If it was really about protecting kids, they'd ban football - not trans people
I'm 1000% serious about this.
Study finds CTE in 40% of athletes who [were exposed to repeated head impacts and] died before 30
A new study has diagnosed the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in more than 40% of youth, high school and college athletes -- primarily football players -- who were exposed to repetitive head impacts from contact sports and died before age 30.
The study was conducted by the Boston University CTE Center and based on an examination of 152 brains that had been donated. BU said the study represents the largest case series on athletes who died young.
"The fact that over 40% of young contact and collision sport athletes in the UNITE brain bank have CTE is remarkable, considering that studies of community brain banks show that fewer than 1% of the general population has CTE," said Dr. Ann McKee, lead author on the study and director of the BU CTE Center.
-via ESPN, August 28, 2023. Emphasis here and in all other quotes is mine.
Including the fact that research has started to show exactly what factors cause CTE and how they can be minimized and prevented!!!
But you see, FOX News made $800 million USD from airing the Superbowl in 2025.
Official quote from Lachlan Murdoch, current CEO of Fox Corporation and Rupert Murdoch's son, on the 2025 Superbowl:
“The clear winners Sunday night were the Eagles, the NFL, and FOX. Congratulations to our teams at FOX Sports and Tubi for a record-breaking and historic Super Bowl LIX, the most-watched, most-streamed, and most successful Super Bowl ever.”
-via FOX, February 12, 2025
What are they going to do? Value saving kids' lives over their profit margins? Not at the Rupert Murdoch's Family's FOX News, and certainly not at the NFL!!!
Quite a few more quotes and details below the break, including clarifications on what I mean and info ownership of media megacorps.
Study of Former NFL Players Finds 1 in 3 Believes They Have CTE
New study of nearly 2,000 former NFL players found that 34 percent think they have CTE, a condition it is not yet possible to confirm in a living person...
The study — conducted by a team including researchers from Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital who are part of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University — is published Sept. 23 in JAMA Neurology.
According to the study, players who believed they had CTE reported significantly more cognitive problems and a higher proportion of low testosterone, depression, mood instability, headaches, chronic pain, and head injury compared with those who did not have concerns about CTE.
-via Harvard Medical School news, September 24, 2024. And look, the can even get more juicy headlines fearmongering about testosterone levels!! For a reason that actually fucking exists this time!!
--
In fact, they don't even need to ban football entirely - we're starting to have the data that COULD be used to launch a massive public health and reform campaign to protect kids from debilitating injuries, mental health crises, and suicide!!
But you know, then we wouldn't be able to force teenage girls (trans and cis) to have a doctor look at their genitals.
We'd have to go after football, which makes billionaires and media companies a fuck ton of money, instead of going after trans kids, who both in the US and globally incredibly vulnerable and, oh yeah, disproportionately likely to have no money.
Example of vital data that we COULD be studying instead of spending millions and millions of dollars faking anti-trans research findings and massively defrauding the public:
New Study Reveals Number and Strength of Head Impacts, Not Concussions, Drive CTE Risk in Football
Does a football player’s number of concussions drive the risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)? In a new study of 631 deceased football players, the largest CTE study to date, scientists found that the number of diagnosed concussions alone was not associated with CTE risk. Instead, football players’ odds of developing CTE were related to both how many head impacts they received and how hard the head impacts were.
The study, conducted by researchers at Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University (BU), was published today in Nature Communications. It used an innovative new tool called a positional exposure matrix (PEM) that synthesized data from 34 independent studies to estimate the number and severity of football players’ head impacts over their careers.
“These results provide added evidence that repeated non-concussive head injuries are a major driver of CTE pathology rather than symptomatic concussions, as the medical and lay literature often suggests,” said study senior author Jesse Mez, MD, MS, Associate Professor at the BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and Co-Director of Clinical Research at the BU CTE Center.
The new data could provide football with a playbook to prevent CTE in current and future players, according to researchers.
-via Mass General Brigham, June 20, 2023
--
Notes for clarification:
This post is not saying I think we should ban football, although I do genuinely believe that we do have an ethical obligation to massively overhaul how football
All of this also applies to and has been found in other contact sports involving head impacts, including soccer (also aka football), hockey, rugby, and wrestling - all huge high school and professional sports
I'm using the sports terminology I am because I am in the United States (and so are most of the fearmongering media billionaires who own the vast majority of news outlets)
That last point specifically includes all major television news, plus over the course of the past two decades, the LA Times, the Washington Post, and like half of AM radio and local news
And of course lest we forget, it includes Fox News, which COULD use its influence to save the lives and health of literally millions of teenagers who are at massive risk of CTE - or have already developed it!! - due to sports injuries
But the executives at Fox have decided to endanger the lives of different teenagers, whom they like way less, by spreading anti-trans conspiracy theories, propaganda, and lies instead.
So next time, try telling your conservative aunt or neighbor or churchmembers that the REAL danger to kids in sports is brain damage from collisions:
"Do you know if your school uses equipment that's rated to help prevent head injuries? Have you seen the statistics on how many kids get lifelong brain damage from playing high school sports? Have you seen the numbers on how many former student athletes commit suicide? That's what I'm worried about - as many as 40% of student athletes might have brain damage, while only like .01% of student athletes are trans. If we want to protect millions of kids, we should start with the thing that affects millions of kids!"
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rage-baiting myself at 3AM by scrolling through the notes of #thatpoll and.
god. are we fucking joking.
worst part is that i think they are being completely genuine. but the lack of knowledge... like. hate football for their concussion rates all you want. but you can't just ignore that hockey has the SAME RATES WTF???
oh and i also can't forget this gem.
ofc. can't forget about the hockey rpfers of the world.
i do also want to say that the argument of cte is perfectly valid, first and foremost.
but. and i KNOW this is really too much to ask. but i really do wish that people understood better what cte actually is and how little we (as scientists) know about it.
i WILL go on a rant about selection bias ON MY LIFE.
(yes i think cte is a very real disease. obviously. i just also happen to also read the fucking research articles and point out the obvious flaws in said research. that the researchers admit in their methods btw. like the fact that if the only brains being donated are from families who suspect that their deceased loved one had cte -guess what. said loved one is likely to have cte.)
(CURRENT CTE RESEARCH IS SELECTION BIAS ON STEROIDS AND EVERYONE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE IT)
WIKIPEDIA??? WE'RE LISTING WIKIPEDIA AS SOURCES NOW???
(don't get me wrong. very grateful that cte has become widespread public knowledge now. i just... it wouldn't kill anyone to read the actual articles and gain more context...)
finally. this is a post about how so many of y'all are willing to let things slide when it comes to hockey and not football (and i got sidetracked ranting about how there are Problems with the current public understanding of cte) but also.
"The neurologist takes out a folder, a picture. He points at my brain with a finger, says here. It looks like a map of a city on fire, a snapshot of weather...He keeps saying damage...The breach, the rupture, the picture of it -- there are things we shouldn't have to see. Why would anyone want to see the inside of anything? I think about my brain. The metaphor of it. I think about my heart. The metaphor of it. I think about looking at the earth from space...Nauseating...I ruined myself with bad living. He isn't saying it but he's saying it...He is talking and I am nodding. I'm waiting for him to tell me that it isn't going to happen again. He isn't saying it. I stop listening." -- Heat Map by Richard Siken
****
“We listen to the medical opinions on CTE, and I don’t believe there has been any documented study that suggests that elements of our game result in CTE,” Bettman said then. “There have been isolated cases of players who have played the game [who] have had CTE. But it doesn’t mean that it necessarily came from playing in the NHL.”
Initial findings in a study from Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine appear to contradict that assertion though. According to preliminary discoveries, each additional year of playing ice hockey may increase a person’s chance of developing CTE by about 23 percent."
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I also partake in the head hits discourse nearly every time it comes around, but it is frustrating to see it framed here as almost universally and exclusively wanting the guy who hit him punished when that goalie should have been pulled the minute he was hit in the face hard enough for his cage to be dislodged.
scott stevens (who famously changed the trajectory and longevity of Lindros' career with a head hit) had his career end on a slapshot to the head. hörnqvist's second to last known concussion came during warmups when -- out there without a helmet -- he was hit by friendly fire.
subconcussive impacts can cause brain damage, and research from BU suggests head impacts rather than concussions cause cte. that's head hits. that's fighting. that's pucks that get past protective gear.
head hits have no business in hockey, not only because it can take a player out of a game or a series or a season, but because players have to live the rest of their lives with the brains and bodies they're left with in retirement.
Gary Bettman and the rest of the nhl saw what happened with the NFL lawsuit and dug their heels in about denying the science and accepting zero responsibility. The NHL paid 70.6 million dollars in legal fees for a settlement with players that paid out only $18.49 million. they wanted to send a message to anyone else who ever tried to hold the league accountable.
In March, the wrongful death suit of Steve Montador was set to start. It will argue that the nhl failed to keep Montador safe and misled him about the longterm repercussions of brain injury. we'll see if it goes anywhere.
I hate plenty of guys for ending or nearly ending the careers of some of my favorite players. there are guys I think actively make the league worse because of their style of play, and I wouldn't be sad to see them immediately retire into obscurity.
but i also think about what beloved Paul Kariya said when asked about ending illegal hits:
“I’m a believer that you don’t go after the employees, you go after the employers.… If you start at 10-game suspensions and go to 20, that sends a message to the players. But if you start fining the owners and suspending the coach, then it’s out of the game.”
Bennett shouldn't have hit Stolarz in the head. but Craig Berube and the Leafs medical team should have cared enough about their goalie to pull him as soon as that first hit to the face happened. it's giving 2017 when gallant let flower finish the game after laying on the ice, holding his head after being hit.
Fine Vincent Viola for the head hit, and fine MLSE for ignoring the cage dislodging face hit. put it into a pot for when the nhl finally loses and they have to pay millions and millions and millions of dollars for treating the lives and well-being of players as expendable in the name of entertainment.
↳ A seemingly ordinary case turns into something more when reader returns to Reid's life. Forcing him to tell something that he never told, the beginning of a story that broke his heart fourteen years ago.
change the ending series masterlist | main masterlist
who? Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
category: angst/fluff
warnings/content: reader jealous, reader is a little mean to jj (nothing personal, i love that queen), mentions of maeve, allusion to bullying, special appearance of alex blake, reid is a little mean to reader, very vague mentions of a case and reader and reid appear aged 12, 15 and 31. English is not my first language.
word count: 3.1K
a/n: Hello this is the first part of my series 'Change the ending' I hope you enjoy this as much as I loved writing this. There are a couple of references to the song cardigan (because that is my most personal song and also Spencer's)
14 years, 160 days, 33 minutes and 13 seconds. That was all the time that had passed since Reid last saw you.
It is said that there are always more questions than answers and that has never made more sense than today.
Today's case promised to be average on the Reid scale, of course.
Today promised to be just another day, like the rest. Just an irrelevant Wednesday where he would miss the Sunday of talking to Maeve, which was still fresh in his mind.
As fresh as you, a memory he should have let burn away fourteen years ago. But it wasn't that easy, even without his eidetic memory you attached yourself to his cerebral cortex as if you had been there since the first time he opened his eyes.
If there was one thing he had learned all those years ago, it was that the memories most want to forget are the ones hold on to the most tightly.
"Earth calling Reid." JJ waved her hand in front of his friend's face.
He blinked a few times. “Yeah. What’s up?” He tried to keep his gaze on JJ, but his eyes kept drifting to your shape. So close and so far at the same time... Just like the last time.
Maybe it was a mistake in his mind and it wasn't you, fourteen years had passed. How could he even recognize you? He didn't even know if you were still alive.
Maybe this time it was like when everything ended and he thought he saw you everywhere. In the grocery line, at school, at home...
As if you were a phantom he couldn't get rid of.
He knew those shadows weren't you and yet every time he thought he saw you it was like such a simple activity like breath became complicated out of nowhere. You used to have that effect, honestly you still have it.
Jennifer frowned before turning her gaze to you. But a couple more eyes weren't enough for you realize what was happen. "You know her?" The question caught him off guard.
How should he even answer such a question? Yes, more than anything. No. Of course. Maybe. Neither was a sufficient answer because on the one hand of course he knew you, at least that's how it was before and that's why he didn't know you, at least not now.
He shoved his hands into his pockets before finally looking at JJ. “She looks like someone I used to know.” 100% true? No, but pretty close.
"I was hoping so, it would help us if you met her." Reid frowned. "Bertram is our most viable suspect, if we lose him we're going to hit a wall." JJ explained something that Reid should already know, should.
"And what does that have to do with her?" Reid raised an eyebrow.
JJ was the one who frowned this time. "Spence, she is Bertram's lawyer. Are you okay?"
When he was about to answer, you approached him, increasing his questions, doubts and clumsiness.
"I'm Bertram Harris' lawyer." You introduced yourself before continuing, answering at least one of Spencer's questions. "What is the imaginary evidence against my client? Because if there was real evidence, charges would have already been filed." He knew that harsh tone so well...
"We have 48 hours before we file charges." Reid replied seriously.
"46 hours." You corrected so casually. He recognized you, but you didn't recognize him? Ouch.
"Well, we have a profile-" You didn't let Jennifer finish speaking.
"Profiles." You let out an exaggerated sigh. "I bet a lot of people would fit in your profile, so that's not enough to prove my client guilty in court." You spoke firmly, fierce as a defense lawyer, and you weren't in court yet. And even though he didn't exactly like your attitude, he had to admit that you were good.
Reid crossed his arms. "Out of so many people, it's amazing that the evidence will lead us right to your client. So we'll take advantage of the 46 hours we have left."
You snorted. "Fine, but when time passes and all of you have nothing against my client, he'll be upset about the time you made him waste." You pulled a pen out of your bag. "Give me your names."
JJ and Spencer shared a look before sighing and agreeing to your request. "Jennifer Jareau." You jotted the name down on your palm.
"Spencer Reid." A hint of mockery crept into his serious tone. Yes, you probably didn't remember his face, but his name was something you'd never forget.
You barely wrote the S on your palm and it was like the ink turned to poison when it came into contact with your skin. You immediately rubbed your palm against your trousers before looking up. "Spencer Re...?" The last few letters died in your mouth.
Of course, no one else had those beautiful eyes with hazel colors and golden flecks. So bright, so honest, so innocent. But now in those eyes there was nothing more than severity.
JJ's gaze traveled from Reid to you and back to Reid, using her profiling skills to determine why the air had suddenly become so thick.
"You look... Different." You whispered as he suddenly decided that silence was his best friend.
The wall he had built so long ago was still as strong as the last time you saw him. The last time he saw you he was so serious but this time after fourteen years he made you feel like you were seventeen again.
"You too." Rather than stating the obvious, that sounded like an insult.
JJ cleared her throat. "Spence." He looked away from you. "You know her?" Jennifer whispered in a failed attempt to get you not hear her.
"No." You were surprised at how quickly the letters that came out of his mouth took shape.
"Liar." You pointed out before looking at Jennifer. Though your attention wavered to the ring on her finger. "He knows every inch of me." You lifted your chin.
JJ raised her eyebrows and the way she looked at Reid it seemed more like gossip to her than a tease...
You thought. <<Yeah, maybe she doesn't>>
"Her husband's name is Will. It's not me, she's just my friend." He clarified, though it's not like you were entitled to clarification. At least you hadn't had that right for a long time.
Even when he was just a student he also had that ability to read you like an open book.
"And as for what you said, I'm not a liar." His tone was painfully stern. "I knew you before, fourteen years ago, but that's too long for anyone to remember." That's what he wanted to repeat to himself, because honestly the memories that were about you had no expiration date. "Now and maybe even then I have no idea who you are."
He gave you one last look before turning on his heel and walking off to somewhere where he couldn't sense your presence.
"I'll talk to Bertram about not pressing charges." JJ looked at you in confusion and to be honest even you couldn't believe that a stupid teenage love affair was enough to affect your work. At least you weren't the only one going through something like that.
"And I'm sorry..." A lump formed in your throat. "Maybe I shouldn't even ask you this, but could you deliver something to Spencer?" You then pulled a card out of your bag and handed it to Jennifer.
She studied the black card in her hand for a few seconds, carefully looking at your name and phone number. "Of course, I'll give it to him." She smiled slightly at you.
You gave her an awkward smile before turning away. God, you felt so stupid now for thinking she was his wife. Besides, what would be wrong with him having a wife? Spencer Reid deserved to be happy.
As soon as you left the police station, JJ pulled out his phone. "Penelope, you won't believe what just happened."
∗⋅✧⋅∗
Reid was in a small office going over all the evidence again for a reason he wouldn't admit out loud.
But he had already checked everything three times and had hit a wall all three times. The time it took him to figure things out could vary, but this was different.
What he didn't know was that the answer was there, it's just that his mind was too clouded at the moment to realize it.
And all that mental fog had a name: yours.
He loosened his tie, taking a deep breath to regulate his racing heart. Apparently you still had that effect on him, you, the protagonist of a story so old that it must have already had cobwebs. But unfortunately for him, that wasn't the case...
Spencer gripped the edge of the desk before taking another deep breath.
But his attempts to relax were cut short when his worst enemy: his own memory made him relive the last time he kissed your lips...
The soft skin against each other, the mingled breaths, your hands in his hair and the way he didn't see that those would be the last kisses.
"Another disadvantage of eidetic memory," he told himself. But now that he thought about it, did it have any benefit? Of course it did. But all the tangled threads in his mind didn't allow see the reality.
Someone knocked on the door and he jumped slightly in place before looking towards the door. "Blake..."
Blake smiled slightly at him. "Hi." Her eyes scanned the papers scattered across the desk and then Reid's disheveled appearance. "Is everything okay?"
He nodded quickly, taking his seat back behind the desk. "Yeah." But the way Alex looked at him made him say something else. "Not really."
She sat down in front of him. "Yes, we all know about the pretty lawyer."
"Jennifer..." Reid huffed before running his hands over his face.
"And who is she?" Blake asked in her usual calm tone.
<<Good question>>
A short time ago he was telling her about Maeve, he never thought he would tell Blake about another girl again and not so suddenly... But honestly you weren't another girl, you were THE GIRL.
Reid sighed. "She's nobody." He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It must be someone if the smartest guy I know hasn't already given us a big revelation that will help with this case." Blake looked at him with understanding eyes. "Go ahead Reid, talking about it will help."
Reid rubbed his knees with his hands. "Well I can't tell you who she's, but I can tell you who she was."
∗⋅✧⋅∗
Spencer took a deep breath. "I don't even know where to start."
"The beginning is perhaps the easiest." She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, encouraging him to continue.
"We had a lot of beginnings, if that's possible." He ran a hand through his hair.
His mind traveled back to the first interaction he had with you, when you were both 12. But before that, something else had to happen for him to get to know you, something very bad.
He was in the library when Harper Hillman approached him.
"Alexa Isben wants to meet you behind the field house." She said.
She was there. So was the entire football team. They stripped him naked and tied him to a goal post. So many kids were there, just watching...
He begged them to stop, but they just watched. Then finally they got bored and left.
He had told that story to Morgan years ago, but he had completely erased you from it. Until now.
Alex looked at him with compassion. "It got dark and I thought I would stay there forever. But then she appeared..." He looked away, remembering it as if it were yesterday.
A little twelve-year-old you ran towards the goal post. "Oh my god. Who did this to you?" You kept your eyes fixed on his defeated face.
He had never seen you before, did you even study there? Because you didn't look the same age as the guys he was going to graduate with, the ones who had done this to him...
You looked much younger, like him.
You weren't discouraged by his lack of words, instead you considered how to help him. "Wait here, I'll go get some clothes and some scissors to cut the rope." You didn't wait for an answer, you just ran off to find what you told him.
The cold of the night was beginning to seep through his skin, freezing him. He didn't even think you'd come back, but then. "Be careful with the scissors, if I sting you, let me know." So you put all your effort into cutting the rope, at that moment you regretted not carrying a knife for ease.
Luckily, a single cut was enough to release the rope. You then spread the clothes you had found over him and covered your eyes with your hand.
"I hope it fits, it's my brother's so it might be a little big on you." Spencer took the clothes from your hands.
"Thank you." He whispered as he hurriedly put on each item of clothing. "You can look now." He said once he finished putting on the shirt.
You pulled your hand away from your eyes. “Oh, I forgot the jacket. You must be freezing cold.” You said as you hurriedly unbuttoned your loose black cardigan.
"Oh, you don't have to..." Embarrassment seeped into his words but you still put your cardigan on him.
"It's okay. You need it more than me. By the way, I'm..." Then you told him your name.
He watched as you finished buttoning the cardigan. "Spencer. Spencer Reid."
"You should tell me the names of those who did this to you, then I can tell my mother to expel them. She's the principal." You let your hands fall to your sides.
"It's not that bad..." Yes it was.
"Of course it was!" You exclaimed. "Give me names and I'll beat them up myself. I hate bullies."
Spencer let out a light laugh that quickly disappeared at the bitter feelings bubbling up inside him. "They're the older guys, you can't handle them. Besides, this could have been worse."
"Don't underestimate me." You tried to joke. "Worse? How long have you been tied up there? It's almost midnight" You looked at him with concern.
"Midnight?" His eyes widened. Surely his mother was worried that he hadn't come home.
So you grabbed him by the sleeve of the cardigan and dragged him along. "Come, I'll ask my dad to take you home."
∗⋅✧⋅∗
"So her dad drove you home?" Blake asked.
"Yes. It was like midnight when I got home. My mom didn't even realize I was late. She was having one of her episodes..." He sigh, how could something that had happened so long ago still have such a negative power over him? "I know I shouldn't get into a stranger's car and technically nothing bad happened to me, they helped me. But I did it... Because I felt like I could trust her but maybe it wasn't a good idea from the start."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that to meet her."
Spencer sighed and looked down. "I regret about both."
"Both?" Blake looked at him in confusion.
Reid looked up. "Yeah, what happened that day and meeting her." He replied with a seriousness too cold to be true.
Blake stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds before speaking again. "What happened next?"
"I don't saw her again, it was like she just vanished." He sighed. "Then three years passed and there she was again..."
"I was studying for my first PhD at MIT so I decided that over the holidays I wanted to go home to visit my mother. But instead of taking a flight I decided to travel by train."
It's funny how a single decision can affect our future.
∗⋅✧⋅∗
"The last train to Las Vegas leaves in five minutes." A voice announced through one of the speakers.
"One ticket, please." The woman at the ticket office handed him his ticket once he gave her the money.
Reid was about to board the train when you crashed into it.
"I'm so sorry." you continued to apologize as you helped him up from the floor.
He brushed off his clothes once he was standing again. "It's okay, don't worry."
You tried not to look at him, not after you had thrown him to the floor. But he did look at you which made his heart skip a beat when he recognized you.
He stared in your direction for a couple of seconds before deciding to continue and board the train.
"Oh, I, I had my money here." You patted your jacket pockets. "If you could just help me I'd pay you right away... It's just that it's very important for me to have that ticket because it's the last train to Las Vegas and I really need to go." But the woman at the ticket office didn't take pity on you.
Then Reid came over. "I'll pay for the ticket."
The woman didn't say anything, she just accepted Reid's money and handed you the ticket, which you immediately took.
"Thank you so much, you just saved my life." You followed him to board the train together.
"Okay, we're even now." He smiled slightly at you.
You hadn't planned on sitting next to a complete stranger but you followed him. "We're even?" You asked as he placed his luggage in the compartment.
"I'm Spencer." He hope that will refresh your mind.
You opened your mouth in surprise. "Of course! Spencer Reid, I remember you well." You scanned him from top to bottom. "The answer to where I left my favorite cardigan three years ago." You tried to load your luggage into the compartment but couldn't.
He helped you out, like a true gentleman. "I'm sorry I didn't see you again after that. Do you want it back?" He asked after closing the compartment door.
"You still have it?" You asked in disbelief.
"It's my favorite too." He whispered.
∗⋅✧⋅∗
"I didn't plan on things being like this, but she and I were together the whole trip. Just chatting and-" He looked down as nostalgia washed over him. "Marked me like a blood stain..."
"She seems pretty nice so far." Blake commented. "What went wrong?"
"She was really nice." He sighed. "At that time, nothing bad had happened. In fact, after that incredible trip I lost track of her again and didn't see her again until two years later."
He looked up. "But I didn't really know her until our third beginning, when everything started to go wrong..."
