There was a very d*** good reason she left Starling City and never looked back, avoided it like the plague even.
For the first year before she fled the large and familiar city, people could seem to just read it on her face. She was an open book and she was sick of people asking if she was all right.
No. Of course she wasn't. Why on earth would she be?
The name on her hip had went from being dulled to being white in the course of a week following the sinking of the gambit. Logically she knew what that meant, but she had pressed it so far down that she could almost pretend he was still alive and would be brought back home to her somehow. That only worked for so long before the pain crept up on her and she could no longer deny it nor stand to be in the city that held so many memories that were like shards, stabbing at her heart.
After finding herself a new home in Central City, she slowly began to close herself off to the people around her. She didn't want to get close to anybody unless she had to, telling herself it was because she didn't want questions about her soulmate and the looks of pity when they found out.
Her emotions darkened as time went on, especially after the particle accelerator explosion. At first, she couldn't figure it out, why she seemed to suddenly care less and less about the world and people around her, opting to instead care only for herself, but she chalked it up to the still heavy lingering feeling of loss that she feared would never entirely go away. If she only cared about herself, there was no way she could be hurt. Right?
But that's when she finally noticed the change in her mark.
No longer was it the bright and blinding white that symbolized death, but it was now green (emerald if she had to guess a specific shade) in color.