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“He had already decided. I was still living in the life I thought we had. He finished the decision, and then he gave me the information.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“No. You are trying to keep me, and that matters.” She takes one breath. “It does not change what you did.”

I see the whole thing at once. Not the same act. The same missing space.

“You gave me a house, Tova’s room, her school, insurance, money, and a marriage before I had finished telling you what the choice was,” she says. “You built the whole life and handed it to me, and all that was left for me to do was say thank you.”

“I don’t need gratitude.”

“Then what do you need?”

The honest answer is gratitude.

I look away from it. “I need you not to leave.”

“That is not mine to solve for you.”

The words aren’t cruel. I wish they were. Cruelty would give me somewhere to put it.

“I can slow down.”

“You cannot slow down the proposal you have already made.”

“I can make it a question.”

“It was grammatically an imperative.”

The dry edge of her nearly gets a laugh out of me. Nothing comes.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

She looks tired.

I take my hands off the table.

“Do you want me?”

Astrid closes her eyes for one beat, and when she opens them there’s no shelter in her face for either of us.

“That is not the same question.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I nod once.

Her gaze drops to my mouth and comes back up.

“Yes,” she says. “I want you.”

The answer goes through me hard enough to make the no hurt worse.

“I asked you here because I wanted you to know the truth. I kissed you because I wanted to. And I put your name next to mine because this is real.” She puts a hand flat on the closed folder. “None of that turns the life you chose into my choice.”