I close my eyes.
“I hate that too,” I say. “And I don’t like that my name gets to stay clean while yours gets picked apart.”
She doesn’t soften at that. Good. She shouldn’t.
“And the worst bit,” she says, voice cracking despite herself, “is that they’ve made me doubt myself. Just a little. Like maybe I should have known better. Maybe I should have stayed colder. Smaller. Less human.”
Something in my chest tightens painfully.
“You being human is not the mistake,” I say, quietly but firmly. “The mistake is a world that punishes you for it.”
She snorts. “You’re dangerously reasonable.”
“I’m trying to be honest,” I say. “I don’t want to apologise my way out of this or pretend I can fix it. I can’t. But I can sit in the uncomfortable bit with you.”
There’s a pause. A long one.
“Fuck,” she mutters. “I really want to be furious with you.”
“I know,” I say. “I’d understand if you were.”
“I am,” she admits. “A bit. And that makes me feel like a terrible person.”
“It makes you someone who’s been hurt,” I say. “By something bigger than both of us.”
She goes quiet then. Not the controlled quiet from earlier. A tired one.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she says finally.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” I reply. “And I won’t push you either way. But whatever you choose… you don’t have to pretend this didn’t matter.”
Her breath catches, just slightly.
“That’s the problem,” she says softly. “It did.”
And in the silence that follows, I know this is the moment where things could fracture.
Or deepen.
And neither of us gets to control which one it will be.
“I should go,” she says eventually. “I need to think. And possibly stare at a wall.”
“Call me,” I say. “If you need anything. Anything at all.”
Another breath. Softer now.
“I will,” she says, and I don’t know if she means it.
Before she hangs up, I add, carefully, because this feels like the sort of thing that only gets one chance, “And Chloe… when you’re sharp with me, or angry, or pushing me away, that doesn’t hurt because you’re being unkind.”
She’s silent.
“It hurts,” I continue, quietly, “because it tells me how alone you feel right now. And I wish you weren’t carrying that on your own.”
For a second, I think I’ve gone too far.
Then she swallows. I can hear it.
