Not out of cruelty. Not out of malice. It was fear dressed up as love, which was, as Emily would have been able to tell me, themost effective disguise available. I was going to decide what she could survive, hand her the verdict, and call it protection. I was going to take the choice from her because I was afraid she would choose me anyway if I left it in her hands. If she did, and the world reached for her again, I would have to live with knowing she had walked toward it with full knowledge.
I was not doing this for her. I could admit that.
I was doing it because I was not brave enough to let her choose damage, and I did not know how to say that without it sounding like exactly what it was.
I opened my laptop.
A formal message to the dean’s office. A brief explanation about graduating remotely. A request for final confirmation of the credits. Then another message, shorter and far worse, drafted and deleted twice before I ordered myself to stop trying to make it kinder than it was.
There was no kind way to cut out your own heart.
I heard the bedroom door open before I turned.
Emily stood there in one of my shirts, barefoot, her hair still tangled from sleep, the bracelet back on her wrist. For one deranged second I wanted to say nothing at all, cross the room, pull her into me, and pretend I had not spent the last hour preparing to ruin both our lives in the name of saving hers.
Instead I looked at her and said, “You should sit down.”
Her face changed very slightly.
Recognition.
“No,” she said quietly. “I think I’d rather hear this standing.”
The words cut.
I closed the laptop.
“Emily…”
She waited.
I had rehearsed this in my head. The danger. The promises I could not keep. The life I had no right to ask her to survive. Allthe careful, noble language men used when they wanted to make cruelty sound like sacrifice.
I hated myself for recognizing that while doing it anyway.
I had told her the truth of my world. How it worked. Who held it and why. She had listened, and she had stayed anyway—which was either the bravest or the most reckless thing I had ever witnessed, depending on the hour.
And because I had already named the truth in my own head, because I knew exactly what Emily would call this if I gave her the chance, I did the cowardly thing.
I spoke before courage could stop me.
“This life is too dangerous,” I said at last. “The promises I made you? I can’t keep them. Not honestly. I thought I could protect you enough to make this work. I was wrong. You got hurt because of me, and if you stay with me, it won’t be the last time my world reaches for you. I can’t let that happen again.”
She was very still by the time I finished.
Too still.
Then she nodded once. “Right.”
That was all. I stared at her.
She folded her arms lightly across herself, not defensive, just contained. “It seems very well rehearsed. I assume there’s nothing for me to say.”
“Emily—”
“No further input required,” she went on, her voice calm in a way that immediately started to unnerve me. “I see. Well. Thank you for letting me know.”
The detachment in her tone was far worse than if she had shouted.
