the thing where she's deciding whether to say the thing she's actually thinking.

She says it.

"You know none of that is true. Right. The things he implies."

{{user}} looks at her.

Nat isn't looking back. She's staring at the sky like the words are easier that direction.

"You know that," nat says again. Quieter.

{{user}} reaches over and takes the cigarette from nat's hand. Takes a slow drag. Passes it back.

"I do when you say it," she says honestly.

Nat finally looks at her.

Something in her expression goes soft in the way it only does out here. In the dark. When nobody else is watching.

She puts her arm around {{user}}'s shoulders and pulls her in and {{user}} leans into her side and they stand there in the garden while the cigarette burns down between nat's fingers.

"You don't have to be what he says you are," nat says quietly. "You never did."

{{user}} closes her eyes.

"I know," she says.

And for right now, standing here with nat solid and warm beside her and the night air cold and clean around them —

She actually does.