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The fight went out of him, and he sat down on the bed.
“Well …” He started to speak, changed his mind, started again. “What does that life look like?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “As long as it’s with you.” But the words sounded childish now, after ringing true for years. She’d been with him for a long time, and this life wasn’t enough.
Another humorless laugh. “You want a life with me, but not at Icarus and not here.”
“You’re the one who’s leaving!”
“You want to stay here?” He gestured at the room around them. “We’re making it work because we’ve been doing it for years, Hal. It’s habit. That’s all.”
“And you don’t want to fix it.”
“I’mgoingto fix it.” He sprang up, energized again. “I’m going to get us our old jobs, and we’re going back to where thisworked.”
She believed him. Kevin would get things back to the way they were, and she wouldn’t need to do a thing. But she would lose herself, little by little, until her fear took all she had to give.
“No,” she whispered.
He barely glanced at her. “What?”
“No,” she said again. “I won’t survive going back.”
“That’s a little dramatic.”
She saw it then, the way he dismissed her. Kevin had always told her everything would be okay, and she’d thought he believed in her strength. But Kevin assumed she’d get better because he’d never thought anything was truly wrong. He hadn’t wanted to.
“What if I couldn’t dance?” she asked softly.
He paused. “What, like Nick?”
“What if I get hurt?” she pressed on. “What happens when we get old? One day they’re going to stop putting us on posters, Kevin. What’s your plan then?”
“Those are hypotheticals.”
“You left your girlfriend for me, Kevin,” she said. “You broke up with Carrie, and you told me you loved me, and you watchedDirty Dancingand brought home chicken soup for two weeks when I had the flu, and don’t you dare tell me that was all for what I could get you on that fucking stage, because I would give every bit of my life to you even if youwerein a walker.”
Kevin watched her catch her breath.
“Again with Nick,” he said bitterly.
“What the hell?” She followed him into the bathroom. “This isn’t about him.”
“I already told him we were leaving.”
She stopped. “When? Today?”
“When you were with your folks.”
Her reflection gaped at her in the mirror. “A week ago,” she said. “Oh God, he thought that was the last time he’d see me.”
Kevin zipped his toiletry bag and pushed past her. “He’ll survive.”
“He matters to me, Kevin!”
“So stay here with him.”
She didn’t say a word.
