It's not like she's been a saint herself. Meredith's hurt a lot of people in her time, both intentionally and otherwise, and she's taken her troubles out on everyone else, lashed out when she shouldn't have. She's made mistakes and she's trying hard to see it like that, but it's not the same, not really. Looking down at the ground between them, she just sits there, not knowing what to say or think or feel, everything inside her painfully heavy. What is she supposed to say? She wants to believe he wouldn't really have done it if he'd been allowed to go on with it, but the hard fact is, she honestly doesn't know. He seems so sure of it and all that guilt isn't proof he's wrong.

She shakes her head, tiny, sharp, contained movements as she hunches forward against herself, trying to say something and not knowing what. "Just —" Stopping again, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. He knows that's not a reason, he already said so. Even so, she can't just sit here, wondering, and it's too late to turn back now. "A teenage girl," she says, a little strangled. "So what stopped you? Why didn't you do it?"