I know.

[Softly, because she does. And she does have friends, but the process of opening up to other people was slow, and highly selective.

She wonders sometimes why Clint stuck it out.

But it is true—there's always been people around her, and those people had been the sort she couldn't let her guard down around, not entirely.]

I suppose I'm just not sure how to answer.

[Too long.]

I was twenty three or twenty four when I got out of the Red Room. That made not being alone possible.