My throat worked around nothing. “I don’t want stone.”
“You do,” he said, and there was no judgment in it now. Just sadness. “Because stone feels certain. Heavy. Permanent. You think if you can talk to her, even once, you’ll feel permission settle in your bones and the pain will stop clawing at you.”
He leaned forward, forearms on the desk.
“But it won’t,” Gideon said. “It’ll just change shape.”
I stared at the floor. The edges of my vision blurred.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted, and the words came out small. Humiliating. “I don’t know how to wake up and not reach for her and remember she’s not there. I don’t knowhow to go home to that house and not—” My voice broke. I swallowed hard. “Not lose my mind.”
Gideon’s expression shifted. Not softened, exactly—he wasn’t built for softness. But something in him eased.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” he said.
I laughed, shaky. “I’m alone anyway.”
“No,” Gideon said firmly. “You’re isolating.”
My chest ached so hard it felt physical.
I looked up at him. “Why won’t you just give me what I want?”
Gideon held my gaze. And for the first time, he let some of the truth show.
“Because I did it once,” he said quietly.
My blood went cold.
His eyes didn’t leave mine.
“I called someone back,” Gideon said, voice almost flat. “I told myself it would be brief. I told myself it would be controlled. I told myself I was strong enough to handle the cost.”
He swallowed.
Just once. The smallest crack in the armor.
“And it changed me,” he said. “It changed what I am. It changed what follows me.”
The air in the office felt heavier.
“And it didn’t give me peace,” Gideon finished. “It gave me hunger. Because once you cross that line, you start thinking the next time will be better. Cleaner. Safer. And it never is.”
I stared at him, heart beating too fast.
“You’re afraid,” I said.
Gideon’s mouth tightened. “I’m careful.”
“Same thing,” I muttered, bitter.
To my surprise, Gideon’s lips twitched. Not quite a smile. But something.
“Could and should,” he said again, quieter. “Different words.”
I wiped at my face without realizing tears had spilled. “So what do I do?” I whispered. “If I don’t get to ask her. If I don’t get… permission.”
Gideon looked at me for a long time.
