“I’m sorry.”
Amy held my gaze.
“I believe you are sorry.”
No relief came.
“I love you,” I said. The fact was true. I tried not to use it as leverage.
Amy’s fingers locked together. “Love is not the disputed fact.”
I went silent.
“You love me. I love you,” she said. “Neither fact resolves the conduct.”
The present tense reached me anyway. Painful hope rose. I kept it from becoming a question she had to answer.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Time without being responsible for whether you collapse into shame.”
The accuracy hurt.
“I can do that.”
“You need to do it whether I return or not.”
“I know.”
“Be honest.”
I forced myself to hold her gaze.
“I want to say yes because I want you to come back.”
Amy waited.
The coffee remained untouched between us. “If you leave, part of me wants to stop the certification, withdraw from every race, and call the collapse proof that I ruin whatever matters. I know that is shame. I do not yet trust myself not to obey it.”
Compassion softened her face. Not forgiveness.
“That is not mine to solve,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You need people who are not me. Your therapist. Gloria. Rose, where her role allows it.”
The people I had avoided because none of them could give me the outcome I wanted.
“I know.”
“And yourself,” Amy said.
That one was harder. I pressed both feet into the floor.
“Yes.”
Amy touched the watch. Then stopped.
