It was his turn to sigh. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“You could’ve run away.”
“I could have,” he agreed.
“So why didn’t you?” I knew what I wanted the answer to be, but I wasn’t sure I could expect it or anything like it.
“I don’t know,” he said again. He wouldn’t look at me. He sat up, drawing his knees against his chest, and rested his chin atop them, gazing out over my room. “I really don’t.”
Not the answer I’d wanted or even expected. I didn’t know what to say, though. Was there even anything to say?
I sat up, opening my arms to him in a silent bid for him to come nearer.
He gazed at me for a moment, expression unreadable, before he moved closer. He pressed his back against me, and I wrapped my arms around him. I buried my face in his hair, and it smelled like my shampoo. He’d been keeping himself clean and fed, and I was suddenly glad he’d had so much freedom when I’d gotten sick. What would’ve happened if he’d been in the basement when I’d fallen ill?
Guilt gnawed at me. What if something had actually happened to me while he’d been locked in his kennel or downstairs? No one would find him, not until it was too late.
No one would find either of us.
I’d been so determined to keep him close that I hadn’t thought about what would happen when he was suspended in my reality instead of his own.
That was when I knew what I had to do.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I pulled him tighter against me. I didn’t want to let him go, but I couldn’t keep him anymore. He wasn’t mine to have. He never had been. I’d taken so much away from him, and it had been selfish.
When had I become someone capable of doing this?
I kissed the top of his head, trembling, and I didn’t know if I could do it.
I didn’t know if I could keep him, not after he’d stayed.
It made no sense. I should’ve been grateful to him — and I was. At the same time, there was so much more.
“What would you do if I set you free?” I whispered into his ear.
He stiffened against me, going utterly still. For several moments, we sat there in silence. Finally, he replied, “I’d leave.”
“Why did you stay?” I asked again, more desperate. “You could’ve just left.”
“I couldn’t leave you like that,” he said, misery dripping from his voice. “It just… isn’t me.”
Once upon a time, it hadn’t been me either.
It would’ve been so much easier if he’d run when I was in the throes of illness, when it was his choice alone. Being a part of the decision threatened to break me, and I didn’t know if I could really do it.
But I had to.
“Thank you.”
He nodded instead of speaking, and I realized I wasn’t the only one shaking. He was too, and his trembling was more violent than mine. I kept him close, not wanting to see his face — not daring to look into his eyes where I might have to see hatred or resentment…
Or worse, resignation.
Maybe I really had broken him.
That was what I’d wanted at first. When had it changed?
“Ryder,” I said softly.
