"If you'd gone with her, you might have died too. Or you might have saved her. Or nothing would have changed at all. You can't know. You'll never know. And torturing yourself with 'what ifs' won't bring her back."
I stared at him, tears still streaming, something shifting in my chest.
"Grief is the price of love," he continued, his thumb brushing my cheek. "It's brutal and unfair, and it never fully goes away. But the alternative, never loving anyone, never letting anyone in, that's not avoiding grief. That's just grieving in advance."
"I've been grieving people who are still alive," I whispered, the realization crystallizing as I spoke it. "You. Sarah. My dad. I've been mourning you all before I even lost you."
"Yeah." His voice was rough. "You have."
"That's so stupid."
"It really is."
A wet, broken laugh escaped me. "God, I'm a mess."
"You're allowed to be a mess. You lost your sister."
"Fourteen months ago. I should be?—"
"There's no 'should be.' Grief doesn't have a timeline." He pulled me closer, resting his chin on top of my head. "You're grieving her here. In a place like the ones she loved. That's not weakness. That's healing."
I cried against his chest until I had nothing left. Until I was empty and wrung out and strangely, terrifyingly light. Like I'd been carrying a boulder for fourteen months and finally, finally set it down.
The stars wheeled overhead. The cold seeped through my clothes. I didn't care.
"I pushed you away," I said eventually, my voice hoarse. "I hurt you. I hurt Sarah. I was so scared of losing you that I lost you on purpose."
"You didn't lose us."
"I tried really hard to."
"Yeah, you did." A hint of dark humor in his voice. "You're very determined when you set your mind to something. Even self-destruction."
"That's not a compliment."
"It's an observation."
I pulled back to look at him. "How are you not furious with me?"
"Who says I'm not?"
The words landed like a gentle slap. I blinked.
"I was angry," he admitted. "I’m angry, maybe. You put Sarah through hell. You put me through hell. You made me watch my niece fall apart because you were too scared to stay."
"I'm sorry?—"
"I know you are. And I understand why you did it. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt." He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "But Emma, I didn't fall in love with a perfect person. I fell in love with you. Messy. Scared.Determined to outrun your own shadow. I knew what I was signing up for."
"You fell in love with me?"
"Obviously." He said it like it was the most self-evident thing in the world. "Have been since the craft disaster. Maybe earlier. Definitely by the time you talked Sarah out of that bathroom at her birthday party."
"That was..." I tried to count the months. "A long time ago."
"I'm patient."
"You're insane."
