Sam joins her on the bed, laughing, and says she should have told him. "Why? So you could ride up on your white horse and save me?" He rolls his eyes, frustrated, and bitches about how she turns everything into a fight. "Why is it so hard to let someone be just nice to you?" Tara pulls it together and suggests that it's her bad self-esteem and can't express her real feelings except through sarcasm. As usual, she's telling the truth so big it sounds like a lie. She tries to do right, but it's hard. It breaks her down and poisons everything. He tries to leave and complains of always being teased: Tara, Sookie. Give a dog a bone! She beats him to the door, slamming it closed with her giant muscley arms. "I don't want to play games," he protests. "I don't want no strings. I just ... I want something real in my life." Tara feels the same way; she glimpses a spark in him and takes his face in her hands, studying him. She puts her arms around him as he swears it's real. "If we do this, we really did this." She nods and puts her forehead to his, kissing him softly, and then harder.

The whole pie is gone. Sookie wanders out of the kitchen, turns back to look at the empty plate one more time. The last pieces of home, gone. She stares at herself in the mirror, taking down her hair. Off comes the jacket, and then the dress. Who's that in there? An orphan. A girl without a home. Retard, psycho, Stackhouse trash. A fangbanger. A whore. A girl without a home, like any outcast, can be anything she likes. What would that be? What would solve this problem? How can she feel less alone, without feeling invaded? What makes her feel good? What replaces this fear and loneliness and desperate sadness?

She pulls on a flowing, ridiculous white gown. Puffed sleeves and a mile-long hem, like the movies, like a princess. Like a virgin, unmarked. Untouched territory. What was Hadley thinking, when she left rehab this last time? Did she feel like a prisoner, locked in a castle that wasn't her home? Or did she just look down at herself one day, or into the mirror, and realize it was time to claim that territory for herself? Sookie stares out the window, at the setting sun.