When? Within the year? A month? How was I to know any of that?! You could have been dead for all I knew!

[It is childish to swipe angrily at fabric. The tent's flap isn't spared for that thought.]

That it didn't occur to you says everything I need to know at this point. [He was an afterthought.] People hurt me. They were impaled for it. I don't need whatever I thought you might offer at one point.

He's no longer away from the exit. He's through it, and into the hot, dusty air. of dune]