Despite wanting to tell herself that it was not true, she could no longer deny it once she saw his name mentioned as the person who had died, along with a similar story to what she had been told.
There was no more room to deny anything since then, as the truth had been presented quite clearly before her eyes, leaving no room for there being any lies or falseness in the fact that he was gone.
All that was left was to figure out the rest as she tried to process the grief of losing Max and the other feelings that had been brought to the surface from losing him, like the suppressed feelings of grief from losing her mother and the things she suffered.
Ash had no other choice but to skip the first step after completing it, but there were still many things to go through for the loss of Max and everything else.
There were many other thoughts that needed to be properly sorted out as she had to come to terms with the situation and figure out how she would proceed.
