“You don’t trust me,” I say.
“I trust you with your own life,” he snaps. “I don’t trust you with mine.”
I blink.
“What.”
He drags a hand down his face.
“I don’t trust myself not to become something I hate if I start making decisions with you instead of for you.”
There it is.
The real thing.
“You’re afraid of wanting something too much,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
“You’re afraid that if you let yourself need me, you’ll turn into the monster the Alliance promised you you’d be.”
His jaw locks.
“They weren’t wrong about what I am capable of.”
“They were wrong about what that means,” I shoot back.
He steps closer without realizing it.
I don’t step back.
The air between us goes tight and loud and strange, a pressure I feel in my teeth and behind my eyes.
His hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Do not do that,” he growls.
“Do not what.”
“Do not look at me like that.”
“Like what.”
“Like you’re not afraid of me anymore.”
The words hit my chest like a hammer.
“I am afraid of you,” I say. “I’m just more afraid of what happens if you keep cutting me out of decisions that affect my life.”
Silence.
Thick.
Fragile.
He exhales shakily.
“I don’t know how to share this,” he admits. “Everything they taught me says information is leverage and leverage is survival.”
