“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why.”
I don’t rush this. I don’t give her a speech, only the truth.
“Because I still thought you were safer without me in your life. I know this world isn't what you want.”
She considers that. "You're not wrong. But shouldn't that be my decision to make?"
“You're right. It should be.”
She nods once slowly. “That matters.”
She shifts on her stool, angling toward me, one knee brushing mine. It isn’t accidental.
She lifts her glass but doesn’t drink. She turns it slightly instead, watching the light catch along the curve.
“I knew what your world was,” she says. Not looking at me. “From the beginning. I wasn’t naïve about that.”
I wait, letting her find the rest of it on her own.
“What mattered to me,” she continues, “was that I trusted you to know where the edges were. I didn’t want to have to spell it out.”
Her fingers still. She finally looks at me.
“My instinct was to put distance between you and anything that could hurt you,” I say. “I didn’t stop to consider what that distance cost you.”
Her mouth tightens.
“It was hard, I'm not going to sugarcoat it,” she says. “But I understand why you did it.”
She takes a sip, then sets the glass down. I watch thered legs of the wine crawl slowly back down the curve of the glass.
“I missed you,” she says. The words come out quieter than the rest. “And hearing you answer that question tonight, about the fentanyl.” She pauses. Breath steady. “It settled something in me that I hadn't realized was still an open wound.”
I watch her carefully.
“I never believed that was who you were,” she adds.
“I wouldn’t have left it unanswered if I’d known,” I say. “In the moment, I needed to be sure before I spoke.”
“I understand that now,” she says.
Another silence opens. This one is heavier.
“All I’ve done these last months,” I say, “is deal with what I inherited, working hard to put things back in order.”
I stop there. I don’t list it or try to justify it beyond that simple truth.
“I didn’t want you living inside that,” I add finally. “And I couldn’t keep living in constant reactive mode.”
She studies me for a long moment, then looks away, down at the bar, like she needs something solid to focus on.
“I didn’t move on,” she says.
I don’t answer right away. Not because I’m weighing strategy, but because this is the point where honesty costs something. “I didn’t either.”
