"And what if you aren't sure it was gold to begin with?"

She gets it, she knows what Erin is trying to impart. She understands, but unwinding years of thinking one way can't be done in a short time. She has to doubt, because there is room to doubt, to question. There's time to be a mess, and for all she wants to be composed, viewed a certain way, Helena knows she's that mess inside. Something witnessed through cracks.

"...I was going to go to college, and see if I had any real talent at all."

Or if it was just manufactured, just a cloyingly sweet encouragement that mediocrity was made extraordinary from the false framing.