“I know.”
“What changed?”
“The charity deadline was Sunday at midnight. I opened the page after you fell asleep. I thought if I waited for the reassessment, I would lose the entry and lose the courage.”
“So you chose urgency over trust.”
“Yes.” I kept both hands flat on my thighs.
“Did you register to finish?”
“Yes.”
“Not simply to start honestly.”
“No.”
“Did you believe finishing would repair the old races?”
“Partly.”
Amy’s face tightened.
“I hate that word.”
“I know.”
“Then be complete.”
I inhaled.
“Yes. I thought a finish would prove the panic was not the whole story. I thought running beside your training had made me—” The sentence failed. “No. I used your training to make myself feel ready. And I knew if I told you, you would ask whether this was choice or punishment.”
“Would I have forbidden you?”
“No.”
“But I might have asked a question that stopped you.”
“Yes.”
“And you did not want the answer to interfere.”
“No.”
There it was. The ugliest truth. I had not hidden the registration because Amy could not handle it. I hid it because her clarity could have stopped me. Amy looked away toward the river. People walked along the path. A dog pulled against a leash. The world continued with offensive ease.
“I believed you,” she said.
“I know.”
“When you told me the whole story, I believed the delay was over.”
“I know.”
“I told Rose that honesty had made trust possible again.”
That cut.
