I swallow. “I think it already proved it does.”
His gaze drops briefly to my ankle, then returns to my face.
“No,” he says. “It proved it still exists. That’s not the same thing.”
I let out a quiet laugh that holds no humor.
“Some things don’t fade. They wait.”
He considers that. I can see it in the way his eyes narrow, the way he weighs my words rather than dismissing them.
“You’re right,” he says at last. “Some things do wait.” My heart stutters. “And some things end because someone chooses to leave. That is not the same as you being unworthy of staying.”
The words stop everything. They’re more dramatic than a slap to the face. I press my lips together, breathing through the sudden burn behind my eyes.
“It felt the same,” I admit. “Like a verdict. Like no matter what I did afterward, that would always be the truth underneath everything else.”
Korr turns fully toward me. His knee angles in, his body a quiet wall at my side. He doesn’t touch me though.
“That truth was never yours,” he says. “It belonged to him. His fear. His limits.”
I shake my head. “You say that like it doesn’t leave a mark.”
“It does,” he agrees. “But it doesn’t get to define what comes next.”
I finally meet his gaze, really look at him. At the steadiness there. At the absence of doubt. At the way he isn’t trying to convince me so much as state something he has already accepted.
“And what if I don’t know how to believe that?” I ask.
“Then you don’t,” he replies. “Not yet.”
That surprises me. “That’s it?”
“For now.” His mouth curves, just slightly. “I’m not asking you to trust words. I’m asking you to watch what I choose.”
My breath catches. “And what are you choosing?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reaches out, slow and unmistakably intentional, and rests his hand over mine where it lies on the stone.
The contact is warm. Steady. Real.
“I am choosing you,” he says. “Without condition. Without expectation. Whether you accept that today or not.”
The world seems to narrow to that point of contact. The heat of his palm. The quiet certainty behind it. My instinct is to pull away, to protect the parts of me that learned too well what hope can cost.
I don’t.
My fingers curl slightly beneath his, not clinging, but acknowledging. Accepting the moment without promising the future. His thumb shifts, brushing my knuckles once. The touch is restrained, reverent. It sends a shiver through me anyway.
“You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he adds. “You don’t have to be brave. Or healed. Or ready.”
I whisper, “And if I am none of those things?”
His gaze softens. “Then you are still enough.”
The words settle between us, heavy and gentle all at once. Somewhere nearby, the children breathe, the city hums faintly, and the night holds. For the first time since we entered this place, I let myself lean—just a little—into the truth I’ve been fighting.
He’s not here because he hasn’t decided yet. He’s here because he already has.
