Or maybe I’m crying becausehow? How does someone this brilliant, this capable of understanding complex ecological systems, this tender with me when I’m sleeping... how does someone like that make the choice to poison groundwater? To destroy everything irreparably for profit?
And how the hell did I fall in love with him anyway?
Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? This ache in my chest. This desperate need to cross the room and hold him. This absolute terror that I’ve ruined everything.
I thought he was the villain. The corporate monster destroying the planet for money.
Except he’s not a monster. He’s just... human. Flawed and wounded and trying to carry the weight of choices he can’t unmake. And I’ve been treating him like he’s irredeemable when really--
Oh god.
I’m forgiving him.
That’s what’s happening right now. I’m watching him sit there, holding my textbook like it’s evidence at his own trial, looking absolutely devastated by what he’s learned, and I’m... I’m letting it go. The anger. The self-righteous fury.
Because he seems contrite. Because he wants to change. I can see it in every line of his body, in the way he’s absorbed every word of that paragraph like penance.
And maybe that makes me weak. Maybe a better environmental scientist would hold the line, would refuse to forgive, would--
Fuck that.
I don’t want to be right anymore.
I want to be withhim.
I want to help him be better.
I want to believe that people can change, that thirty percent remaining can regenerate into something whole again.
Even if the people who need that belief most are us.
I quickly wipe away the tears and look at him again. He’s returned his attention to my book, probably trying to give me privacy while I have my emotional breakdown.
So I just sit there, watching him from across the room. This brilliant, wounded man I pushed away because I was terrified.
Because I convinced myself we were impossible.
Because choosing safe over scary has been my default setting since forever.
Do something, you coward.
Say something.
Fix this.
Make things right.
I get up. My legs are shaky. I cross the distance that feels like miles and kneel beside the sectional.
“Gregory.” My voice cracks. “I don’t want to leave on bad terms.”
He finally looks at me. His eyes are devastated. Red-rimmed. He looks like he’s been crying himself.
God, what have I done to him?
“I’m... I’m sorry.” The words pour out. “I panicked. I got scared and I said terrible things. You’ve kept asking if I’m okay... on the roof, after the cougar, when I’m cold, when I’m scared.And you know what I realized? No one’s asked me that in years. No one’s cared enough to notice when I’m not okay.”
His expression is unreadable.
